Home staging is the process of preparing a house for sale in the real estate market. It involves making the home more appealing to potential buyers by arranging furniture, adding decor, and making other aesthetic improvements to showcase its home features. The goal is to create a welcoming and attractive space that helps potential buyers envision themselves living in the home.
So, is staging worth the time and investment? Think of it this way; do you want to leave the sale of your house to chance, or would you rather play an active role in selling it quickly and for the best price?
Good News: Staging a Home Means More Money in Your Pocket, Whether the Market is Hot or Cold
Homes are easier to sell in a competitive market, and staging always helps. In a soft market, staging a home to sell is critical. Staging helps homeowners gain more attention and shorten the selling time when the market is sluggish. Staging can also lift prices from 2% to 10% in a moderate market.
The most significant advantage occurs with luxury homes or in a market with bidding wars over properties, where effective staging can boost prices by 20% to 50%.
“A good professional stager will give you the cold, hard truth about your property and what you truly need to do,” says Karen Parziale, owner of The Real Estate Staging Studio in Hoboken, New Jersey.
For the exterior of your house, it is vital to have great curb appeal; the first impression a potential buyer gets goes a long way in making the sale. Inside, the house should be arranged properly, and all the positives should be highlighted.
To sum it up, it is well worth the staging cost if you get a significantly better price for your home.
Staging a House: What 99% of Homeowners Don’t Do
When you decide to sell your home, it’s really no longer your home; it’s a house, a commodity for sale. It’s competing with the other houses in your neighborhood, and if you want the best price, you need to show it in its best light.
But 99% of sellers still treat their house as a home. As a result, their houses usually take longer to sell and put less money in their pockets.
That’s where staging comes in.
Many homeowners know they should de-clutter, but staging a house involves much more than packing up and tossing things out.
Staging is a production, and the staging expert is the director. The house is being staged to look like a model home: cozy, comfortable, colorful, and inviting, with a personalized look to make it stand out from the rest of the other houses on the market.
Staging isn’t just decorating; it’s choosing the right props, moving or getting rid of furniture that makes the space look smaller, and creating focal points in main living areas.
Visit a new development and walk through the model; you can picture yourself living there, right? You should say, “Wow!” You see yourself, your family, and your friends lounging in the living room, watching TV, sitting around the candlelit dinner table. You imagine relaxing in the yard, the bathtub, and the gorgeous primary bedroom.
You leave with a positive impression created by properly placed furniture, color-coordinated accessories, beautiful rich linens, and table settings, evoking a cozy, inviting feeling.
This reaction is the Holy Grail in staging a house.
Beyond repainting and cleaning, staging a house takes it to the next level by making it look bigger, brighter, and cleaner and accentuating the property’s positive aspects. It’s all about creating a sense of possibility and potential, about creating an inviting space to inspire buyers, to generate a mood befitting the property.
“Look at your home critically. What’s the best feature of each room? How can you best accentuate that feature? What kind of feeling should buyers experience when they walk in, and how can you create that feeling?” says Karen Parziale.
Your stager must go room by room, inside each closet and kitchen cabinet and even underneath the kitchen sink, to make the house more attractive to the greatest number of buyers.
When staging a house, you must change your mindset from “home” to “commodity.” You may love that couch or TV, but it needs to go if it’s tired, worn, or wrong for the house. The key is depersonalizing the space and showing off your home as the best on the block.
For more information, visit the Real Estate Staging Studio.
Find local realtors in the mybergen.com Local Bergen County Business Directory.
