How to Stage Your Home for a Successful Viewing

What is Home Staging?

Home staging refers to preparing your home for sale in the real estate market. The aim is to stage your home to attract the attention of as many potential buyers as possible. Hence, you're going to be selling your property for a higher price and quicker.

The focus of home staging is to improve a property's appearance to make it appealing and welcoming, to make the potential buyers imagine living in that property, i.e., you'll be instilling in them the desire to purchase it. Of course, in doing so, you would need to invest money in your home staging, because it doesn't mean merely decorating your home. It calls for an understanding of finding the equity in your home and property, including the neighborhood, to guide you on where to put those investments. The defined purpose of staging is Return on Investment.

Much like stage decorating, accessories, lights, art, a fresh coat of paint, greenery, etc. are used in staging the home for prospective buyers to get a good first impression of the property, from the front door to the living room to the guest room. Furniture and accessories are rearranged, or replaced, albeit temporarily, to draw the viewers' eyes to the home's best features, taking notice away from flaws.

The Importance of Home Staging

Staging is one of the easiest and quickest ways to sell your home for a good, if not the best price possible. Home staging guarantees the prospective buyers see the home at its best, showing the property's best features without the house having to go through a makeover.

Well, it takes more than one way to a successful home staging, like hiring professional stagers or doing a virtual home staging. (Virtual home staging refers to photos of rooms and photo-editing software changes or puts in charming pieces of furniture. An expert in digital media can make a room look professionally and beautifully staged). You can also go for DIY home staging, with your existing furniture, or replace or supplemented with borrowed pieces and create a room looking professionally staged. Whatever way you will choose will still give you successful outcomes.

What Not to Use in Home Staging

Some home staging tips from long-time professionals in home staging regarding things that should never be used in home staging:

NO family portraits on your walls or personal items elsewhere. This is a huge no-no! Those photos make the potential buyers feel like guests in someone else's home, instead of making them imagine living in that home. That is going to be Awkward for most buyers! At the same time, it is not advisable for strangers to see photos of your loved ones - for security reasons. This is quite a general SOP, not just for home staging.
NO holiday décor or too many accessories, even in the living room. You as a going to help your chances if your photos have your home decorated for seller might want to have a last celebration of that holiday. However, it is not Christmas and it is already March. That would indicate that your house has been on the market for more than some time and buyers will think you'd be desperate to take a low offer. So, either you don't put any holiday décor at all or put in as little as possible.
NO flat color! Avoid matching all your color schemes in your furniture, walls, and carpets. Photos will come out flat and more importantly, the matching flat effect of the colors drains a room of its energy. To make the home appealing, use bright colors in more space, or use contrasts of the neutral palette in pale wooden furniture and dark colors in throw blankets for an exciting overall image.
No stained or old carpets. Old carpets preserve smells, and that is a sure turn-off to most people. If your floors are made of wooden panels, dispose of that old carpet and show off your wooden floors and accent with colorful area rugs. Or, if your room has wall-to-call carpets, you could have it cleaned professionally.
No over-display of art pieces and collectibles. This will make your house appear like a gallery or museum, instead of an attractive home!

Top Home Staging Tips - Do's and Don'ts in Home Staging

DO:

Clean, clean, clean. Make it shine.

Seeing your clean home tells your buyers that you value your house enough to keep it clean. At the same time, a clean well-ventilated home always feels fresh, and thus, welcoming, making it easy for buyers to imagine your home to be the one they will soon go home to. If nothing else, the least your house should be is clean, clutter-free, and odor-free. Just because a room is called a junk room doesn't justify randomly stocking unwanted stuff there, nor does a cute pet excuse pet odors pervading the whole house. Another thing, there should also be no unfinished DIY jobs visible, these are red flags to most buyers that your house is heavy maintenance.

Your house should be gleaming. Keep these as your keywords: dust, vacuum, clean, and deodorize. Treat it like spring cleaning in the fall. A common suggestion from the experts is getting a professional cleaning service to take on your house, inside-out, top-to-bottom. It is said that "dirt eats equity." The more your home sparkles with cleanliness, the more appealing it is to potential buyers, and the more money you can anticipate getting in the eventual sale. Windows, mirrors, floors, bathrooms, kitchens, these should be sparkling! And don't overlook lampshades and curtains as well!

Declutter and neutralize

Check each room of your house and start putting away stuff - anything that will take your buyers' attention from appreciating your house enough to want to live in it, i.e., to buy it. Take down family portraits on the walls, personal collections, e.g. awards and all, books, newspapers, magazines. You could donate your old furniture and household items to charity.

