When planning to sell your home, staging it can help decrease the time on the market and result in a higher offer. Staging is the process of making your home appeal to as many buyers as possible by cleaning, organizing, and creating an aesthetically pleasing space using furniture, décor, and accessories. This is going to help potential buyers emotionally connect with and see the potential of your house becoming theirs. If you are wondering whether putting the time and/or money into staging is really worth it, check out some stats from the National Association of Realtors.
- Staging can help increase the sale price by up to 20% on average.
- 40% people were more willing to get in the car and visit a staged online find.
- 82% of buyer’s agents said staging helped their clients visualize the property as their home.
- More than a quarter of buyers are more than willing to overlook property faults if a home is staged.
- Staging helps sell homes 3-30 times faster than nonstaged competition.
Here are some tips on how you can stage your own home.
Declutter and Depersonalize
Make your home look organized and cleaner by clearing out the clutter in your home. Try adding storage bins and shelf baskets to hide the clutter. This may also include having too much furniture in one space. Your house will look bigger without as much furniture and clutter and potential buyers will be able to move around each room easily. Remove any extraneous décor items and depersonalize your space to help people picture themselves living there.
Furniture Placement
Float furniture away from walls and reposition couches and chairs into cozy conversational groups that face each other. A good guideline for furniture placement is at least 18 inches between furniture. Placing pieces so that traffic flow in a room is obvious, will make the space feel user-friendly, open, and larger.
Clean
Clean your entire home!! Scrub bathrooms, remove hard water stains from faucets, and clean dirty grout. Another important factor is the way your house smells. Smells can have an immediate effect on the way we feel and think. We often become nose blind to the subtle odors of our own home. Fill your home with pleasant aromas such as candles, air fresheners, plants, and flowers (which will also give a sense of freshness).
Lighting
Great lighting will make a huge difference in pictures as well as in person and will make your home look warm and inviting. Open up your blinds and enhance any natural light your house lets in. You can also add accent lamps, under cabinet lights, reading lights, and pendant lights to your rooms.
Curtains
An easy way to give the illusion of a bigger room is to hang your curtains above the window, starting near your ceiling, and have them long enough to just barely touch the floor. Have the curtains go wider than the width of the window so that when they’re open, they aren’t hindering any natural light.
Accessorize
Group accessories by color, shape, or texture. An easy tip for decorating is to group décor that is varying in height and width in threes and rather than lining them up, create a triangle and place an object at each point. This could be used for accessories on top of a coffee table or a fireplace mantle. Adding decorative pillows and blankets to furniture can also amp up a space.
These are just a few inexpensive and easy ways to get your home ready to sell. If you are feeling stuck and looking for extra help, you may want to consider hiring a professional stager or talking with your real estate agent.