If you want to sell your house quickly, you'll need to be able to attract home buyers who will love your house the same way you have during the years you've spent in it. However, old walls and appliances that have been used for many years will not look appealing to buyers, and general wear-and-tear will prevent you from getting potential buyers or reasonable buying offers. Therefore, it’s usually a great idea to add a fresh feeling to the house by having it staged and looking its very best!
What is Staging?
When homebuyers come to view your house, it’s important to ensure that they feel at home and can imagine themselves living comfortably there. They shouldn’t feel like they have come to somebody else’s house or have come to a place that they wouldn’t enjoy staying in for a long time. On the one hand, it’s important not to leave too many personal belongings around the house that can make buyers feel like guests rather than future owners. On the other hand, it’s unwise to leave the house entirely empty since it will be impossible for those touring it to imagine themselves living there. We suggest you opt for the idea of home staging to sell off your house fast.
Here's what you need to know about setting up your house:
- Home staging involves preparing your house for sale by furnishing and decorating it temporarily. It can also involve larger tasks such as room renovation.
- The home staging process starts with a paid consultation. An expert will visit the property, examine its condition, and offer an action plan on staging the house to make the highest profit possible.
- You can of course execute the home staging process by yourself by following the advice of a home staging expert. But if you are busy or are not confident in executing such a task, hiring a home staging company can be very helpful.
- It’s a good idea to contact your real estate agent who can provide you with a list of referrals that can help you choose from various home staging companies.
Advantages of home staging
Here are a few benefits that home staging can bring:
- Faster and more profitable sales- When you stage your house for sale, it will sell on average two to three times faster than a house without any such preparation. Also, you will get around 15% more offers. This will ensure a higher and quicker profit for your house.
- First Impressions- When it comes to selling your house, creating a good first impression becomes key. If you display an unstaged house to buyers, they might not develop any interest in buying your property because they will not feel like they are entering their future house.
Tip: We suggest you leave a strong impression on potential homebuyers. Most likely, they will be visiting a few other staged homes before choosing the best for themselves. Therefore, you shouldn’t miss your chance to convince the homebuyers.
- The Impression of a larger house- Staging allows you to optimize the anticipated space of a property that would otherwise be difficult to sell since it would feel confined. A home staging professional will use their creativity to make the rooms visually appear larger and airier.
Disadvantages of home staging
- To go ahead with home staging, you’ll need to invest a lot of money upfront.
- If your property doesn’t get sold within the expected time, the total cost of your rental furniture might increase and go beyond your budget.
- Until you have a new house to move into, you will have to store your belongings somewhere else before staging your house for the potential customers. This will increase your overall costs and budget as you’ll need to pay for storage or rent fees. It’s also just generally inconvenient.
- You’ll need to invest a lot of time, especially if you are planning to stage the house by yourself instead of hiring a home staging company.
Staging ideas for selling a house
As per the NAR report, the most prevalent rooms that require staging are as follows:
- Living room- 93%
- Kitchen- 84%
- Bedroom- 78%
- Dining room- 72%
Both the money and time you invest will help you determine the staging level feasible for your property. We recommend you attempt to take the following measures and apply them to as many rooms you can afford to based on the amount of time you have:
If your house is clean, the homebuyers will probably assume you have taken proper care of your property and managed it well. Here are a few things you should remember:
- Make sure you clean each part of your property including the floors, ceilings, and anything that comes in between them.
- If you don’t have new appliances to stage the kitchen, make sure that any existing appliances that are being used for staging are spotless.
- Consider cleaning your bathroom before you stage it for potential homebuyers. Make sure everything is clean, starting from the sink drain, corner of the tub as well as any space behind the toilet which you don’t expect anyone to see. Overall, make it seem to yourself that everything looks new before you stage your property to buyers.
Purge out belongings
Here are two big drawbacks of having clutter while staging your house for sale:
- It will distract homebuyers from key features of your property.
- It will make the house appear smaller in their eyes.
- Pack items you don’t use frequently into moving boxes and put them for storage. Papers, games, knickknacks, and seasonal outfits are a few examples of such items.
- Purge out items you don’t use anymore (for example, toys and clothes your kids have outgrown).
Depersonalization
Since you want homebuyers to imagine themselves living on your property, we suggest you do the following:
- Take away keepsakes, family photographs, and refrigerator art from the house while preparing your property for sale.
- Hide your clothes as much as possible and ensure the bathroom racks are empty. You can keep essentials such as hand soap in the bathroom.
- Remove any toys or other personal items from the house before you stage it for potential homebuyers.
Make your home fresh
- It would be a good idea to add potted plants and make the place feel fresh and welcoming for potential buyers.
- If you have plenty of plants, we suggest you place them strategically and not overcrowd a space.
