Selling Your Home? Make Sure You Stage it

Staging your home when you’re trying to sell it is important for a faster, more effective sale. You’re usually able to negotiate a higher price. This is because the buyer is better able to imagine themselves in the home when it’s staged.

Staging Details

Home staging is a form of a commercial for your home. It’s visual merchandising meets interior design. You want to make the owner feel like they could live in this home. You want to turn it into one you see flipping through television channels landing on home improvement shows. Stagings lets you see the best features of the home. It turns strange little places into what they could be. It brings a mood to the entire home. Basically your home is just like one of those in an HGTV show.

Staging Benefits

Staging came on the scene about two decades ago. In the past people bought homes because they looked good and were clean. These days the homes for sale are saturated. It’s important to stand out from the crowd of other homes. This is why so many people hire professionals to stage their homes or do it themselves. The competition to look the best to buyers is high. HGTV shows heighten many buyers’ expectations of what a home should look like when it is on the market. 

Also having a great realtor who is a master negotiator mixed with a professional stager makes demanding top dollar for your property a lot easier. If the potential buyers see a perfect home they are far less likely to feel like they are in a position to push the price down.

Online Benefits of Virtual Staging

Many buyers search the internet for homes before even setting foot in it. They want to know the general look of a home. This is where virtual staging comes in as well. The home needs to show well online. The home needs to be staged in a way that photographs well with clean lines and a commercial look. Some people hire professional stagers to put together digital staging. This is done when a homeowner does not want their home actually staged. It is all done online to lure potential buyers inside the doors.

Maximizing Space

Home staging brings life to every single area of your home. If you have a small home, a professional stager will make it look like a mansion. They can bring tiny spots to life. Each room in staging is given a purpose. Buyers don’t have to stare at spots wondering what they were made to do. It’s also easier for buyers to think about what furniture can go in certain rooms. They know how to make smaller rooms look larger or huge rooms feel fuller with their furniture.

Be Different

There are many track homes or just homes that seem to blend together. Buyers get home after looking at a dozen homes, and they forget which was which home. Staging helps a home stand out. A potential buyer starts online. They see the staged photos of your home. It sticks in their mind. They want to see this exact home. If they don’t like what they see, they won’t come through the doors. Staging helps you be different to entice these potential buyers.

No Clutter

Clutter clutters the mind. The potential buyers get lost in all of the clutter. When selling a home, it’s important there isn’t a lot of junk. This usually turns off a buyer. They want to see clean lines. They want to feel as if it is their home. Even if their home is full of clutter, they want to feel as if they are making a big change. They want to feel as if a clean, clutter-free home is theirs. Sometimes even when doing a staging yourself, you can make your home a cluttered environment. Remember less is more. You don’t even want family photos filling the walls. You want the home to be open and ready for a new owner.

Bright And Light

Potential buyers like to see staged homes that seem light and bright. This makes a home feel better. It’s important to open the blinds to let the light flow in. Sometimes the colors of the room even entice potential buyers. Many people don’t like the feel of dark rooms. They want soft, white light. This is a small, but very important part of staging.

Stage By Importance

It’s best to stage the room in your home by order of importance. Sometimes staging a home means renting furniture. Sometimes it means removing furniture. If you don’t have the money to do all of this, it’s best to just stage important rooms. The living room and master bedroom are usually the most important rooms to stage. The kitchen follows behind these. The extra bedrooms are not usually the most important to potential buyers.

Removing Or Renting Furniture

We touched on removing and/or renting furniture to stage your home. It’s usually best to remove as much of your furniture as possible. It might be tough since you will still need to live in the home. It will look bigger when you don’t have as much furniture. It’s also less appealing with the cluttered look of furniture. If you need to rent furniture to make it look more upscale, you can do so as well. Sometimes the seller is already in a new home so they need to rent furniture to make the old home staged. Either way, removing or renting furniture is an option for many people.

Professional vs. DIY Staging

It takes a lot of time and energy to stage a home. You want to be realistic about what you’re taking on. You are playing with the hearts of potential buyers so you want to tap into their emotions. It can be hard to do it yourself without a designer mind. You don’t want to mix and match design schemes. Sometimes when homeowners do it themselves, they go overboard. It needs to be simple, clean and pull at heartstrings. Some have this type of mind while others just do not. This is when you call in the professionals.

Overall, staging a home is a big part of selling it. Potential buyers need to see themselves in a home instead of feel like they are touring your memories and your home. You’ll be able to sell it faster at a higher price many times when it is staged. Get ready for your next chapter of life faster by staging your home.