Tag: Staging

The Case For Having Your Home Staged to Sell

Home buyers put a lot of effort and intention into finding the perfect home for their families. When they walk in the front door, it should feel like home to them. They need to feel that personal connection and envision themselves in each room. A home stager can help you put your home together by creating the atmosphere you need to appeal to buyers as they walk through your home. The buyer will have the feeling of being at home and never consciously know exactly why!

The person staging your home will have to be honest, and it can be hard on you as a seller. You have loved your home and can’t see exactly what an outsider can see in your home. It will be best to let the personality of the house be showcased and not your family’s personality. All the trinkets you have collected over the years and out on display will probably have to be packed and put into storage. Rearranging furniture to balance and maximize a sense of space in a room is yet another key to the process. For instance, too big of a couch could dwarf a room. It can be important to get rid of unnecessary furniture and might take a professional to guide you in the right direction.

Each room should feel fresh and inviting and often simply (and cheaply) painting pleasing colors on the walls can make a lasting impression on a buyer. Neutrals are the safest way to go. Even if a buyer isn’t smitten with your neutral choice they won’t feel like they would have to run out and paint over it right away as they might with a pink or a red. Don’t be offended if the person you have hired to stage your home wants to change the color of your favorite room. The goal is to sell your home as fast as possible, so do your best to remove any emotional attachment.

All homes have selling points such as unique architectural elements you may take for granted or a fabulous view that is hidden by window treatments. These should be showcased, highlighted, and staged to stand out. There are ways to enhance each room and it is best to have a critical eye to make sure that each detail shows its defined purpose.

The Bottom Line:  Obviously if you are trying to sell your home it goes without saying that you want to sell it as quickly as possible and get the asking price. It will make all the difference in the world to hire a professional home stager or to vet a trusted realtor who has the knowledge and experience to maximize your home’s potential.

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How To Stage Your Home for Sale

A well-staged home can make people feel comfortable and at home, which is likely to increase the sale price.

Staging your home well allows buyers to see themselves in that space, which can help them become attached to it. This makes it harder to walk away without feeling a loss. The more attached to the space they feel, the more likely they are to make an offer.

Clean and Open Up the Space

Before showing off your space, take time to clean and declutter. This includes putting away unnecessary furniture, throw blankets and pillows. If you have too much stuff, put some of it in storage. Make the space minimal, and then add a few touches to make it feel like someone’s home. The space should look livable, but not lived-in.

Don’t Make It Too Personal

When inviting people into your home, it can be tempting to show off your style. This is your space, and chances are you have worked hard to make it comfortable and appealing to you and your friends and loved ones.

Remember, you want to appeal to as many buyers as possible. More interest from buyers means more bidding, and that usually means a higher sale price.

If you want to appeal to more potential buyers, it’s better to play it safe with décor. Consider putting away personal and unnecessary knick-knacks. Think clean lines and safe colors. If you decorate with books or art, try to keep the selections relatively neutral.

Consider Hiring a Professional

While staging on your own can keep costs down in the short term, hiring a professional may be worth the cost when the home sells. We tend to become attached to our spaces and design choices. An outside party who has worked with a wide variety of audiences as a professional will have an eye trained for mass appeal. Hiring a designer may even pay for itself if it increases the sale price.

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Stage to Sell Your Home Fast

Prospective home buyers never like walking into an empty house where they can’t imagine themselves living. There should always be furniture and accessories to make the house, feel like a home. Hiring a professional Stager can help lessen the time a home is on the market as well as boost the offered price. A good stager will create an environment that will help the buyer feel the “at home” feeling and never even consciously know exactly why! Your Realtor should have access to a good photographer once your home is staged. During this pandemic, many people are shopping online for everything, including homes. Show off your newly staged home by having many pictures.

It’s always hard on the sellers. They have loved their home and don’t see what a “stranger” can see in their home. Buyers like everything “spelled out” for them and may not be able to see that the dining room is really a family room. Or windows with different treatments may make the room look brighter and bigger. Rearranging furniture to balance and maximize a sense of space in rooms is key to the staging process. Too big a cozy couch that the seller loves could possibly dwarf the room it’s in. Sellers don’t often see that boxing up knick-knacks and family pictures can actually add more value to a room.

Many sellers are told to paint walls in classic ivory and beige color scheme. That’s fine, but putting a twist on that to stand out from other homes on the market is a great idea. This way, at the end of the day, after a buyer has looked at many homes, they can easily call it to mind. The overall goal is to make each room feel fresh and inviting and easy for buyers to envision themselves and their belongings in. Grey, a very light blue, pale serene turquoise, charcoal, yellow – all accented with white are always pleasing. A skilled Stager will put a seller on the right path.

