They’re for more than parking cars, stacking boxes, and holding trash bins. The garage can help sell your home if you stage it right. Most homeowners might think of staging their kitchens and bedrooms, but the garage is a feature that is playing an increasingly important role.

Here are some organizing tips to help you increase the appeal of your home.

Entice buyers with a garage that is organized, kept up and shows off its most important features. Storage is always a premium in homes and if your garage showcases closet organizers, hand shelving, and storage bins that can stash away seldom-used items or tools, buyers will find your garage a must-have item on their home-buying list.

Use walls and ceilings for storage. Consider having one or two loft-type storage areas built into the garage. They drop down from the ceiling a few feet and allow homeowners to store multiple large plastic bins of seasonal decorations and items they rarely use. Having the extra space allows you to get boxes up off the ground, making the room look larger. To add a decorator touch, add curtains around the storage area to hide the boxes and bulky items that are stored up high.

Next, add lighting. It’s relatively inexpensive, but it makes a huge difference in increasing a garage’s appeal. Replacing the single center bulb with a strip of lighting is a fantastic way to spark a buyer’s interest. Garages are often too dark and dreary. Adding an eight-foot fluorescent light strip will light up the room and make your garage shine.

You might also consider coating your floor. A concrete floor in the garage can show off the wrong things, such as those icky, ugly oil stains. If you coat your floor with an epoxy resin-based paint or rubber mats and tiles, then drippings and spills are easy to wipe up. The mats and tiles help to reduce the amount of dirt that gets tracked inside the garage and ultimately into the house. They also can help with insulation and noise reduction. For practical reasons, coating your garage floor is ideal. For staging reasons it simply looks nice and is much more welcoming than a concrete floor.

Make sure your garage door and opener are working quietly. The first automatic garage door openers became commercially used back in the 1950s and if you're is an original, it's time to upgrade! Keep the garage door in the same theme style of the home, color and overall decor. Make sure the door doesn’t squeak when it's opened. Get it checked out by the garage door company that installed it or sometimes all it needs is a good oil job to lubricate it. A noisy garage door opener could indicate to a buyer that it’s on the verge of breaking down.

Next, finish your walls and ceilings. Many garages are not finished, but if you put up wall board you can complete the look of the garage. Finished sells better. Make sure the garage is insulated before you finish it. That can save on your heating and cooling bills.

Finally, add a coat of fresh paint. Yes, painting the garage can add a lot. You don’t have to go wild with color; neutral tones are fine. It’s all about the overall theme of the room. Don’t be afraid to add a little style to your garage, just don’t clutter it with too much decor. When it comes to selling, a garage should be spacious, organized, and a place where buyers can imagine easily storing their own stuff!

Published: September 16, 2011

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Phoebe Chongchua is an award-winning journalist, an author, customer service trainer/speaker, and founder of Setting the Service Standard, a customer service training and consulting program offered by Live Fit Enterprises (LFE) based in San Diego, California. She is the publisher of Live Fit Magazine, an online publication that features information on real estate/finance, physical fitness, travel, and philanthropy. Her company, LFE, specializes in media services including marketing, PR, writing, commercials, corporate videos, customer service training, and keynotes & seminars. Visit her magazine website: www.LiveFitMagazine.com. Phoebe's articles, feature stories, and columns appear in various publications including The Coast News, Del Mar Village Voice, Rancho Santa Fe Review, and Today's Local News in San Diego, as well as numerous Internet sites. She holds a California real estate license. Phoebe worked for KGTV/10News in San Diego as a Newscaster, Reporter and Community Affairs Specialist for more than a decade. Phoebe's writing is also featured in Donald Trump's book: The Best Real Estate Advice I Ever Received and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Buying Foreclosures. She is the author of If the Trash Stinks, TAKE IT OUT! 14 Worriless Principles for Your Success. Contact Phoebe at (858) 259-3646 or . Visit PhoebeChongchua.com for more information.