It’s More Than Just A Bowl of Lemons: The Importance of Staging Your Home
Selling your home is the beginning of a new exciting chapter in life, and we know it can also be a challenging and stressful experience. You need to present an attractive home to potential buyers, so it becomes very important to stage your property.
What exactly is staging and what does it entail?
Simply, staging is a method of making your home appealing to potential buyers, getting you the best price in return. Staging often includes repurposing your home, moving existing furniture, or occasionally purchasing or renting pieces that suit the space better, decluttering, cleaning, depersonalizing, and performing repairs.
Staging your home is seen by some as optional, but in our eyes, it’s a must! In actuality, staging your home is a relatively simple investment of time and limited expense that absolutely needs to take place before you list your home. Perhaps this is why our average days on market is three, compared with 30+ for the Kansas City area.
We have often seen that a modest investment in staging your home could turn into a $30,000 increase in sales value. You don’t always have to spend money to make this happen and we guide you to finding the props and tools that you already own.
Why Do You Need to Spend Time Staging Your Home?
Buyers want to dream and you can paint that picture for them. Whether they are looking to relocate, or upgrade, your “yesterday” is their tomorrow, and you can prove this to them when you put the effort into staging your home.
When you stage your home, you get to show the well-maintained, tidy, and beautiful space that has served you well. A home that is appealing, decorated, and absent of clutter is a home that sells. This extra step will wow your buyers from the moment they look at the photos of your home online.
How to Stage Your Home For Maximum Interest
For those that have a limited budget, talk to us first. We’ll be able to help you understand where to spend the money for the best improvements. You might think that you need to paint a room when in fact tidying that garage might make more sense.
We’ll help you consider things like the entryway and the exterior where the buyer will have their first impression of your home. When you stage the kitchen try to make your appliances look spotless. Get rid of any grease, crumbs, or splatters that may exist.
Can Lighting Impact My Staging?
Natural light is always a good selling point. Before any showing, make sure all your blinds and curtains are open. If necessary, you should add supplemental lighting, but use softer light to make the home feel inviting and enjoyable.
Home Staging Furniture
That sentimental armoire from Grandma may conjure up childhood memories for you, but for a potential buyer, it might be bulky and in the way. It’s important that your home has good flow and tasteful furniture without feeling cluttered. If your furniture is big or dated, don’t worry, we’ll work with you to find the right balance of personality vs style so your home looks like it deserves a magazine feature.
In some cases, it might make sense to rent home staging furniture. We have an exhaustive supply of staging props that we can use to work our magic and give your home that extra wow-factor and we’ll walk you through every step of the process.
What About Curb Appeal? Staging Doesn’t Stop on the Inside!
The outside of your home can create an amazing first impression. Curb appeal is real, and don’t underestimate how important this is.
Keep your plants, trees, bushes, and lawn pruned and well-maintained while your house is on the market. It doesn’t hurt to power wash the exterior of your house and in some cases, it might make sense to give it a fresh coat of paint before the photographer shows up.
If you can put some outdoor living features in the backyard, you can turn an empty patio in a party destination.
Removing Clutter to Stage Your Home
Decluttering is one of the most important and most challenging steps when you stage your home and so often, homeowners can’t see their own mess. It’s not your own fault, but we all get used to our own surroundings which is why having fresh eyes take a look at your home can only help.
If we’re spending the time staging your home, we can help you prioritize the areas to clean, and work with you to spruce up the artwork or tidy up displays. Going through each room, one at a time, sounds like a headache, but think about it this way… once you clean up the clutter, there’s less to pack once your house sells!
Clutter can distract your buyer from the features in your home, and it can make a home appear smaller than it is. Buyers are always interested in closet space, so don’t make the mistake of throwing everything into the closet to make the rooms appear clean because they will open those closet doors to see if they can fit their pantry items and clothes in their new home.
The easiest thing to do is box up what you don’t currently need,
Keep it Personal, and Depersonalize.
You want the potential buyers to see themselves in your home, so we don’t want a completely blank canvas, void of any personality. At the same time, your family photos from that visit to the Grand Ole Opry in 2014 don’t need to be on the fridge right now.
Allows buyers to see themselves in your home.
We want to create a picture for potential homeowners, not visitors to your home. Put away any toys or other items that can get scattered around the house, or create a dedicated “play area” if you can’t pack everything up entirely.
Don’t let the bathroom become a mess of bottles and lotions. Delicate touches like silver trays can keep things organized and add a touch of class to a room.
Remember that buyers could equally remember your house more as “the house with ugly yellow throw rugs” or “the house with the great lighting and tasteful kitchen.”
Updating the Decor before Selling Your Home
If your décor is dated, your home can appear like it needs lots of work but fixing this need not cost a ton of money, or take too long. Choosing the right colors, in the right spots, can make all the difference to a room, and true interior design is just as much about texture as it color.
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Small Home Improvements
You know those squeaky doors, chipped window panes, and loose door knobs that you’ve grown used to. Potential buyers don’t want to see those. Give them time to get settled in and they’ll chip their own paintwork in their own time.
Even though you may not notice these small annoyances, a home buyer will, and in a competitive market, you don’t need little things to break the sale. Replace burned out lightbulbs in light fixtures so that your home appears well-maintained, bright, and spacious. Small additions, like a bowl of lemons in the kitchen, is an easy way to add a pop of color and a pleasing focal point to the room.
Deep Cleaning To Sell Your Home
It also isn’t a bad idea to do a deep cleaning at the end of your staging process. This means deep clean everything including carpets, walls, windows, fan blades, curtains, and furniture. When you take the time to do this type of cleaning, your home will appear well maintained so potential buyers will want to jump on making an offer.
Keep Your Home Staged Until It Sells
Your life will continue while your house is for sale. That means your family will be going to work and school, so it will be hard to keep the house staged with continued organizing, purging clutter, and regular cleaning.
Try and deal with smaller messes as they come. In most cases, the time and effort you take to stage your home will result in faster home sales, and don’t forget, our average time on market is three days, so this really shouldn’t be too hard for that long!
