The Importance of Staging to Selling Your Home
First impressions are everything in selling a home. People make decisions about whether to look inside a house based on curb appeal. People make decisions about buying a house based solely on the color of paint in the bedrooms.
You, as the seller, are thinking, “that’s easy. It took us half a day to paint that room. Why can’t you just paint it after you buy it?”
But buyers are funny creatures (don’t believe me? Wait until you’re buying a home, Mr. and Mrs. Seller. See if you feel the same way), and they’ll drop a house from their list for something as small as the color of paint in a single room.
That’s why staging a home is crucial in the selling process. You need to make it easy for the prospective buyers to imagine themselves in your home. They need to see it as theirs, not yours. You need to stage your home in a way that shows the seller what they could get, and not tax their imagination by working around your home’s personality.
Here are a few easy ways to do this:
1) Spruce up your curb appeal.
It starts the second they pull up in the driveway. Make sure the yard is clean and free of debris. Are the bushes trimmed? Is the yard mowed? Are there little knickknacks out there, like garden gnomes or reflecting balls? You like them, but your buyer may not. And even though you’ll take them with you when you leave, the buyer thinks they’ll have to deal with them.
2) Paint the walls a neutral color.
Not everyone has your flair for the dramatic or your sense of color – but honestly, a purple bathroom? – so you’ll need to tone down some of the more vibrant colors in your home. We hate to say it, but you’ll need to paint everything in a neutral tone. This allows the buyers to imagine their furniture and their stuff in your home. Otherwise, they worry their pumpkin-colored towels and shower curtain will clash with your purple walls.
Cover everything with a primer and then a tan or an off-white finish coat. Use a semi-gloss or flat paint, which hides imperfections in the wall a lot better than gloss paints. If your walls are already neutral in color, paint them again. You may have gotten used to the occasional ding and scratch, but that’s one of the first things the buyer will notice.
3. Put away your knick-knacks.
Just like people will envision their furniture in your house, they’re also thinking about their photos, collectibles, and general stuff. If a lot of your personal things are already out, it’s like a mental roadblock. They can’t envision their family photos on the mantle if 20 of yours are up there. They can’t imagine what their collection of antique thimbles will look like if your marble collection is on display.
Put all your stuff in boxes, and put them in storage. Don’t even put them in the garage, because they’ll have the same issues out there. A lot of clutter makes a room or garage look smaller. You want your house to look as big as possible.
4. Consider hiring a professional stager.
There are professional home stagers who have that time and expertise to do the things you don’t want to or have the time for. Hire one to put your home in order, and let them do what they do best: make your home as attractive as possible to get the highest dollar possible.