Valentines Day is usually spent taking a romantic vacation with your significant other or spending tons of money creating the perfect day.  Like many you can end up spending hundreds of dollars for one day.  If you are like many couples currently experiencing the difficulties of the recession and trying to sell a home, you just can not afford to do both this year.  If this is your situation, I have the PERFECT solution: spend Valentines Day staging your home.  One of the great things about staging your home is that it can be done with little or no money. No matter what your budget is, even if it is zero, you can use staging techniques to increase the appeal of your home.

When it comes to selling your home you want it to really appeal to buyers in a positive way. You want buyers to love your home, to look around and go, “Ooh, look at that,” or “Wow, that’s beautiful.” Your home should have some pizzazz, some sizzle. In other words you want to trick your home out and give it some bling!

Here are my tips for home staging:

1. Get Rid of the Clutter

One of the most important things to do when it comes to making the inside of your home look desirable is to get rid of the clutter. After living in our home for a while we tend to accumulate stuff. I have heard professional home stagers recommend that the average home owner clear about 1/3 of their possessions out of the house before putting it on the market. Definitely remove any collections of dolls, spoons, Star Wars figures, or any other dust catchers.

2. Window Treatments

It’s a good idea to have window treatments on every window in the house, if they make sense. A combination of blinds with curtains is best. But here’s the catch, you also want to let lots of light into the house. So the blinds should be raised and the curtains fully open. This creates a nice framing effect on each window.

3. Lighting

In addition to letting in natural light you want to add plenty of artificial light. The trick that home stagers use is to layer the lighting. They use a blend of light from ceiling fixtures, lamps, wall lights and task lights. You want to make rooms bright, without being too bright and not have any single light source overly stand out.

4. Doorknobs, Switch Plates and Outlet Covers, Oh My!

If you are going to go to all of the trouble to make the walls and doors look great, you should finish the job by replacing all light switch plates and outlet covers with new ones. I also recommend replacing all of the doorknobs if they look at all worn, because it’s so inexpensive to do it. The reason this is a pet peeve of mine is that freshly painted walls with painted over switches and outlets looks like a cover up job to me. Replacing all of the switch plates and outlet covers in your home should cost you about $30.

5. Arranging the Furniture

If you’ve ever seen a professional home stager in action they seem to have this great ability to take the existing furnishings you have and rearrange them, sometimes into different rooms and make your home look completely different--and so much better. Because the furnishings you have and the layout of the rooms in your home will be completely different for each person there aren’t a lot of general tips I can give you for arranging your furniture. Look in home magazines. It doesn’t cost anything to go to the bookstore and look at them. They are full of photos that can give you great ideas. HGTV in particular has really come to realize that the housing market has gone soft and they have multiple shows now exclusively focusing on home staging. These stagers share tons of useful tips and tricks for making your home look great. What I don’t recommend doing is going out and buying whole new furniture sets for key rooms in your home just for staging.

There are a few commonsense tips I can offer that apply, no matter what furnishings you have and how the layout of a room is.

1. Don’t leave large dead spaces.
2. Clearing the clutter applies to too much furniture as well.
3. Don’t have everything pushed up against the walls.

6. Master Bedroom

The master bedroom is the ultimate refuge. It is the haven within the home. No matter how large or small your master bedroom is, you want it to appeal to the buyers as a place they WANT to spend their nights. If your master bedroom is cramped, it’s time to move some of the furniture out. Also, closets are a big selling point for houses. Clear out your closets out. If your master bedroom closet is jam–packed, buyers will look at it and decide there just isn’t enough room, even if your closets are huge.

7. Bathrooms

Your bathrooms should be so clean you can eat off the floor (but no need to test it this way!). There shouldn’t be any mildew, soap scum, toilet rings, body hair or anything else that makes the buyers think they are buying your dirt. Make sure the mirrors sparkle.

8. Kitchen

“Kitchens and baths sell homes.” Pretty much any real estate agent in the country will agree with this. Making your kitchen look the absolute best it can is well worth it when you are trying to sell your home. The beautiful thing about staging your kitchen is that you really don’t have to spend any money to do it.

These tips will help to save you money while trying to sell your home and allow you to still spend time with your loved one on Valentines Day. A Well-staged home that is competitively priced consistently outsells non-staged homes, even the fixer uppers. By the way don’t forget the flowers! If you would like more tips for do-it-yourself home staging techniques check out my book Rent-to-Sell by clicking HERE.

WENDY'S VALENTINES DAY SPECIAL OFFER: Purchase Rent-to-Sell before February 14, 2010 for ONLY $9.95.

Enter Coupon Code: VALENTINE to purchase Rent-to-Sell Today! Share this article and coupon code with  your friends and they will thank you later.

Take a look at this video where I go into some details about Rent-to-Sell and what it can offer you -

Remember, this book is now available and you can purchase your own autographed copy of Rent-to-Sell.

