Getting A Home Ready For The Real Estate Market
We’ve all heard the word Staging and seen the many HGTV & Netflix shows about how important Staging a home before putting it on the market is. Many have probably also heard from their real estate agents that they can tell them how to stage their home themselves or that the Realtor can stage their house if they just allow them to list it. BEWARE! Not all Stagings are the same.
The whole purpose of Staging of course is to make your home look its best. To have your home stand out from the masses of other homes on the market that are basically your competition. To highlight the good features of your home. Staging helps potential buyers see themselves living in your home, to get top dollar and to sell quickly.
Of course, you must have your home priced correctly. No amount of Staging will help sell your home if you have it listed at an outrageously high price. Lots of “things” go into coming up with the correct listing price for a home. Location, comps (comparable homes sold in your area), square footage, etc., etc., etc. Having a Realtor give you a listing price that will take all of these important facts into consideration is key. IF you are a FSBO (For Sale By Owner), you may still want to get a Realtor’s opinion on what you should set your listing price at. Just be honest and tell them you are a FSBO, many times there is a flat fee you can pay them for their opinion & research. You can also have your home appraised to get an idea but make sure the appraiser knows you are having your home appraised to sell not to refinance. There is a difference!
Unless a Realtor is a Certified Stager, I would leave the Staging to a professional. LOTS of people claim they can Stage a property but way too often, I see (unfortunately) it’s just not the case. I think people mean well and they THINK they can Stage a property but that’s about where it ends. Then I get a call from a frustrated home seller whose house has been sitting on the market way too long with no offers. That’s just time & money wasted on the seller’s part. Call me first!
A Professional Staging will NOT bring your selling price up hundreds of thousands of dollars (usually), again those kinds of numbers are based on location, square footage, comps, etc. What a Professional Staging CAN do for you is get your home sold quickly and for top dollar (based on your other factors being correct).
Sometimes all that’s needed is a fresh coat of paint through out. A neutral, light color palette that carries throughout the house to give a blank canvas look to the potential home owners. Neutral, light color palettes throughout makes a home move in ready for a homebuyer. It also makes a home appear larger. The potential buyer typically thinks, “well, it’s neutral enough that we can move right in and if we want to paint our rooms colorfully later on, we can”.
A good, professional cleaning throughout is ALWAYS A MUST! No one wants to look at someone else’s mess or filth. A dirty or messy home makes a potential buyer wonder what else has not been taken care of that they can’t see. A BIG no-no! You must have your home cleaned top to bottom, inside & out and then keep it that way until closing.
Almost always, furniture rearrangement is done to a certain degree in Staging’s. Lots of furniture editing too (moving excess furniture to a storage facility…not the garage!). OR, I sometimes bring in furniture for the entire staging if need be.
I get the most push back whenever I tell Staging Clients that they must depersonalize their entire home. ENTIRE HOME! They never, ever want to take down all of their family photos. Another MUST! That goes for trophies (unless it’s a vintage one used as a vase or decorative statement), school memorabilia, most all collections of any type that just shows as too personal. Basically, you want your home to shine and make it as appealing to as many potential buyers as possible. People need to be able to imagine themselves living in your home not looking at all of your photos, collections, etc. Many times if a potential buyer views a home and it has too much personal “stuff” still in the home, the buyer just wants to get out. They feel they are invading someone’s space. People say it makes them feel creepy seeing all of the family photos, quilts, collections, etc. Just trust me on this…depersonalization is a must.
If a bathroom or kitchen is really outdated, I will often see if the home seller has it in their budget to make those updates (a job the Realtor should be asking but sadly many times does not). Bathrooms and kitchens that have been updated WILL almost always bring a higher selling price. The more work & updates a potential buyer sees are needed, the more likely they are to skip your house altogether or if they love everything else but know making costly updates to baths & kitchens are in the future…they will bring their offering price down to factor in those needed updates.
Bathroom & kitchen updates if you are willing to do them will most likely pay off in the end but I caution home sellers to not go the trendy route when doing these updates. Trends come & go too quickly so going with classic updates that will stand the test of time is always best. This is something that I advise Staging Clients on often, the colors, the tiles, the countertops, the appliances, the fixtures, etc., that can bring the most bang for their buck when deciding to do updates to bathrooms & kitchens prior to putting their home on the market AND before even getting a listing price because these updates will most times effect your listing price in a very positive way.
There is much to say about the whole Staging process and each home for sale is unique. Just know that a legit Staging with a Professional Stager can make a big difference in how much & how fast your home sells for. A fresh set of eyes on a property alone can do wonders. Especially, professionally trained, Certified Stager eyes. Sometimes just a few tweaks here & there can make all the difference.
Happy Sprucing!
~Scarlett