By Jeanette Joy Fisher

If you're selling a vacant investment house, you need to "smell to sell." Does the house smell musty because its closed up? If so, you might not want to lose all the cool air by opening the windows. Here are some tips to clean up the air and entice your buyers' sense of smell.

Although home shoppers concentrate on what they see when they enter your house, their powerful sense of smell influences their feelings about the home. This phenomenon happens because the human sense of smell, the strongest sense, stays in memory a long time.

Because some people have allergic reactions to artificial spray, I recommend the use of natural essential oils to make your home smell as good as it looks. Also, essential oils clean up the air and don't just mask odors.

You can use a diffuser to distribute the fragrance throughout your home or you can add varying scents to individual spaces to entice home buyers. Adding specific scents to each area bolsters the feelings you want to stimulate with your home staging vignettes.

Essential Oils

Instead of an artificial air freshener spray, add a few drops of essential oil to water in a spray bottle for general use around your home. Spray into the air, on carpets and curtains. Avoid spraying directly onto wood and delicate fabrics like velvet and silk.

Entry - Use a few drops of welcoming scents. Play on the time of year; use cooling scents like tropical jasmine in summer.

Living Room - Add a few drops of eucalyptus, lavender, tea tree, rosemary, or lime to a cool light bulb. Turn the light on just before showing and the oil will fill the air with a gentle, subtle fragrance.

Kitchen - Add 6-8 drops of sweet orange, lemon, or cinnamon spice oil to boiling water. You can also grind orange, grapefruit, and/or lemon rinds in your garbage disposal. Wash surfaces with Thieves oil spray for a clean scent and get the added disinfectant benefit. Use Lime oil to boost a cooling feeling in summer.

Hallways - Place cotton balls fragrance with lavender, thyme, or cypress in linen closets.

Main Bedroom - Copy TV advertisers and use sex to sell your main bedroom. Ylang ylang, frankincense, jasmine, and ginger promise romance to hopeful home buyers who are looking for not only a new home but a new lifestyle.

Bathrooms - Pine mixed with sage makes a clean smell that doesn't smell like gas-station restroom alcohol cleaning solutions. Children love peppermint scents so, if your target buyers have children, don't forget to tempt their senses. Many children help their parents choose houses!

If you won't be able to go set up your investment house for each showing, fill a decanter with oil and leave the top off. You can also leave a diffuser set up for hours.

For more information about essential oils and to order a diffuser with oils formulated specifically for your target buyer, contact Katie at 951-678-8780.

More home selling advice to make your home smell great: Smell to Sell: Home Staging Tips 

Copyright © 2006 Jeanette J. Fisher