Focus on curb appeal

First impressions count, more often than not! Your curb and outdoor space are what the buyer will first encounter when they view your property. So be sure to take out dead and overgrown shrubs, touch up peeling paintwork (your front door must have fresh paint!), power wash the outside, including the steps and railings, if necessary. Repair any cracks in the driveway and walkway. Check your outdoor lighting, your porch lights, if they need repair or replacement. Add touches of warm greetings to your front door like plants and a new mat. Make sure your doorbell is visible and that it is working.

Refresh walls, rugs, and windows

Check your walls for scratches or flaws, or faded paint. Put on a fresh coat of neutral paint. As to your carpets and area rugs, get a professional cleaner. If they are worn out or unfashionable, replace them with new ones. If your floors are made of hardwood, remove the carpet. And instead of replacing it with a new one, refinish the floors - these could be the selling point of the room! For windows and window treatments, take out any particular styles, replace those outdated and let your windows stand out without these distracting treatments.

Brighten and add warmth

A bright and light room exudes warmth and comfort. Spread that to all the other rooms, to the whole house and your house is then a real home. That's the ambience you'd want your buyers not just to see but to feel. So open your curtains wide and let the natural light in as much as possible. Replace all worn-out light fixtures, see to it that all your lights are working.

Renovate, Refresh, use real potted plants

You aim to make your house look new and attractive. Upgrade the outdated, replace the broken, and touch up with nature.

Foundation problems are problems for the seller and pose potential problems to buyers. So it is to your advantage to fix these problems (even if the inspector has deemed it sound) by replacing, repairing, upgrading, in order not to scare off the buyers.

Your major focus points for upgrades and replacements should be the living room, dining room and kitchen, and the bathrooms too, if possible. Fix cracks and breaks on the walls and ceilings. The main rooms' flooring, if replaced, would be greatly improved by hardwood. The kitchen and bathrooms, with ceramic or stone tiles, or vinyl tiles if you can't afford them.

Real house plants for home staging are always effective, it makes the buyers feel the house to be a place they can imagine themselves living in instead of a hotel. Professional home stagers try to use the real ones as much as possible, instead of artificial ones - unless it is not easy to tell them from the real plants.

Rework room layouts

This could be a necessary step in making a successful staging. One of the important rooms for a possible reworking is the living room. For example, in a small house where the living room flows into the kitchen-dining area, the layout of the living room would need to be changed, for practical purposes, and most importantly, to make it look as best as it should be. Examples would be the placement of a table and its proximity of the location to a cabinet makes the opening and closing a problem. Or placing the TV to be visible from anywhere, is not important because it is irrelevant to viewing the house.

Invest in storage without overdoing it

Another reason for cleaning and decluttering your house to prepare for staging - you can now see if you need storage or additional storage so that the rooms will look organized and neat. You must aim to have your storage units, hidden or otherwise, not be overloaded - because buyers always open cupboard and cabinet doors. You would want your buyers to see that your home can handle their possessions because you have ample storage.

DON'T:

Be emotionally attached

Once you decide to sell, you must start to detach yourself emotionally from your home. Whatever remarks, negative or what, you should take as constructive criticism, accept it and do whatever it would take to sell your property for top dollar and in the shortest time possible.

Be afraid to team up

You can DIY repairs and replacements or even upgrades in your house to prepare it to be sold. However, you would, of course, want your home to look its best. Getting a professional to stage your home for sale is an investment that is just so worth it. The professional home stager has the experience and acquired skills to look at your house with a clinical eye and give time-tested means and techniques to improve and enhance your home to appeal to buyers.

Leave anything broken

Don't ignore anything cracked or broken or think that it won't be noticed. Your home should not only look appealing, but it must also show that everything in it functions and functions properly, in good working condition. Leaky faucets and plumbing, broken or cracked windows, loose hinges and doorknobs, broken tiles, light fixtures that don't work, etc. - these should be repaired and replaced.

Invest in major renovations

If you have decided to invest in staging your home and do what it takes to make it good, you might do makeovers - do it only on the basic elements. A fresh coat of paint is already one big restoration of the home, from cabinets to walls to ceilings. Replacement with new flooring, in the main rooms or even the bathrooms, putting in new fixtures, are worthy investments in making your house sellable. Not a total makeover of the whole kitchen.

Buy all new furniture

Rearrange the furniture and dispose of excess items if you want to change the room's "look" or make it appear more spacious. You can enhance the remaining pieces with attractive or colorful new cushions and throw blankets. However, if you plan to have all new furniture in your new home, it won't be a bad idea to buy them in time for the staging.

Forget the backyard

Focusing on curb appeal isn't and shouldn't mean only the walkway, front gate and front door, and porch. Your home's outdoor space is going to be viewed, perhaps with the same scrutiny as your interiors.

Maximize your outdoor space as much as possible. Regardless of its size, it is and will still be a factor in the buyers' perspective. The backyard should not be treated as secondary or less in importance than the front yard. The backyard should look as presentable, at the very least, as appealing, at best, as the front yard. Therefore, it deserves staging as any part of the house's inside.