- Remove any drying or dead plants from the house.
- Make sure there aren’t any unpleasant smells around the place. Get rid of any food smells and ensure the bathroom isn’t damp.
- Clean the kitchen sink with half of a lemon and grind the lemon into the garbage bag to get rid of the stink odor.
- Avoid using an air freshener since it might trigger an allergic reaction in someone who might be asthmatic. You wouldn’t want a potential buyer to get sick from walking into your home.
- Make sure you throw away trash bags and general trash that could spread an unpleasant smell all over the house.
Define all your rooms
- Ensure each room in the house has a well-defined objective.
- If the rooms are well defined, the homebuyers can easily decide how to optimize the square footage of the house.
- If you have an attic, you can transform it into an office space. If you have a complete basement, you can transform it from a cluttered entertainment room into a guest room.
- Regardless of whether the homebuyers will use the rooms for the same purpose as you, it will let them know that every space inside the house is useful.
- Breakfast corners, window seats, nooks and crannies, alcoves as well as window seats are a few such examples.
Painting and wallpapers
- Take off any wallpapers present in your house since potential homebuyers might not like them. We suggest you paint the walls with neutral and warm shades that are uncontroversial for homebuyers.
- Avoid painting on top of wallpaper as this will likely ruin it even more. It will continue to be visible and indicate to the buyers that they might have extra work to do.
Check the flooring
No homebuyers want to buy a house with dirty or stained carpet, especially when somebody else was responsible for it. Also, avoid using linoleum as it looks cheap and outdated. It’s a good idea to use hardwood flooring as this would add elegance to the house, despite its excessive cost.
Here’s what you need to know about hardwood flooring:
- The cost of maintaining a hardwood floor is low and it has a long-term value while being ideal for buyers with allergies.
- Overall, hardwood floors seems appealing to everyone. However, if a homebuyer doesn’t like it they can carpet the floor to retain it for future buyers.
- While adding a hardwood floor, you should focus on areas like the dining room, kitchen and living room.
- You should renovate the bathroom as well since it’s a small but important area which will not cost much to renovate.
- It’s a good idea to use stones or ceramic tiles for your kitchen and bathroom. Alternatively, you can use vinyl tiles as this will not be costly as stones or ceramic tiles.
Lighting arrangements
- You should reap the benefits of natural light in your house. We recommend you keep all the blinds and curtains open while you are staging them for the homebuyers.
- Make sure you implement fixtures in the house wherever you find it necessary. Also switch on all the lights, including those inside the closet, while staging your house for the potential buyers. With this, your house will look brighter and welcoming while ensuring that buyers will not find the need to go hunting for light switches.
- In case you think the fixtures are fine, we suggest you just clean them up by removing the dust and grimes. Regardless, it shouldn’t cost you much to replace broken or outdated fixtures if you decide to consider replacements.
Furniture
- You must ensure the furniture fits the house and doesn’t overcrowd the house. If your furniture is too big, the room will appear too small. However, if you have only small pieces of furniture, the room will feel cold and empty.
- Avoid buying cheap furniture. Instead rent some for staging.
- Regardless of whether you are using existing furniture, buying new furniture, or renting it, the furniture should be good, tidy and welcoming for prospective homebuyers.
- If you want to add some contrast, you can consider using throw pillows.
- Arrange the furniture in a way such that the room looks spacious. For instance, in the living room, the seating arrangement should promote a pleasant conversation area.
Ceilings and walls
- Make sure there aren’t any cracks on the walls as this might indicate a weak foundation of the house to the buyers.
- You’ll either need to fix the damage or inform the buyer to get it fixed. However, we suggest you get it fixed before staging it among the prospective buyers, otherwise it might not create a good impression on the buyers.
Check the exterior
Both the entryway and the exterior of the house will enhance the curb appeal of your property. Also, this will have an enormous impact on the first impression of the buyers and drive their interest to explore the interior.
Here’s what you need to do:
- Shape the hedges, trees, and lawn, and remove the weeds.
- Make sure you clean the windows properly and add flower boxes to brighten up the place.
- If possible, power clean the exterior of your house and makes it appear newly painted. This will not cost you much and will not involve much effort.
- Keep the sidewalk leading to your house clean and clear. Also remember to purchase door mats both for the front and back door.
Ensure the swimming pool (if you have one) is clean before you display it to the buyers.
Overall, you should consider adding a few final additions to the house and make it appear warm and welcoming to potential buyers. You can put some fresh flowers in the flower vase and allow fresh air to enter the house at least ten minutes before the arrival of the prospective buyers. Also, you can light candles with soft fragrances and keep plush towels in the bathroom.
Your overall goal is to create a warm and welcoming environment. Follow our tips, and you’ll be wishing that you could re-buy your house as well!