Selling For Top Dollar: Make Buyers Fall For Your House Before They Walk In

Most sellers think “top dollar” comes from one big renovation. We’ve learned it usually comes from a handful of high-impact decisions: what buyers see, what they smell, and what they assume they’ll have to fix. We walk through a real-world Colorado Springs home selling game plan that starts with the basics and ends with a listing that feels bright, clean, and easy to say yes to.

We talk staging in a way that’s actually doable while you’re still living in the home. That means cutting clutter, minimizing distractions, and creating a simple visual palette so buyers can imagine their own furniture and routines in the space. Then we get blunt about odor, because odor is one of the fastest ways to lose a buyer. We cover what to do about cigarette smoke, pet smells, pet hair, and why over-fragrancing with candles or sprays can backfire during showings.

From there we get into the best low-cost improvements for ROI: paint, deep cleaning, and small upgrades that make the kitchen and primary suite feel refreshed without spending a fortune. We also explain why professional photography matters in a search-driven market and how curb appeal supports the story your listing photos are trying to tell.

We wrap with a pricing mindset that helps you avoid the overpricing spiral that leads to long days on market and bargain hunters. If you want practical Colorado Springs real estate advice, seller tips, and staging guidance that fits real life, hit play. If you found this helpful, subscribe, share with a friend who’s thinking about selling, and leave us a review.

To learn more about RE/MAX Properties Inc. visit:
https://www.LoriThompson.REMAX.com
RE/MAX Properties Inc. 
Colorado Springs 
719-332-1807 

Transcript

Welcome And What We Cover

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Welcome to your Colorado Springs life at home, where real estate is real talk. Maybe a little too much coffee. Hosted by Remax Properties licensed realtor broker and top producer Lori Thompson, a local legend who's been helping military families and civilians buy himself for over 40 years. Whether you're PCSing, upsizing, downsizing, or just a dream, Lori's got you covered. Why? Because she's your lifetime realtor. And she actually answers her phone. Imagine that.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Simple steps homeowners can take to boost value, attract more buyers, and maximize their sale price. Welcome back everyone. Frederick here, co-host and producer in the studio with Remax Properties licensed realtor and broker, Lori Thompson. Lori, how are things looking today? Oh, they're wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful. Always great to sit down with you.

Prep While You Still Live There

SPEAKER_01 1:08

So, Lori, can you tell us what you would recommend if I wanted to prepare my home to sell for top dollar? How can I do that?

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Well, I'm going to cover two different examples. The first example I'm going to give you is are you still living in the home? Let's just assume you're still living there. And then later I will cover what if you've already moved out. So, first I'm going to start with a confession, okay? This is not my home. I chose a virtual background. And the reason I did is I know my strengths and my weaknesses. So it's not unusual for me to have shelves behind me. They might have files or stacks or something else that wouldn't give as pleasing of a background as this one. I do not play the piano. Just to be clear, I did play guitar when I was younger, and I have a brother who's a drummer. Um, come to think of it, I think I do have a couple of pianists in the family, but I do not have a baby grand, nor do I have that great moss, rock, stone fireplace that's stacked. Because staging is very, very important. I know my strengths and my weaknesses. And the most important thing you can do, first off, is remove clutter. Remove your day-to-day stacks of paper, a newspaper you haven't read yet. You need to help people to mentally move into their home. So I want somebody to walk through my home and envision what their furniture or their artwork would look like in my home. Well, the only way I can do that is by removing distractions. Now, some people make it so sterile, they don't think they can have any family portraits. And you want to minimize those, most definitely, but it's like giving them a palette for them to mentally put their belongings in there. So you want to minimize distraction. Now, because that is not a gift I personally have, I hire home stagers. I have homegers that will work with my clients to help them prepare their home. So the most important thing is get rid of the clutter and the distractions. Number two, if they can smell it, we can't sell it. That is tried and true time and time again. So you look for any sources of odors. Um, the hardest one to overcome and the one that will cost you the most and the sale of your home is cigarette smoke. With cigarette smoke, it is so invasive that you need to consider repainting the home with kills, which is a sealant, and then putting fresh paint on top of that, having the carpets deodorized. It really makes a huge difference, and it will cost you so much money if you have a smoke odor in your house. Number two for odors are pets. I am a huge animal lover. I have rescued so many little critters that became my friends. I want to have another dog soon because I've gone a bit now without a dog, and I really miss having a dog. But I do have a couple of cats. So I clean the cat box every day. I make sure there's no odors. You want to clean up fur. Nothing worse than saying, hey, take off your shoes to tour this home and their black socks get all fuzzy with your pet's fur. So you want to make sure that you have it odor-free and that you have cleaned up any residual pet fur. Do not over-fragrance your home. There are people who are very sensitive to odors, and you don't want to smell like a bordella or a floral shop. You want to have light, clean, crisp odors in your home. Be careful about burning candles and leaving them unattended. They can, the little holder can break. So keep in mind, less is more. Have good fragrances, not bad. Reduce the clutter. The other thing they can do to help sell for top dollar is let's look at paint. Paint is one of the best investments you can make when you're selling your home. Look at your baseboards, look at your doors. Unless it's stained wood, is it time for a touch-up? Look for colors that can impact different people. There are some people who, when it comes to their home, they'll put up some very interesting colors. I had a client who was a Vikings fan, and their master bedroom was a deep Viking purple. And most people do not want a deep purple bedroom unless their name is Prince. So what you have to look at is will this color appeal to the most amount of people? And that's where a home stager once again is invaluable, saying, okay, this is a color we should take care of. And so the goal is to remove objections. And the reason why is once you get your house ready for sale, you've removed your orange and blue Bronco wall, or you know, I'm sure there could be a Raiders fan somewhere in Colorado, in which case they would do black and silver. Well, at that point, you might want to look at a nice neutral color that will appeal to the most amount of people. So now we have our house ready to go. It's staged, we've removed the clutter, it smells good, we've repainted anything that could be objectional. We've stood outside of our house, we've looked at the curb appeal, we've cleaned up the pine needles, whatever we have done, then you want high-quality professional photography. Most people will look at photos online, and a lot of it is to rule houses out. And the other one is to choose their favorites. So you don't want an overly glamorized viewpoint of it. You want a realistic photo, but you want it to be bright and light and taken by a professional. So that's when you're ready, set, go. And how you can tell you have reached the point that your house is ready to go on the market is if you look around and you say, I should have done this sooner, or why am I selling this? If you have those feelings, you're ready to go. That's the moment where your house is looking like it could. Now, there are some people who just live like that, they just keep their house spotless, it is ready to go. I have one dear friend, I'll be listing his home soon, and I think every blade of grass in his front yard stands at attention. He has incredible landscaping. He and his wife have just done a beautiful job maintaining that house, and that one is just a joy to walk through. Then you have other people who need a little bit of help. So that's the scenario if you're living in the home.

