What is Home Staging: Tips for a Quick Sale & Mistakes to Avoid

Home staging is a marketing practice home sellers and real estate agents use to make properties more appealing for prospective home buyers. It allows prospective buyers visualize their dream homes, thereby helping a home get sold faster than ordinarily empty properties. Staging an empty house is a kind of art and is observed to attract a higher sale price.

Given that it is an artform, there are no hard and fast rules, only a few tricks and home staging tips we can give you to help you sell your house faster.

What is Home Staging?

Here’s an easy to understand staging definition for you: You can define house staging as a type of merchandizing that is aimed to create visual impact and is based on interior design concepts. The main objective of real estate staging is to showcase the property in a positive light without exaggerating or hiding its flaws.

Benefits of Home Staging

• Home Staging Promotes Faster Sales

  One research indicated that homes that were not staged remained unsold for 143 days on an average. When these homes were staged, they got sold in as early as 40 days. Homes that were staged before they were listed got sold in as early as 23 days.

• It Increases Sale Price

  An NAR report indicates that 58 percent real estate agents believe that staged homes get higher prices.

• Staging Costs

  How much can you expect to pay from your side as a seller? If you be a stager yourself, how much can you make as a home stager?

Well, this typically varies as per situations. This is mainly because of the fact that staging pricing gets impacted by a number of variables such as the location of the property and whether you need to furnish a property that’s totally vacated. You may be charged on an hourly basis or you may be asked to pay a fixed price. Your service contract should have details about the total charges, duration, and furniture rental charges. For a better idea, you may consider going through home staging price lists.

Home Staging Tips to Sell Your House faster

1. Identify Your Property’s Strengths and Weakness

   When staging your home, it's fine to take inspiration from professionals and DIY-ers. However, you should always bear in mind that no two houses are alike, so you must do the staging accordingly.

   First, you must look at your house objectively to evaluate its strengths, weaknesses, and what kind of buyers would be interested in your property. Most real estate agents use a comparative market analysis (CMA) report to help them get a clear understanding of a property and see how well it does against others in the area.

   Note: the CMA provides an estimate of a property's value/price which sellers can use to set the listing price and for buyers to make competitive bids. Among the factors it considers for the analysis, some of them are the property's age, size, location, style, construction, and condition.

   If you have a more modest, single-family house with a small yard, you can stage it in a way that highlights features the potential buyers will find most appealing. Many people work from home these days, or they carry some of their work home, so they’ll find a house with a home office more enticing. You could also stage certain rooms to be a multi-purpose room to show how dynamic the space is, like a living/dining room or a bedroom-playroom.

   For luxury homes, however, you're dealing with a whole different target demographic. Here, you'll benefit more from highlighting existing features of the home. If required, you can make small updates to the home and use staging to make the space have a more modern, luxurious look.

2. Make Necessary Repairs to the House

   No one wants to move into an old an dilapidated house. They certainly won't even think of buying one, unless they want to fix it up or renovate and sell it for a higher price. So, if you want to sell your house to a buyer who will be living there, renovate parts of the house that are too damaged, make small repairs, or make some home improvements (like adding ramps for the wheelchair-bound).

   The following is a list of some of the things you should consider doing before you put your house on the market:

   • Patching up holes in the wall
   • Touching up the paint or repainting the interiors and exteriors
   • Fixing or upgrading door knobs and handles
   • Cleaning, touching up, or repainting of baseboards
   • Checking for and fixing plumbing and electrical issues
   • Cleaning the gutters (in case of independent houses)
   • Upgrading light fixtures and switches, if necessary
   • Cleaning up weeds, moss, and grout
   • Fixing loose hinges and sticky doors and windows

3. Ensure a Cohesive Home Design

   When staging a home, ideally, you should maintain a sort of consistency in the style. Not every buyer might be well-versed in home staging, but they do get a sense of how a house "flows" and if it's ready to be moved in.

   Generally, neutral colors are used in staged homes with accent colors or highlights to make the space more interesting. Neutral colors appeal to a majority of people, so it's ideal to use them if you want to attract as many buyers as possible. Bold features like accents, highlights, or personalized items can sometimes turn potential buyers off.

   So, when staging a house, use more neutral tones, shades, and finishes instead of bright colors. When it comes to items, use those that one would expect to find in a home. When using repetitive items, make sure they carry the same tone so the whole house's look is unified. It creates a positive feeling among buyers and makes the property feel more homely.

   When staging a house, a key point to remember is that it is not the same as interior designing. The latter focuses on beautifying a space or personalizing a room to match your personality. Meanwhile, the former is a strategy used particularly for the purpose of selling homes. The idea is to appeal to the buyer by showing them the potential layouts of the space and giving them a feel of what it is like to live in it.

4. Rearrange the Room's Layout

   The very intention behind home staging is to present a layout that is the most appealing to the buyers. That means you don't have to use the same layout of furniture and other items that you normally use. The layout you prefer may not look the best on property listings. So, consider the different ways you can arrange the objects in your house to see which layout looks the most professional in photos.

