Staging a House
Staging a house to sell has been around for a while now.
Many people have heard about it and ignore it or just don’t know where to start. Maybe they just aren’t sure what staging is.
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What is Home Staging?
Think about it.
The word stage means scene of action. It’s the place where the action is. So in a house, you have to set the stage for the buyers’ mind to place themselves into your house.
You don’t want them to walk in and just see a house with clutter or misplaced furniture. It wouldn’t be a place where they would want to be.
Having them walk into a house that says “I am a great place to live. You need to live here,” would be so much better.
Why Do I have to stage my house?
That is a question I get a lot.
The answer is you don’t have to stage if you don’t want to.
If you want to settle on making less money on your house then go ahead and list it without doing anything to it.
3 things staging a house will do for you
- Real Estate agents can list house for more money
- Buyer can offer more money
- Appraiser can value home for more money
So what I see there is staging a home can equal more money!!
Does house staging cost a lot of money?
Making your house more appealing doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. Yes, it can cost you some. It is up to you how much.
If you want to hire things out to be done it will cost more.
You can do a lot on your own though. A little work on your part can go a long way. I have posted on how to declutter your home.
This definitely won’t cost you anything except your time.
It will save you money in the long run, less for you to move.
Even if you clean up your landscape yourself it will up the value of your house. Here is a great post on How To Add Value To Your Home On A Budget.
Making a great first impression is very important.
Adding some lawn furniture can also add outdoor living space to your home. This is a great asset to add. Buyers see it as more living space not included in the square footage of the house.
I’ve also written a post on ideas to clean up your landscaping.
Staging a Home Sells a Home
In my experience staging a home does sell it faster and for more money. One of the first houses that I sold was not staged. I had all of our stuff out where I usually had it. It was a house like everyone else in the neighborhood.
We had it listed for the same price as the others.
It was on the market for 4 months in a seller’s market before I did some research on what was happening.
I saw that the other homes looked much nicer than mine.
Mine was too cluttered and some items out of date.
I cleaned it up. Updated a bit.
I even hired another real estate agent. I felt like the first one should have pointed out what needed to be done.
Within 30 days our house had a SOLD sign in the front yard.
We even made more money than what was expected.
We have moved 6 times and sold 6 homes and staging helped me get top dollar for each of them.
