Why Staged Homes Sell Faster and 5 Tips on How To Do It Right

Do you want to sell your house faster and for money than the other homes for sale in your neighborhood? If so, it’s time to plunge into the creative world of home staging. Keep reading to find out the magic behind home staging and five tips on how to do it right.

Yes. Staging Your Home is Worth the Effort

What is home staging? Simply put, home staging is the process of using things such as paint color, furniture arrangement, and deep cleaning to help your home make a great first impression on buyers. Your goal in presenting your home to potential buyers is to create living spaces that appeal to a wide range of buyers while helping each prospective purchaser to begin to imagine living in your home.

An interesting thing that you need to understand when you want to sell your house is that many buyers decide on which home to buy based on an emotional reaction to a particular property. Sure buying a house is a huge financial commitment but research shows that emotion plays a significant role in deciding on which home to buy.

As Matthew Kassel noted in The Wall Street Journal “We fall in love with houses in a way that we never fall in love with a portfolio of stocks and bonds.”

The bottom line is that staging gives you the power to help your house make a fantastic first impression on a buyer- an impact that will lead to a quick offer to buy your home. What’s more, successful home staging doesn’t require you to spend a ton of money. The best home staging tips require only a little bit of elbow grease and the ability to look at each room in your home in a new way. Let’s take a look at five ways to grab the heart of a home buyer.

5 Cost Effective Home Staging Tips

Tip #1: Spruce Up Your Curb Appeal

Every real estate agent has had the experience of bringing a client to view a house only to have the prospective buyer balk at even getting out of the car because the outside of the house is such a turn-off. Weeds, overgrown hedges, and dirty windows are just some of the things that will bust the curb appeal factor for any house. Luckily, it’s not hard to improve curb appeal, and it’ll go a long way towards encouraging a buyer to give your home a closer look.

Here are a few sure-fire ways to give the outside of your home the wow factor:

• Pull weeds
• Mow lawn
• Trim overgrown trees and bushes
• Power-wash the exterior of your house
• Plant flowers
• Wash windows
• Put out a new welcome mat

Tip #2: Clean and Re-clean

There is no substitute for bright rooms when it comes to enchanting a potential buyer. You must deep clean every nook and cranny throughout your home. A buyer won’t notice that the house is clean but will most certainly see any dirty and grimy spots. Clean houses are much more apt to sell quickly at a great price than dingy ones.

Why not treat yourself and hire a professional house cleaning service to whip your home into selling shape? Many buyers discover that the relatively small cost of a professional cleaner pays off in a quicker home sale.

Tip #3: Freshen Up With New Paint

Recharging the walls a new coat of paint is an inexpensive tip that packs a potent punch. Freshly painted rooms appeal to all buyers and help to provide a buyer with the impression that the home is move-in ready. Busy buyers will pay a premium for a home that doesn’t require immediate updating.

Before you run to the store to pick up a few gallons of paint, it’s helpful to remember that painting to sell your home differs from choosing paint colors to live in your home. Rather than using paint color to express your individuality, the best paint colors for home staging are neutral colors that enhance of the feeling of comfort and spaciousness within each room.

Tip #4: Help the Buyer Feel at Home

A home is much more than merely the structure of the building itself, and the furniture. Indeed, a well-loved house feels like your home because you’ve filled it with photographs, artwork, and knick-knacks that speak to your spirit. Unfortunately, all of the personal expressions in your home give the buyer the sense that they are visiting your home. Your goal is to help every buyer that walks through your front door to begin to imagine how they would live in the house.

Some simple ways to help a buyer fall in love with your home include:

• Box up items such as photographs and personalized decor for off-site storage.
• Clear kitchen counters of the coffee maker, mixer, and other small appliances.
• Remove ½ of the contents from kitchen cabinets and closets.
• Replace comforters with neutral color and bedding.

Tip #5: Focus on Furniture Placement

Start this part of the home staging process by taking out any unessential furniture. Ideally, the remaining furniture should be in excellent repair, and all upholstery must be clean and odor free. Experts suggest that you use furniture to show how different areas in the home can work. A comfy chair next to a floor lamp, for example, transforms a space into a reading nook.

It’s a smart idea to pull your furniture away from the walls. Even though we tend to think that a room looks larger when everything is against the wall, designers say that it creates the opposite impression. So, don’t be afraid to move your furniture into the center of the room in conversational arrangements. The absolute key to effective furniture arrangement is that it should emphasize space while also making it easy for a buyer to move around within the room.

Last Thoughts

Selling a home is an imperfect science, and many stars need to align for a house to sell fast and above asking price. Nonetheless, experience has shown me that staged homes tend to outperform un-staged homes in the housing market. Contact me at leah@leahhyland.com for more perspective on why staged homes sell faster in the Eugene real estate market.