The Bottom Line: The seller’s goal is to have the house that potential buyers remember. The home that makes they can feel and see themselves living in. Open all the doors. Get rid of old window treatments. Rip up carpeting. Take down and box family photos. Fake plants, fake food, and blow-up mattresses are a turn-off.  Buyers open closets and cabinets! Remember to make sure they are organized and clean.

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Get Your House on The Market by May, 2019

  • Shop for the best Realtor your area. Ask people that you trust and who have bought or sold a home who they used and how the entire transaction went. Would they use that Realtor again? Look in the local paper and online and see who is hustling up to your standards. Are they using social media? Beautiful pictures? Drone footage? Google the Realtors you like. Be sure they use professional photos. The internet is the first place people go to look for the perfect dream home.
  • Shoot for a day in May to put your house on the market and work backward from that date. Let your Realtor know that the date is when you will be ready for showings.
  • Have your most honest friends over and ask for opinions. We can’t see what’s right in front of us most of the time. We overlook imperfections, but future buyers won’t.
  • De-personalize your house. Start packing photos, awards, and any extra clutter on walls or tables. Do you have pillows, throws, and rugs that are busy? Pack them up. The more neutral your home is, the calmer it will feel to future buyers, and much easier on their eyes.
  • Stage. While your friends are visiting, ask them what they think. Sometimes rearranging furniture will make the biggest difference in opening up a room. Make sure fresh white towels are in the bathrooms, fresh soap on the sink, add a plant and style the shelves and surfaces with interesting, neutral items only.
  • Focus on your curb appeal. A big key to selling your home. The first thing potential buyers see when they pull up. Rent a power washer and get rid of all the past season dirt. Fix trim, clean windows, replace doorknobs as needed. Repaint the front door if it looks weathered. Weed the gardens and plant hardy flowers. Cut back trees and shrubs – make sure they accent your home, not hide it. Your lawn should be beautiful.

To have your home ready to go and on the market as fast as possible, you need to be smart about where you invest your time and resources. Buyers judge homes within 30 seconds, and that is outside the home. The key is to get them in the front door.

Your Realtor should make your home’s listing available to all MLS members within 24 hours of signing the listing agreement. All the marketing online, in the mail and email should be ready to go. The best chance of selling your home is when it is new to the market so make sure you have a Realtor that prices your house properly.

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Get Your Home Ready to Sell in the Spring Market

Spring is right around the corner and while we are in the cold, gray days of February, now is a perfect time to get your home ready to put on the market to sell during the Spring market!

Start purging and packing. Go through your closets, attic, garage, basement, junk drawers and decide what you can throw out and what you want to save but don’t need and can box up. Reducing the amount of clutter will help potential buyers visualize how they might use the different areas. Plus, the less you have in a closet – the bigger it will seem.

Make improvements especially in the kitchen and bathrooms. It doesn’t need to be expensive. For instance, how do your kitchen cabinets look? Are they chipped or are the knobs falling off? Replace or repaint them, tighten the knobs or replace the hardware completely. Regrout tile where needed, caulk the shower and tub, replace switch plates and doorknobs- all this will give the bathroom a fresh look without breaking the bank.

How is your front door? The front hallway? The first thing a potential buyer will see when they come to your home. Give it a fresh coat of paint and clean or replace the knob and knocker if there is one. Look around at the foyer area and notice if you need to update the walls with neutral paint or clean the trim, if any.

Use neutral, gray or white paint on the walls in each room. Another relatively cheap and easy thing to do in the Winter months to get ready for Spring. Don’t just touch up – paint the entire wall. Now is the time to paint over the bright colors you may have used. If you have carpeting in any room, consider replacing to hardwood which will help the home sell, or at the very least get a good professional cleaning.

Go room to room in your warm home while the February snow is falling outside and scrutinize everything from switch plates to ceiling fans. Look for the tiny flaws that you haven’t noticed like cob webs in between the storm & the window. Have you dusted the shades? Cleaned the curtains? Not something people think to do on the weekly, but can make a huge difference. Simply get on the floor at kid and dog level and wipe down the baseboards and look for little fingerprints to wash away with mild soap and water. Put the brush attachement on your vacuum and run it over the walls.

The Bottom Line: It’s surprising, the little things you don’t notice daily in your home. But, taking the time and seeing things through the eyes of a potential buyer can greatly help to get your home ready for Spring. Sometimes asking a friend to come to do an honest walk through and point out problems will help. Now, might also be the perfect time to find a Realtor and have them come in your home and give you their feedback as well.

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