Evaluate your space and plan on what to put in that will fit your personality or your lifestyle. A romantic al fresco dining spot, or a comfortable alternative gathering place for family or friends.

Who Pays for Staging the House

Real estate agents and realtors usually have home staging consultations among their services. This could be mentioned in the agent's profile or you could discuss this in our first meeting. Don't be shy about asking for the credentials of the Home Stager. It must be a professional, not a decorator out for a side gig. The agent will have one among his network of other experts in the real estate industry.

There is no flat-out rule on who pays for the home staging. Many serious home sellers who know and understand the significance of home staging decide to make the investment themselves. They would have read of studies in the past 10+ years of the positive ROI on home staging, that it shoots up the dollar worth that the buyers would willingly pay for. Thus, it is more to the sellers' gain to invest in home staging, than any other.

Regardless of how you and your agent will agree on this part, just remember that the bottom line of home staging is the successful closing of a deal to sell your property, which benefits you most of all.

How Staging Affects Sale Price and Time on Market

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) made a survey in 2019 and found out from 25% of buyers' agents said that staging caused offers to rise by 5%, 12% said that the rise was up to 10%. On the other hand, sellers' agents valued home staging more. Approximately 22% said the sale price bumped up to 5%, 17% reported up to 10% and 2% reported up to 20% increase in the sale price!

As for the time on the Market, according to more than half of sellers' agents, staging reduces the length of time a home is on the market, in varying degrees, from great reduction to slight reduction of time.

The experts on both sides of the market spectrum lay it all for you - staging matters, a lot! And who gains the most from a successful home staging? The seller, of course! Contact Barry Jenkins - Better Homes & Gardens Real Estate | Real Estate Agents in Virginia Beach, VA and schedule your meeting!

Frequently Asked Questions

Professional home stagers commonly have basic general advice. First and foremost is to clean, clean everything, clean well. Cleaning cannot be over-emphasized as a rule in staging the home, it doesn't mean just scrubbing the bathroom and kitchen tiles, vacuuming the carpets, etc. These are important, yes, but cleaning for home staging means the removal of ALL dirt, anywhere. Each nook and cranny, hard-to-see areas like the insides of appliances, tops of cabinets, and closets. If you're unsure, it could be wise to hire a professional cleaning service to do it for you.
Remember, you are selling your home, not the things inside, your furniture, accessories, other stuff. Depersonalize your home, remove family photos and other personal items, so as not to distract your potential buyers from seeing, and appreciating the spaces in your home, not your personal style. Even in the kitchen, you are not selling your appliances, so put them away so you can show off how you efficiently made your storage space. Rearrange all the furniture so they can easily go around the room - besides, it's a chance to show off your hardwood floors and make the room space look bigger!
To further show how clean your home is, have as much light as possible. Let in natural light by opening all the windows and curtains, and it brings in the fresh air too! Turn on all the lights, even the table lamps, not just to show your beautiful space but to make a small bedroom look bigger.
A home's furniture can show the potential image of a house. Real estate agents hire decorators or professional home stagers to "do" the house in different styles. Like, a dining room could be staged elegantly with a mahogany or oak dining room table, the master bedroom could be romantic, the guest bedroom could be minimalist, the kitchen could be country. So, it is common among sellers to ask about having or taking out their furniture or just moving the furniture around in order to make their home look more appealing to buyers. However, taking out or just moving the furniture around depends mainly on the style of your home.
The most common rooms that are staged are the living room, kitchen, master bedroom, and dining room, ranked in order of importance.
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) latest home staging profile reported that the living room staging is rated by buyers from important-to-very-important, higher than any other room in the whole house. Sellers are of the same mind, too, choosing the living room to be staged first and foremost.
Buyers rank the master bedroom from important to very important to be staged next to the living room. For sellers, it is ranked the third most important room to be staged, but the master bedroom was staged in most homes that were staged.
Both buyers and sellers consider the kitchen the third important-to-very important among the rooms to be staged.
You'd want to make improvements before selling in order to make your house attractive to potential buyers. At the minimum, you should fix the holes and cracks in the ceilings and walls, repair broken appliances, leaky faucets, and the roof if it is needed. Replace old light fixtures and broken window glass.
From the latest (2021) yearly report of the National Association of Realtors (NAR)on housing and real estate, 28% of listing agents stage a home prior to having it put on the market, 40% of buyers look at homes they had seen virtually staged, 28% of sellers agents said their homes were staged pre-listing.
And from combined NAR, Professional Staging, etc. reports, it was revealed that a significant number of potential buyers, 86% easily visualize a property when it is staged and even 77% of buyers agents have stated that possible buyers easily imagine themselves in the home of a well-staged house.