You’re right, Bugs, it can’t hurt. But it may not help.

We sold our last house as the market was starting to slide in 1990. And we did our own staging. Traded out bigger furniture for small. Replaced personal effects with generic objects which signified prosperity and a happy home. Laced the air with the smell of fresh baked cookies!

The house showed well, and visitors loved our cookies, but buyers could smell blood in the air — not cookies — that summer. What finally moved the house was our willingness (and ability) to forfeit some of our equity gains and get the hell out.