Is home staging the same as decorating? That is a question that has been coming up quite frequently among my clients. Home staging has been around for years, but has only recently been getting the attention it deserves. The more people learn about it, the more questions they have.
Staged Front Porch - Inviting & spacious
Home staging, in the simplest terms, is the process of getting your home ready for the real estate market. The goal is to ensure the home will appeal to a wide range of potential buyers, sell for the best possible price and spend less time on the market. It can be broken down into 7 basic steps, making it much easier to accomplish: Evaluate, Declutter & Clean, Repair, Neutralize, Enhance, Price Correctly and Maintain. You need to start thinking of your home as a commodity, a product for sale.
The first step, Evaluate, involves going through your home with the eyes of a buyer. What are the home’s strengths and weaknesses? Are there needed repairs or replacements? Start at the curb and tour the entire home exactly as a buyer would. Include the exterior of the house, as well as the yard. Take pictures, as flaws become more obvious when seen in photos. They are also great for before and after comparisons. If you have a difficult time being objective, ask a trusted friend, family member or even your realtor to do this exercise with you. Make sure to choose someone who is honest and not afraid to be frank and direct. If you really don’t feel like you can do this, you can hire a home stager to do an evaluation for you.
Staged Entryway - Clean & simple
Next, you need to do a thorough cleaning of the entire house. Don’t forget the basement, garage, outdoor spaces and all those places where we tend to hide things, such as under the bed or in the closets. Make sure to give the windows a thorough cleaning so they let in lots of light. Cleaning and de-cluttering can be done at the same time. The way you sell your home is very different from the way you live in your home. Remove all unnecessary items from surfaces, especially the kitchen and bathroom counters. Pack up collectibles, valuables, and anything and everything that is personal, political or religious. Look at the furniture arrangement. If the space feels crowded, has poor traffic flow or contains furniture that’s not in scale with the size of the room, remove or replace some items.
Make sure you don’t go to the other extreme and make your home look bare and sterile. Vacant homes need to be staged too. If you have already moved, bring some of your furniture back until the home sells. If not, borrow furniture and accessories from friends and family or use a company that specializes in furniture rental. If you have too many things and no place to put them, either rent a storage unit or ask friends and family if you can borrow some basement space. Both furniture rentals and storage units are small prices to pay for the rate of return you will get when you sell your home. In a recent study by www.homegain.com, the return rate on money spent for just cleaning and de-cluttering was 578%!
The next step, repairs, is critical to a successful sale. Deferredmaintenance and problems both minor and major send up red flags for buyers. They wonder if there are more serious repairs that aren’t visible. Lowering the price to accommodate for the needed repairs is not an effective solution – it is cheaper to do repairs than it is to offer a credit.
Selling a home the right way will require a lifestyle adjustment. This brings us to a common misconception about staging: it is not the same as decorating. In some ways, it’s the complete opposite. When you decorate your home, you fill it with the colors and styles that you and your family love and that make you feel comfortable. Styles tend to be personal and no specific style will attract all buyers. We need to de-personalize so we can attract the greatest number of potential buyers. You want to make the house attractive, but keep the colors and style generic. Remove all personal and themed items, as well as anything religious or political. Neutrals include, in addition to the numerous shades of brown, beige and tan, shades of blue, green and gold, as well as variations of white, cream and gray. Use stronger colors as accents on pillows, throws, towels, area rugs and accessories. You want buyers to be able to envision themselves living in your space. We make decisions based on emotions, and then we rationalize these decisions with facts and reasoning.
Enhancing includes two steps: create the best furniture arrangement and add just the right amount of accessories. Furniture should be the right size and scale, have a cohesive style and support the function of the room. The layout shouldn’t hinder traffic flow. Give all spaces a strong focal point. Each room should serve only one purpose. Rooms with multiple purposes confuse buyers and send the message that there is not enough space in the home. Once the furniture is placed in the best possible layout, it’s time to accessorize.
The goal is to make the home feel comfortable and lived in, but not personal or cluttered. Keep curtains and shades open to maximize the amount of light in the room. Make sure you have plenty of light fixtures and turn them on for showings, if possible. Create vignettes, such as a cozy reading space. Put some fresh flowers on the kitchen table. A final touch I like to add is a small binder with all the updates and improvements that were done in the last few years, along with those great before and after shots you took earlier. Include local information and names of utility companies. This encourages buyers to start thinking about these things and imagining themselves living in the space. Be creative and have fun with this step!
Last, but certainly not least, make sure you set an appropriate price that’s based on fair market value. Unfortunately, we can’t set prices based on how much we feel our home is worth or by the amount of blood, sweat, tears and money we put into it. Homes that are priced too high for the market don’t receive showings. They sit on the market, then the price is reduced and people start to assume something must be wrong with it. Again, there are no showings, the price gets reduced again and the vicious cycle continues. Price your home in the mid-range of market value. The cost of staging is actually substantially less than the amount of the first price reduction, which is usually at least $5,000 - $10,000. Yes, the first reduction. Numerous reductions are common.
Staged Sunroom - Bright & airy
The last step in home staging is very important. You must maintain the condition of your newly staged home! If you take just 15 minutes every night to tidy up, it won’t feel overwhelming. Keep the house always looking like it was just cleaned. If you know you can’t do this, hire a professional cleaning service; it will be well worth the money.
You should now understand home staging, its steps and procedures, and most importantly, the amount of difference staging can make. With a little money and some hard work, you can sell your home for the best price, in the shortest amount of time and with a lot less stress and aggravation. Then you can move on to decorating your new space! Follow the seven steps: Evaluate, Clean & De-clutter, Repair, Neutralize, Re-arrange and Accessorize, Price Correctly and Maintain. Selling a home can be a positive experience!
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