"I love
my wallpaper!" – This is a comment that I often hear when conducting real
estate home staging consultations. I
also hear, "I don't like my wallpaper, but I'm not going to remove it just
because I'm selling my home”.
The short
and sweet answer to “will potential buyers love your wallpaper” is “NO”!
Removing wallpaper is one of the top items on my list of what home owners need to do before listing
their home for sale.
Wallpaper in
every room, or even one or two rooms, is a huge
negative to potential buyers. Even
buyers who like wallpaper will not like the wallpaper you have chosen! Wallpaper is a personal decorative choice
that buyers want to pick out for themselves.
It doesn't matter to them how much you paid for it, how in style it is,
what top designer recommended it, or even if you saw it used in a room on
HGTV. The potential buyer only sees a
huge project that will make a colossal mess, and, cost a lot of money to remove!
My
recommendation as a Professional Home Stager is to remove your wallpaper and replace
it with a neutral warm paint color.
Don't paint over it, because potential buyers will know you did - and
painting over it makes it more difficult to remove. I highly recommend hiring a professional to remove your wallpaper. Removing wallpaper can be extremely
challenging and by doing it yourself, you can end up damaging walls which, in
turn, will create more headaches and expense for you.
