If you moved before selling your home, you might be left with a vacant house costing you double mortgage payments. Here are some home staging tips to help you.

Home staging has proven to sell houses in less time and for more money.

According to a report by the Christian Science Monitor, March 2006, staged homes sell for 7.4 percent more and twice as fast. Many home staging services will furnish your vacant house with their furniture and charge you a monthly fee, with prices ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 per month.

These high fees may be worth the investment. However, if you don't have the extra cash, there are simple was to get the staged home advantage without spending a lot of money.

New marketing and interior design psychology ideas help you stage homes for sale to motivate buyers and generate top-dollar offers. Instead of leaving investment houses vacant, add a few props to increase your profits.

To gather interior design ideas, visit nearby model homes and take a close look at the way the interior designers dressed the homes to sell. Notice how the designers under-furnished the model homes by using just enough accessories to make a superb marketing presentation, without over doing it to make the rooms seem crowded or small.

You don't need to add as much furniture to your vacant home to encourage buyers to visualize their own furniture in the home. That's the key to your selling strategy--to make your home FEEL like the buyer's dream home.

Use a few props to dress up your vacant house. This helps you sell quickly for more money in many ways:

• Props chosen with your target buyer in mind help reinforce the desired emotions.
• Props add perspective with visual depth -- vacant rooms look flat.
• Props, especially fabric cover round tables, soften the hollow, echo sound.
• Props help to keep property in the mind of buyers who view many houses in a row.
• Props create focal points for buyers to imagine their own furnishings in the home and get them thinking about living in the space.

Copyright 2006 Jeanette J. Fisher

Jeanette Joy Fisher

Jeanette Fisher, author of over ten books, including university textbooks and encyclopedia articles on color psychology, has researched the effects of the environment on emotions for over 15 years. Jeanette has appeared on internationally syndicated radio and television and teaches Design Psychology and real estate investing.

She offers free information on interior design, real estate investing, and mortgage credit help from her websites. Jeanette Fisher's books, available from her websites and from Amazon, help real estate investors, home sellers, and home makers. To find out the four steps for beginning real estate investors, five ways to use interior design for home staging, or how to makeover your home for joy, visit Jeanette Fisher.com. And while there, don't forget to subscribe to her free newsletters.

Jeanette has so many websites because her name can be spelled so many ways.