Does Staging Help To Sell Your Home?
Staging a home is something you do when you have actually moved out of the home you are selling and don’t want to leave the home looking bare and abandoned.
In many cases this can actually be a positive aspect of selling your home, simply because when a home is staged and completely de-cluttered, you have the ability to accent the positives of it. The main question is, can you really afford staging your home with a professional or you can you do it yourself? The answer is a definitely “yes” and it can be done with a limited resources. First of all, talk to your REALTOR® about staging. Many experienced REALTORS® can guide you through the process and give you valuable tips in staging your home so it will look great without spending a lot of money.
Tips For Do It Yourself Staging
Here are a few tips to keep in mind when you are staging your home. Some REALTORS® even have “go-to” places where you can get a number of nice looking pieces to place in your home without braking the bank. At the very least they’ll have answers as to what rooms to stage and how much staging they feel is needed.
You don’t have to “Stage” every room in the house. People will recognize that you’re not living there from obvious signs and sometimes going overboard in staging to make the house look lived in will only clutter the house up. Instead, choose the main rooms that you want to draw attention to.
Most people will stage a living room, master bedroom and sometimes the other bedrooms with minimal amounts of furniture. Staging kitchens could be relatively easy – just put a bowl of colorful fake fruit on the counter or a nice vase of flowers (fresh take more effort but are excellent for an Open House).
- #1. When staging, use minimal amounts of furniture. This not only keeps the house from looking cluttered and full, but gives the room a feeling of being larger than it actually is. Look around your own home to see what pieces of furniture you could live without until the home sells. Leaving a few matching pieces in the house is a slight inconvenience to pay in order to bring out the best of the home you’re selling.
- #2. If you have a spare bedroom for guests, perhaps you could leave that furniture in the home you’re selling. Be careful not to leave grungy, over-loved and used furniture that can leave the house feeling abandoned more than inviting. The cleaner and fresher the home looks, the more likely it will peak interests of the potential buyers.
- #3. Ask relatives, especially those who may have a “family room” or formal living room if you could borrow some of their extra furniture or a few pieces out of their rooms to create a staged room. You may find that your grandmother has some matching lamps and a couch sitting in the basement that look pristine and could work and look just fine.
- #4. Don’t be afraid to rent furniture for a few weeks or a month. Renting a room of furniture could actually cost around $100 or slightly more for an entire month and they not only deliver the furniture there for you, but pick it up when you’re done. I would suggest, don’t explain that you’re “renting” just for the month or a few weeks or months as they’re probably hoping you’re renting to own. This is a wonderful way to perfectly match a room and keep it from looking pieced together, especially for an Open House. Talk with your REALTOR® and decide on two weeks out of a month that you will have an open house that fall within the month of your “rental” of the furniture. The investment of a few hundred dollars in staging your living room and bedroom may be well worth the end result. Your home might be sold faster and for more money.
- #5. Don’t forget to accent the positive aspects of your home. If you have a beautiful breakfast nook with an amazing view, don’t worry about staging the kitchen as much with furniture as placing a small table and chairs with some flowers in the breakfast nook. This will keep the potential buyers in the room a little longer, noticing the stunning view and picturing themselves spending a quiet Sunday morning enjoying it having their coffee. If you have a beautiful fireplace, decorate the mantle to accent it. Depending upon the layout of the room it is in, you may even choose to place two armchairs and a table with a bottle of wine and two glasses in front, to truly draw the eyes of the buyer right to the spot.
One of the most important parts of staging is making sure you have some type of window dressings on the windows. They don’t have to be elaborate or stunning; keep in mind that the window dressings you put up will help to keep the home feeling cozy while leaving the room itself as the center of attention. There is an abundance of stores where you can usually find inexpensive window dressings to make the rooms feel cozy and keep it from feeling like an open and deserted house.
Final Thought on Staging Your Home
If you are going to stage your home you have to decide to either do it right or not at all. A poorly staged home looks as though someone has pieced together some parts of a room to claim squatter’s rights; while a properly staged room can create an instant magazine looking image that gives the potential buyers the feeling of a possibility of owning something out of the pages of an interior design magazine.
Whether you are looking to do staging yourself or maybe entertaining a thought of hiring a professional staging company, please do not hesitate to contact me, I am here to help you sell your home for as much money as possible in the shortest period of time and to present it as the best home on the market.