Staging Your Home For A Successful Sale
You may have heard your real estate agent mention "home staging" when discussing ways to enhance your home to attract a higher offer price. Staging simply means using your furniture and accessories in ways that showcase the beauty of your home. In order to make your home appear more roomy and clean, staging can also be more about what is not seen, rather than what is seen.
High Expectations
One only has to be aware of the popularity of "nesting" shows on networks like HGTV to recognize that today's home buyers expect more in a home-buying experience. Everyday, home-oriented programming on these networks reach an estimated 96 million viewers, and home-buyers are now primed to look for homes that have upscale and updated furnishings, such as colorful sofa throw pillows and beautiful window treatments.
Professional Staging
Prices vary when it comes to hiring a professional stager, depending upon where you live and what level of services you use. At the most basic level a stager will consult with you and provide you with a written report full of suggestions that you can do yourself. For a more advanced staging experience, you may need to be already moved out of your home, since in many cases an entirely new set of furniture and accessories are moved into your home to replace your present furnishings.
DIY Staging
Many people cannot move from their present home until its sells, but you can take steps to improve the looks of your decor without spending a lot money or buying new furniture.
- Clutter makes a room look small and distracts buyers from the room's best features. Get a head start on packing for your eventual move by packing away all those figurines, vases, photographs, etc. Keep a few well-chosen pieces out on display, preferably your nicer pieces that follow your color scheme or enhance your furnishings. For example, a beautiful blue vase on the mantle will draw the eye to the fireplace and look especially pleasing if it picks up the blue color in your throw pillows.
- Take a fresh look at your furniture and consider rearranging it to open up traffic patterns better and to lend emphasis to an architectural feature like large windows or a fireplace. Some large pieces could be moved to another room to make the room look more spacious. Small bedrooms can be a home's worst feature, but moving a dresser or bedside table to another, larger room can help disguise the room's size.
- Buyers will attempt to envision their own furnishings in your home, so use neutral colors in paint to enhance the potential buyer's imagination. Your decorating style could be the complete opposite of your buyer, so try to stay as "boring" as possible with your paint choices.
Whether you go with a professional or take on the task yourself, your home will shine with some thoughtful touches and make buyers love your home as much as you once did. Contact a local agent, like Haring Realty, for more home staging ideas.