In today's real estate market more and more home sellers are relying on home staging tips and advice on how to best prepare their homes for selling. So last week, when I was hired to tour a seller's property to give her my 'buyer's eye' advice, a monster of a problem reared its ugly head. The wallpaper in my client's home was so extremely ugly, it inspired me write a blog (with her permission, of course) on how tacky wallpaper can kill the deal for any seller.

Wallpaper is personal

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, but this wallpaper is pretty hideous. While not all wallpaper may be as tacky, outdated and over-the-top designs can present problems for any seller. Fortunately, my clients were motivated and willing to take it down. Much to their benefit, they knew they had to do whatever to present the most competitively appealing property to sell in today's sagging market.

But when it comes to wallpaper, not all sellers are as accepting of staging advice. I have found that the topic of wallpaper usually results in eye rolling, harrumphing, justification or the clients just ignoring the issue all together. So if you're serious about selling your home, you need to look at your property from a buyer's point of view. Keep in mind, regardless of how fantastic you think your home's wallpaper is, it's a HIGHLY personal expression of taste — which means potential buyers may completely hate it. Second, buyers want to buy their dream home ready for today, not yesterday. Wallpaper is trendy and can drastically age a home.

But most importantly, wallpaper signifies deflating dollar figures. When it comes to spending their hard-earned money to buy that dream home, buyers won't think twice about running out the door when they see the 1970s-style mess pasted on your wall.

So you need to know that any and all the resistance you have about removing wallpaper will be the EXACT same resistance a buyer will have about purchasing the home. While removing wallpaper is an arduous task that can be costly, buyers can and will move onto the next home, where there's no monster to battle.

Stage It Forward...Craig Schiller, founder of Real Estaging