Set the “stage” for a great home sale
When preparing to sell your home, arguably the most important factor is staging. Staging refers to preparing and decorating your home to best showcase it: making your home the best it can be before potential buyers enter your home. Properly staging your home can affect the amount of time your home is on the market, and even how much your home will sell for. Here are some tips to utilize when staging your home…
Let’s begin on how to stage your home. First, declutter. Clean your home and take personal items and other non-décor items and store them away. The various things you have in your home on a daily basis shouldn’t be visible. Professional stager Kari Kirschenman said one of her biggest tips to sellers is to declutter, stating, “…declutter as well as depersonalize your home.” When you depersonalize your home, it allows potential buyers to imagine themselves in your home. If you have storage rooms or rooms dedicated to clutter, repurpose it. Make the space feel meaningful! Once you’ve done that, it’s sometimes beneficial to rearrange the furniture in your home. You can give your home a new look without buying anything new! Also, make sure your home is well-lit…lighting plays a huge factor.
On the décor and cosmetic side of things, adding a fresh coat of paint can make a big difference. Painting multiple rooms in the same color can make your home feel cohesive and put together. Keep things neutral as well. While keeping your home neutral, adding pops of color in rooms attracts a buyer’s eye. Next, decorate! Add pictures, mirrors and other wall hangings to your walls. Accessorize your home in a sophisticated way. Kari said, “Every buyer is different when it comes to décor… however, usually as long as the accessories are kept to a minimum where they make a statement without going over the top, buyers tend to be impressed.” While the appearance of the inside of your home is very important, so is the appearance of the outside of your home. Make sure your yard is well maintained.
While it’s important to stage every part of your home, there are some rooms that are best to stage in a home. Kari shared, “In my opinion the best rooms to stage in a home are the kitchen/dining area, living room and master bedroom.” These areas of a home are typically the most important to buyers.
Keller Williams Realtor Sherry Knutson knows the importance of staging a home. “A properly staged home commands buyers’ attention and keeps them in the home, looking for a longer period of time. Buyers have to be intrigued, or they're out the door in minutes. If the home is unstaged, everything else better be right to get offers...good location, and most of all, priced competitively,” Sherry said.
A nicely staged home will definitely sell faster and for more if done properly. Whether paying a professional to stage it, or doing it yourself, the extra effort will pay off when your home hits the market.