Vacant Homes Staging And Smart Pricing

SPEAKER_00 8:02

The second scenario is if it's vacant. Now, when I have a vacant home, I choose most of the time to stage some of the primary areas. I will stage the kitchen, the living room, um, the master bedroom, just those primary areas, just to give people kind of a good feel. Anyway, um with the vacant home just to stage the primary areas. Now I have to tell you something that a lot of people have this mindset that if I want this amount, I have to ask this amount. And they overpriced their home. And that is not the best way to get top dollar. The best way to get top dollar is to ask a fair price and then to have your house shine. Because a lot of what I see right now is I see like then they end up in the spiral of price reduction. And then pretty soon their average days on the market just keeps going up and up and up. And then the average buyer goes, hmm, this one's been on the market 93 days. Let's go in low. And so it can actually backfire if you overprice your house with the goal of negotiating. There'll always be some negotiation, but the key is, is if you start at a fair market value and you have properly prepared your home for sale, chances are you're going to get a really fair offer in a shorter amount of time. Now, personally, I don't want to have my home on the market, keep it up. I don't want lots of people coming through my home day after day after day. Um, so I always try to get my house ready for sale, and then I like to price it slightly under the value, just a little bit, because I want to get it done. When I put my house up for sale, I'm ready to move. So those are just a few ideas on how to really look at how does my house look? How does my house smell? What could I do to improve it? If you're like me and you need expert help, I get expert help because I'm not good at staging homes.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Lori, thank you for that very thorough and clear explanation on the important things um that homeowners can do to secure top dollar uh for their sale, including staging. And of course, you touched on some curb appeal uh aspects as well, like the blades of grass standing at full attention. And of course, you did also bring in a Prince reference, so I had to thank you so much for that. Uh artist

Low Cost Upgrades With Big Return

SPEAKER_01 10:34

formerly known as Prince. So, Lori, could you also share with us? Are there any inexpensive upgrades that tend to give sellers a strong return on investment? I emphasize inexpensive because everyone likes, you know, that word, and then they want to spend small money to get big returns. Do you have any tips on that?

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Yeah, the best investments you could make are paint and cleaning, having a maid service come through. Um, but if you have to focus on rooms, you want to first focus on the kitchen. That is the heart of the home. So I would look at your countertops. Um, you don't have to necessarily change out the granite, the quartz, or add it if you don't have it. There are less expensive ways, like there is an epoxy coating. Um, if you have avocado green countertops or harvest gold, there is a wonderful epoxy coating, and there's two different local companies that can give it an amazing appearance. And so once again, we get back into colors that were really in vogue when Elvis was alive, like red shag carpeting. That get rid of it. But if you have the odd colored countertop, you can look into an epoxy coating application that will really brighten your kitchen. The other area to look at is definitely the master bedroom, the primary bedroom. You want to make that beautiful. You can actually go out and buy a beautiful new comforter and some decorative pillows and just brighten up your master bedroom, give it a couple of little touches. Sometimes people like to put a little uh bamboo tray with a cup of coffee, you know, just sitting there like someone's bringing you breakfast in bed. Uh, look at the master bathroom, really open that up. And then, of course, your family room, your great room, whatever your main room is. If you are going to stack all of that extra stuff somewhere, put it in the garage. People are not surprised if they see a garage packed with a lot of totes and boxes, or get a small storage unit.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you so much for such for sharing such valuable tips so that sellers, uh, those who are listening who want to get the most out of their home sale can get the most out of it and sell their home for top dollar. And thank you so much for uh sharing all your valuable tips and insights on that. We do appreciate you. And for everyone watching at home, we appreciate you as well. Thank you for joining the journey. And stay tuned for more exciting tips from Lori coming up next.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

Thanks, Frederick.

Final Takeaways And How To Reach Lori

SPEAKER_02 13:21

That's a wrap for this episode of Your Colorado Springs Life and Home. Got questions? Need advice? Just want to talk about interest rates and granted countertops? Call or text Lori at 719-332-1807. Yes, she'll really respond. Or visit Laurie Thompson.remax.com to get started with your lifetime realtor. Because when it comes to Colorado real estate, Laurie doesn't just know the market, she is the market.