The Right Way to Stage Your Home
June 6, 2020
Your home is your personal haven. It is your oasis, your slice of bliss, and your signature. While you may think it is perfect and ideal as it is, not everyone may agree. When selling your home, you will have to rethink certain aspects and STAGE your home. The use of the word stage is appropriate because you will have to set it up for your audience. Your agent or realtor will assist you in staging your home. Before you begin, look through our handy tips on the right way to stage your home.
Your home will have to become a blank canvas that the buyer can imagine using. To sell for full value or maximum profit, the buyer must picture him/herself living in your home. Your home should look homely but not personal, and that is a fine line to walk. This is why you need professional help, and our useful ideas on how to stage your home will help to keep the buyer is intrigued.
No Personal Touches
We have been suggesting you get personal and use your perspective as a home-owner while making a sale. But today we are asking you to be IMPERSONAL. It will be extremely challenging for you to remove the items that have a personal touch, but it must be done.
Photo by Bess Hamiti from Pexels
For staging a home, one must get rid of personal effects like family photos on the walls, books, paintings, wall décor, and other interior pieces through the house. It also means stickers on the closet or the themed bed sheets, dog houses or toys, and anything that individualizes you.
The lack of personal items is vital as it allows the buyer to imagine himself in the house without any obstacles.
Imagine you are a buyer. You walk into 2 identical homes. The first is lightly furnished with a few classic pieces and key items to brighten the space. The second has a giant installation in the hallway. Through the house, the same theme carries forward with artistic pieces and paintings in an abstract style. The kitchen is also dotted with frames and art. The master bedroom is equally full of clothes, shoes, photos, and personal effects. The second bedroom is a child’s and has a sports theme to it right from the posters to the colored desk and the bed sheet decorated with athletes. The guest bedroom is an assorted storage room, or so it looks with an old couch, a stained desk, and old posters.
Buyers will feel as if they are intruding on someone’s privacy as they walk through the second home. Between understanding the décor and making sense of the theme, they would be too busy to even visualize the house. There are too many personal effects for anybody to consider the option of buying the house.
You have to depersonalize as much as you can before you sell your home. If it isn’t possible to remove everything, just keep stuff in storage during viewings. Every seller needs to package his product for maximum appeal, your job is to do the same. A bare house may not say much, but it will definitely sell faster than a cluttered home with personal effects.
Brighten It Up
Photo by Polina Zimmerman from Pexels
Realtors give recommendations to sellers about painting their homes before selling or changing the color up if it’s outdated. You should definitely be listening to them. Buyers are very particular about what they buy, and a home with a new, fresh paint job will help them make the decision in your favor.
Having the right colors and aesthetics can also make your rooms stand-out with minimal furniture and decoration. The practical advice is to stick to ‘safe’ colors such as beige, cream, off-white, and so on. Though we believe it has the potential to backfire. Practical colors like those can look dull or washed out if not appropriately maintained. It will also make your house appear basic. Another extreme would be mixing reds with yellows, so before you go crazy, we suggest you find a balance. A subtle pop of color, say an accent wall, or a bright kitchen could bring your entire home together.
Using outdated or out of fashion colors can lower the value for your home. It can be a risk as trends change so often, but if you select a classic theme with variations, you can add value to your home.
Being Clean
We all are familiar with the cleaning we do when we are going to have guests over. Think of a buyer as a guest, a guest whose job is to see how clean your home is. There is no proof that a dirty home may not sell or sell at a low price, but isn’t it seriously uncomfortable to find grime or dust? A clean home emphasizes the beauty of the house and lets the buyer focus on the real issues.
In the current situation of the Covid-19 crisis, we are realizing the value of cleanliness more than ever. Hire a cleaning service before staging your home or do it yourself if you want to save money. Go over every corner and inch of your home, including the linens, carpets, corners, and ceilings. Deep cleaning of the bathroom and kitchen will make it shine and impress the buyer to make a better offer. Dirty, old homes can cause distress and make the buyer change their mind despite a good deal or it actually being a good home.
A big part of cleaning your home also involves decluttering it. Removing personal effects is just the initial step towards staging your home. You may remember us mentioning ‘Curb Appeal’ that indicates a higher selling price. Decluttering is an addition to improving your curb appeal.
Having a decluttered home means no unnecessary knick-knacks, artifacts, or pieces that distract from the actual house. Ask an unbiased visitor to your home, like your agent or a friend and ask their honest perceptions. If they use words such as crowded, messy, unorganized, chaotic, or junk, then your home needs to be rid of clutter.
Clutter also includes the projects that you didn’t complete. That half-way done kitchen project, the cabinet you never got fixed, the bathroom renovation that you gave up on because it stretched too long. Things that need fixing create stress and subtract value from your home. A neat, clean home is a positive sign, and buyers are encouraged by it.
Appraisers, realtors, and agents will usually be the first one to comment on clutter and cleanliness. Take their suggestions without letting them affect you personally. Their job is to help you sell the house, and it is better that they be honest.
A thing that is often forgotten is that buyers will even look at your storage area or garage or that guest bedroom, which rarely got used. Data has proven that nearly 75% of families pack their garage with so much stuff that there is no room for an actual car. Garages are packed with old furniture, belongings, boxes, Christmas décor, and other items that you can’t sell or throw away. Gardening tools, home gadgets, and tools are also usually stored in the garage. Clean and declutter your garage when you decide to stage your home. A buyer will need to see it personally, and it can affect their plans if the garage is too full of stuff to even understand its dimensions and space. You can rent a storage unit for the time being and move your stuff there.
More than aesthetics, clutter is a practical and physical challenge. People who store newspapers or figurines don’t understand the hazards involved. A buyer can’t measure, view, or even visualize the space and area if there are too many things blocking his view.
Checking the Cost
Staged homes sell faster than unstaged homes, as we have known and seen. You must check the costs involved in staging a home before you commit to anything. Is it really worth it? In nearly all cases, it definitely is, provided you don’t spend anything extravagant on staging.
There is a personal element to staging a home. Would you rather keep a totally bare home and take the risk? Or would you stage a home and see where it leads? Staging may not necessarily provide you a higher selling price, but it will help you sell faster than a bare house.
The costs usually involved in staging are the services of a professional, furniture rental, re-decorating, or painting and cleaning services. If you hire a storage unit to store your furniture for the duration of the sale, add that cost to your staging. A staged home is also assumed to be one that the seller is not currently using, so add rent/mortgage payments for the time it is held on sale. A bare or empty home has no additional staging costs and can look bigger because of the space. A buyer could feel it is more open and more interested as it is completely blank and ready to be moved in. This is all a matter of perception and choices.
The bottom line is buyers may not pay more for a staged home, or a staged home may not gain you a higher selling price. It will help you in making a sale faster if that is your goal. You could also stage your home on your own and reduce the professional fees, but it is a risk. The easiest way to stage a home and something we recommend is a repaint job in classic colors with a pleasing palette. Keep a few key pieces, use yours if you want and add some accessories such as a beautiful plant, a bright towel in the bathroom, a welcome mat, etc. to make it homely. Staging a home is all about using your resources in a smart and practical manner.