   A good example of this is how most people push their sofas right up against the wall. However, when staging a house, the sofas are in the center of the room to giv a balanced appearance.

5. Declutter and Depersonalize the House

   In home staging, it's important to make the buyer feel like they could live in house and make it their own. The worst thing you could possibly do is to add family pictures, trinkets, wall posters, and other personal items. Not only do they make the buyers feel like they are in someone else's house, but they also make the visuals cramped and unkempt. Decluttering makes the house feel more spacious, open, and welcoming.

   Here's a list of the items you should exclude while home staging:

   • Clutter on surfaces like fridge magnets, papers, trash, etc.
   • Personal items like family pitcure, posters, signs with names, children's drawings, etc.
   • Unnecessary furniture like extra side tables, sofas, chairs, kid's high chairs, etc.
   • Any decor that doesn't fit with the style or theme of the house.

   That said, you shouldn't leave empty spaces in the layout. Accessorize with items that will enhance the feel house and contribute to the style. In case you are physically staging a house before buyers visit, don't forget to clean up, declutter, and organize the items in the storage spaces. The buyers will naturally open up closets, cabinets, etc., to gauge the storage space, so don't neglect these areas.

   Whether you are physically staging a home or using virtual staging, just remember that less is more and avoid clutter. However, if you're already done taking pictures or rendering the scene, you can always declutter the images in post-production. You'd be surprised how removing just a few extra items from the scene can really change the look and feel of a house.

   If you're unfamiliar with photo editing, you can approach a professional photo editor for their services.

6. Make Your Home Feel Brand New

   Although the buyer is buying someone else's old and used house, they don't want it to feel that way when they take a look at pictures on you property listing. Actually, buyers will find it more appealing if you make your house feel fresh and brand new,.

   To make your home feel new and fresh, you can do the following:

   • Adding soft and fluffy new towels in the washrooms.
   • Removing dirt and stains from various surfaces like cabinets, countertops, walls, carpets, etc.
   • Replacing items and/or surfaces (cushion covers, upholstery, curtains, etc.) that are beyond cleaning or repair.
   • Deodorizing the whole house.

   These are some changes that will improve the look and feel of the house, make it feel like it’s brand new. Even if you are using virtual staging to add to the property listing online, you can still make a few of these changes for in-person showings o or open houses.

7. Make the House Brighter

   A bright house, especially one with more natural lighting, is very important. Dark and gloomy houses are not good for the human psyche and are off-putting to home buyers. People like big windows that let in a lot of sunlight. So, if your house has them, highlight this aspect in the real estate photos by opening up all the curtains and blinds.

   Replace dark and think curtains with sheer, light, and bright ones to maximize the amount of light coming in even when the curtains are drawn. If you have some rooms that don't receive much sunlight, consider adding more lights or changing the lights altogether.

   You may not need to do this for every single room in the house (like the attic), but this is a very important step, nonetheless. Brighter interiors give off a positive and energizing vibe. They make for brighter pictures that make buyers feel more attracted to your house.

8. Use Curtains to Add Character

   Curtains have more purpose than simply controlling the amount of light and outside elements coming into the house. When the right ones are added, it can change up the atmosphere in the house. We've already covered how sheer and bright curtains let in more light and make a room feel brighter.

   Meanwhile, dark curtains are used to make a room feel more dramatic and to add contrast. Their downside is that they make rooms feel smaller because of all the light they cut out.

   So, know what you want a room to convey and choose your curtains accordingly.

9. Make Rooms with the Highest ROI Potential a Priority

   Not all rooms are equal, and not every room in the house needs to be staged. The value of the house depends on a lot of things, but the most important factor is the utility of the rooms. For example, a buyer would be more concerned about how big the kitchen is and all the fixtures in it. Even the space and state of the bathrfooms matter to buyers. A bedroom, on the other hand, may not come as high on the list of priorities for them. So, when you know what rooms will be most important to your buyers, you can put in a little more effort into staging those rooms.

   Similarly, if you have a unique space in the house, like a hidden room, sauna, or a man-cave, you may want to highlight them as well. Make a list of the priority rooms in your house and see what improvements and upgrades you can make in them. If you can't afford it, don't spend too much effort on staging rooms that don't have much of an impact on the sale price.

10. Work on Your Curb Appeal

    In real estate talk, the attractiveness of a house/property and its surroundings when you view it from the street is called "curb appeal"- the first impression, in layman's terms. First impressions matter, even when it comes to buying a house. It's what will get a buyer excited about entering and exploring your house further.

    "Oh cool! There's a pool out front!", "Wow! It has such a beautiful garden", or "Hey, I saw that lawn ornament in a magazine the other day!" are some of the thoughts you want the potential buyers to think. First impressions don't have to be extravagant by any means. Even something as simple as a paint job, de-weeding, and adding potted plants go a long way in making a good first impression.

    According to a study in the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics homes with a high curb appeal sell for 7% more on average.

