Top 10 Home-Staging Don'ts

Please Don't:

1. Rationalize that a higher asking price means you will have more wiggle room. You could wind up sitting idle on the market with a house full of wiggle room.

2. Respond to lowball offers with a counter — instead, respond with an invitation to re-submit.

3. Refer to a leaky foundation as a central humidifier.

4. Make your house smell like a cherry orchard or a department store perfume counter.

5. Air your dirty laundry. This includes leaving bills and private papers out, or, of course, actual dirty laundry.

6. Take your prospects on A Complete History of The Kopecki Repairs & Renovations Tour.

7. "Clean up" by stuffing all the closets.

8. Leave unfinished DIY jobs for the buyers' honey-do list.

9. Defer yard work. Your house only gets one chance to make a first impression. Overgrown shrubs and broken gutters are the real estate equivalent of dandruff.

10. Think licks from Rex the Bulldog will help generate more offers.