50 Tips - Get Started on Your Home Staging Journey (1)
By: Teri B. Clark
"Home staging" was coined by Barb Schwarz back in the early '70s, and the concept has become well known as "house fluffing," "dressing to sell," and "home presentation" to name a few, but the concept has not taken hold among home owners when selling a home because many people do not understand the idea or cannot create a workable plan for staging their home correctly.
The focus of staging is to make a home more marketable by creating the most appealing home to the greatest number of prospective buyers. It should be impersonal enough not to infringe on a buyer's own sense of style.
Decorating is optional. Staging, on the other hand, is essential - that is if you want to sell your house for the most possible money in the shortest amount of time. Staging - it is the difference between ordinary and extraordinary.
Since home staging is truly an essential part of selling your home, I wanted to share these 50 Tips To Get You Started on Your Home Staging Journey.
1. Be sure that your home is staged before you or your realtor takes the photos for the web. Over 70% of all new apartment/home searches are started on the Internet. It is imperative that the property looks good in the photos so that it can attract as many people as possible to see the real thing.
2. You should not have one person look at your house until it has been staged completely. It should not go through the broker walkthrough, MLS, open houses, or anything. Stage first!
3. Kate Hart of Hart & Associates Staging and Design LLC knows that home staging works for all properties regardless of the price point because home staging is about preparing your home for a faster and more profitable sale and marketing your property to the most potential buyers for its target audience. "I have staged homes ranging from $100,000 to $10 million and have had the same result- the homes sell faster and for top dollar compared with the competitors within their price range."
4. If you have dark cabinets, a light colored handle or something in shiny gold will enhance them. If you have light cabinets, you can give them the sleek look by using handles of the same color so that they are hardly noticeable or by using brushed silver handles. With light wood, you can also use darker handles, gold, bronze, or even colors.
5. Sometimes renovations are needed. However, here are five that you should avoid:
- Adding high end appliances to a modest home
- Adding hand painted tiles to the bath or kitchen
- Adding a central vacuum
- Adding air conditioning (unless you are in an area that all homes have it)
- Replacing windows with newer models
6. Be sure to check with your city or county building inspector before beginning a new project. Many departments require permits, even for things as simple as changing a dishwasher.
7. Everything in its place is a good motto to remember. Always find appropriate places to store your items. Litter boxes in the kitchen and trashcans in the pantry are just two examples of inappropriate placement.
8. Julie Dana of The Home Stylist has the following tip: Do not have any cleaning products visible. You want the buyer to think that the house cleans itself. You do not want to remind buyers that there will be work to do in this house, so put away laundry baskets and dish drainers as well!
9. Lisa Wonsey of Space/Lift explains that selling an empty home can be a huge mistake. Buying or renting furniture is especially vital in an empty home. Empty homes do not show well and can sit on the market for months until a buyer with a good visual imagination comes along, or until the seller drops the price so low that the home is a steal.
10. Your refrigerator will need to be cleaned, even if you are not leaving it. People will still look inside and a dirty refrigerator will turn them off. If you are taking it with you, you may as well clean it now. If you are leaving it, then it is imperative to have it sparkling.