    So, it's clear that if your house looks dirty and dilapidated on the outside with an unkempt front yard and overgrown weeds, the buyer is not going to feel like the house is in good shape, even if it is a really good house on the inside.

11. Don't Forget About the Backyard

    When working on your curb appeal, don't neglect the backyard and other exteriors. They're just as important as the front of your house. Clean the porch or patio, trim the lawn, remove the weeds, paint the fences and exteriors, and add some outdoor furniture to make it feel ready for a family to move in.

    Even if you haven't had much work done in the backyard or don't have a patio, stage it in a way that shows the potential of a nice outdoor space.

12. Opt for Virtual Staging

    Virtual staging is the practice of using software to add furniture and other elements to photos of an empty room. There is no physical staging happening. You just take pictures of an empty house and everything else is done on a computer. Another option is to recreate the property in 3D, stage it, and then render the final scene.

    The major benefit of virtual staging is that it is basically hassle-free compared to staging a home in real life. It is most ideal for when the house has already been emptied and fixed up for the next occupants.

    There are plenty of outsourcing companies that provide this kind of real estate photo editing service to real estate agents and home sellers.

Major Mistakes to Avoid During Home Staging

Home Staging is a creative process that involves a huge probability of errors. Even experienced real estate agents make big mistakes and we have listed a few major mistakes along with a few important home staging tips below:

• Neglecting to Create a Property Virtual Tour

  You should create virtual tours of your property to let your prospects know every minute detail with greater clarity. However, creating virtual tours may prove to be a costly affair and so you may want to look for a number of competent service providers that would provide you with the best rates.

• Using Furniture that’s Bigger than the Available Space

  Home styling has its own rules. Large furniture items are excellent choices for living room spaces and lounges. But these items can consume a lot of space especially if they have darker colors. So ideally, small-sized couches with neutral colors should be placed; this would free up some space and make the property look spacious. Choose the sizes properly to ensure that no single furniture piece does not dominate over the space. Having the spaces staged by design is the key to ensuring accuracy.

• Using Outdated Window Treatments

  Ugly window fittings, wall-paint, and lighting arrangements may make a property appear so outdated. Decorating windows with outdated vertical blinds would give a shabby appeal to the windows. You should note that wonderful window treatments and lighting fixtures are available at reasonable rates. You can choose dark, heavy curtains or white curtains to add a touch of glamour to your windows. You can look through Amazon for cheaper deals.

• Not Clicking Pictures in the Pre-staging Stage

  After you complete staging a property and taking so much trouble to do it, you may forget why you actually undertook this task. When you complete staging, it would be quite difficult for you to opt for virtual restaging. For instance, you cannot virtually restage a room as a bedroom after you have decorated it as a home office. So it is a good idea to take photographs of the empty property so that you can perform virtual restaging of the same room in multiple ways.

• Not Understanding Who Your Target Audience is

  Try to understand what type of people would be interested in your property. The different factors involved in this case are the location and the price of the property. For example, if your target audience includes senior citizens, you should go for traditional home décor. If you have youngsters as your target audience, you should use minimalistic staging styles.

• Stereotypical Staging of Bedrooms or Playrooms Based on Gender

  It is not a good idea to stage children’s rooms based on gender. For example, a prospect who has two young boys may find it quite difficult to imagine how her sons would fit in a room that features pink walls and girly-type decorations. Children’s bedrooms should be inclusive and in harmony with the theme of the rest of the home.

• Including too many Themes for a Room

  Use a definite theme for multi-purpose spaces. Don't stage a space with different types of items to give your customers an idea of how they can use the space. as it might create confusions. So you might choose to show how a single room serves a single purpose and then you can show the same room serving a different purpose through virtual staging. Reputed home staging companies pay a lot of attention to this parameter and base their virtual staging services on this prime consideration.

• Using Faux Plants

  It’s better to use real plants instead of artificial plants. In fact, this will save you a few dollars.

Home staging is costly and most homebuyers are not able to afford it. Addressing the loopholes of home staging, today’s smart realtors are increasingly using a more economic option- virtual staging. This is a process in which photo editors use Photoshop to virtually stage furniture and objects of décor in room images. However, real estate businesses need to be honest and they should showcase both ordinary as well as virtually staged photos to their prospects.

Professional Home Staging Services or DIY Staging

Staging demands high levels of time, energy, and design knowledge. So you should have a real idea whether you will be able to commit that much of energy and time towards a DIY approach. Additionally, as a layman in this field, you may fail to stage your home in an appropriate manner. You should take house staging tips from experts in order to clear idea about how to stage a house. You can contact fellow home stagers or an experienced visual stager for tips and to know about home staging cost.

On the other hand, when you hire a professional, you can expect quality results that will create a buzz in the market, which would allow you to sell your home faster. You can hire photo editing services to benefit from expert real estate photo editing support. To make sure that you have a budget for your project, you should ask, “How much do you charge for home staging?”.

Conclusion

With the help of this informative write up, home staging should be a much easier task to handle from now on. However, if you want more exposure and attention on your real estate listings and a professional virtual staging service provider can help you get there.