When it comes to selling a property, you want it to appear its best for potential buyers who walk through the door. Staging your home is a design technique used to showcase your home’s most distinctive features and assist buyers in imagining themselves moving in and living there. In the article below, Summit Way Realty shares our expert tips on home staging and why the process is so important for a quick sale.
Is Home Staging Important?
Selling your home is a significant financial transaction. Because of this, you don’t want to compromise for a lower selling price or a longer marketing time than necessary.
In terms of effort and money invested, staging your home may be one of the most profitable jobs you do. Potential buyers aren’t only seeking a place to live; they’re also looking for a chance to realize their aspirations and improve their quality of life. Staging may also create a more emotional purchase for the buyer, resulting in a higher sale price for the seller.
Property staging is also advantageous since potential buyers do not want to see the work that will be required when they move into the home. As a result, they’ll subtract its cost from their offering price for any flaw they find. But, of course, if they see too many flaws, they may decide not to buy the house at all.
Top Tips on Home Staging
Focus on Areas that Influence Buyers
Not every room in your home needs staging. Instead, you want to concentrate your efforts on the areas with the most potential to influence buyers. The kitchen, master bedroom, and living room are the most critical areas for most buyers. Don’t be concerned about areas with less impact, such as guest bedrooms, children’s bedrooms, and bathrooms.
Depersonalize Your Home
Staging a home is all about helping potential buyers to see a home as their own. The quickest approach to achieve this is to create as large a blank canvas as possible. Of course, you want the property to have beauty and charm, but it should be free of personal touches that indicate it belongs to the seller rather than the buyer.
Begin by removing any personal images. You should remove family photos from all walls, tables, and any that may be hanging on your refrigerator. Ensure that you put away all clothing and remove personal belongings such as hygiene items from bathroom countertops. While it is true that depersonalizing your house might make it seem strange to live in, it can help buyers connect with the property more effectively.
Clear Out the Clutter
Clutter takes up valuable space in your home. Reduce the items in your home to the essentials to make it appear more spacious and attractive. It is best to pack up these items and store them somewhere out of sight. This includes seasonal clothing, paperwork, games, and anything else you don’t use daily. Buyers will open your closets to assess their storage capacity, so take your time eliminating as many random and non-essential items as possible. The less clutter you have, the larger the space will seem to buyers.
Clean Your Home From Top to Bottom
Before listing your property for sale, we recommend a complete top to bottom cleaning of your home. A clean home shows potential buyers that it is well cared for. So if you’ve been putting off jobs like cleaning the refrigerator or dusting window blinds, now is the time to get started.
The cleaning you’ll perform for staging purposes will be comparable to the deep cleaning you’ll do when you move into a new house, so start with those and add on as needed. Hiring professional cleaners like Clean Heart Maids is always an option. With their move-in move-out cleaning services, you will be able to focus on all the other details that go into selling your home and buying a new home.
Repair Minor Flaws
Home staging is a perfect opportunity to address minor flaws like nicks, scratches, holes, and other blemishes that indicate carelessness to buyers. Begin with a melamine foam eraser pad and work your way through the house, cleaning any scuffs off the walls. Look for spots that may benefit from some TLC, and then spackle and caulk as needed. If you discover areas with chipped paint, you may need to make some touch-ups. As with cleaning, the goal is to make your home look nice and show your buyers that it has been well cared for.
Neutral Paint Instead of Bold
This staging strategy takes a little more effort and money, but it can have a significant impact on the sale price of your home as well as the amount of time on the market. Bright colors on the walls allow homeowners to express themselves in their homes, but they may also be a significant turn-off for buyers.
Before listing your home, consider painting your walls neutral colors like gray, white, and taupe. Bold colors may detract from a home, signifying the past and present rather than its future. Of course, buyers may like vibrant colors, but a neutral house allows them to do so – or not.
First Impressions Count
The front entry is the first thing a buyer sees when they come up to your property, so you want it to make a good impression. First, consider power washing the entry to make it like new again. Then, add a simple doormat and possibly a potted plant or two for a sense of homey-ness.
Bring in Fresh Component
While having too many things in a house might reduce its perceived value, having a few healthy, well-placed plants and flowers can give life and freshness to the area. Space them out so they don’t crowd any one spot, but aim to have a few fresh bouquets in crucial areas. For example, consider placing a vase of flowers on your dining room and kitchen tables, small potted plants or succulents in the living room, and maybe a bigger potted plant in the living room’s corner. If you don’t have a green thumb, don’t worry; fake plants will provide the same mood as live plants while requiring less effort.
Another component of freshness is the absence of scents. A thorough cleaning should eliminate any remaining odors, but always empty your garbage can before showings to avoid bad smells.
Allow Light to Shine In
Dark spaces are depressing. Open the blinds on all windows to make the rooms appear larger and brighten them up. Finally, during showings, turn on all of the lights in your home, including lamps and closet lights. A brightly lit home will make your property more appealing to buyers and spare them from having to fumble about finding out which switches turn on which lights.
Furniture Placement is Important
You want the area to be open and simple to navigate so that buyers can envision their furnishings in each room. Place unused furniture in storage to keep it out of the way. Remove furniture that is bulky, broken, or does not complement the rest of the space. Rearrange the remaining furnishings to make the space appear and feel as large as feasible.
Last Tip on Staging Your Home
It is not necessary to spend a lot of money to stage a property for sale; instead, it is more important to make changes that increase the value of your house and entice buyers who view your home. Then, after you’re confident that you’ve done everything necessary to present your house in the best possible light, you can sit back and wait for the ideal buyer to come by.
Our final tip on staging your home is to call in the experts of real estate to help you navigate the selling process. Summit Way Realty is the real estate agency you can trust. Our local listing agents understand high-impact marketing, staging, and so much more. We create effective campaign strategies based on your unique home or property. Contact us today to learn more and get started!