Cover picture of Rent-to-Sell, a step by step guide to selling your home as a rent-to-own

Not only can you still get paid, you can actually get paid more!  I'll get into that in just a minute. But first, let's look at how you get paid. When the seller and buyer agree to a lease option or rent-to-own the buyer will pay an option fee. This reserves the right for the buyer to purchase the home at a later date for an agreed upon price. The option fee is paid to the seller, however, when you represent a buyer or seller in a lease option or rent-to-own transaction you would have them sign additional addendums for the lease option, part of which states you will be paid part of your commission upfront out of the option fee.  I typically get 1 to 2% of the sales price upfront, split between the buyer and seller agents.  The remainder of the commission is paid when the buyer purchases the home at the end of the option period. This creates revenue for you in the beginning as well as at the end.

While this isn't as ideal as receiving all of your commission upfront the way you would in a conventional sale it's a whole lot better than:
1. Turning away a potential buyer that can't qualify for a mortgage;
2. Having your seller just rent their home out because they can't sell it;
3. Losing a listing because the seller blames you for their home not selling.

Those are all scenarios we as Realtors deal with regularly, particularly in down markets. Think about how much more you would make if you turned all of those into lease option or rent-to-own sales instead of turned away buyers and lost listings?

Additionally, as a listing agent you are providing a premium level of service for your sellers.  Very few agents know how to do this and this will put you head and shoulders above the pack.  It is not unreasonable, therefore, to ask for additional commission as part of this premium service offering.  If you would normally list for 6% commission, when you agree to list the home as a lease option you may want to ask the sellers for 7% commission if it sells as a lease option.

Getting paid extra sure is nice when you would otherwise have lost the listing.

If you want to stay in this business this is the time to get creative. Ask yourself—do you want to be in the business for 5 months or 5 years? Conventional methods are nice when they work, but you need alternative "tools" too.  Adapt to the demands of the market and you'll not only survive, you'll thrive.

What is a Lease Option or Rent-to-Own?
Lease options, also known as rent-to-owns, lease with option to buy, or rent with option to buy, are a way to buy and sell homes without an immediate conventional mortgage.  It gives home buyers who can't qualify for a mortgage right now the opportunity to get into a home right away while they improve their credit and build up a down payment while living in the home.  It gives home sellers the ability to beat their competition, which we know in these kinds of markets competition is great.  Sellers can reach a far greater pool of potential buyers.  They will likely be able to sell their home quicker and for a better price. For some sellers it may be the ONLY way they can sell their home in this real estate market.

How Does a Lease Option or Rent-to-Own Work?
A lease option works like this:  The buyer and seller agree to an option which gives the buyer the right to purchase the home during a set period of time. During this option period the buyer leases the home from the seller.  By the end of the option the buyer must either purchase the home or forfeit their option fee.  While the option is valid the seller may not sell their home to anyone else.

Advantages for the Seller
Here are some of the advantages home sellers when selling on a lease option:

1. Allows them to beat their competition. (Real esate agents, ask yourself how many listings have you lost because the home sat on the market and never sold?)
2. The seller can collect rent on their home while it would otherwise sit vacant.
3. They can often receive a higher purchase price.
4. They can sell their home in a down market when they otherwise might not have been able to sell at all.
Allows the seller to actually sell their home instead of just renting it.  (Real estate agents, have you lost any full commissions because the home was just rented instead of sold?)

Advantages for the Buyer
Here are some of the advantages to your buyers when buying on a lease option:

1. The buyer can get into a home now, even if they can't currently qualify for a mortgage.  (Real estate agents, how many potential buyers have you turned away because they couldn't qualify for a mortgage?  No longer!)
2. They can improve their credit and build up a down payment while they are already living in their future home.

3. They are not obligated to purchase the home at the end of the option if they decide the home is not for them, that homeownership is not for them or if the real estate market changes significantly.

Wendy Patton is one of the nation's leading experts in lease option or rent-to-own real estate. She has trained thousands of real estate agents, real estate investors, home sellers and home buyers in doing lease options or rent-to-owns.

My forum is also a great place to learn more tips and tricks about lease options or rent-to-owns.

Anything from paying road or sewer assessments, to making payments through an escrow account, to having the tenant pump a septic system once a year. They are all important for protecting you and protecting your profits when it comes time to close. That’s why using the right contracts is so important.

Some things you have to learn on your own, but in this case it’s a good idea to make use of those extra “lesson learned” clauses so you don’t have to repeat those experiences. Trust me, you aren’t missing much.

You want good lease option or rent-to-own contracts, full of the “lessons I’ve learned” clauses. They are available on my website for home sellers, home buyers and investors.

Now is definitely the time to do lease options or rent-to-owns. Visit my website to get started with your lease option training or rent-to-own training.

• Craigslist.org is one of my favorites.  It’s popularity has really grown
• Word of mouth
• Giving flyers to human resources departments of nearby companies
• Bulletin board postings at nearby grocery stores, credit unions, Laundromats, etc.
• Referrals from Realtors™ or tenants

These are just a few forms of free advertising.  Get creative and come up with some of your own.

For more information on finding tenant buyers see chapter 12 of my book “Investing in Real Estate with Lease Options and Subject-To Deals.”