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6 Secrets to Staging Your Home for Sale

Buying & Selling
Buying & Selling
6 Secrets to Staging Your Home for Sale

Successful home staging is key to selling your property faster and for more money. In fact, it could help your home spend up to 90% less time on the market.

Put simply, staging is the act of cleaning, decluttering, rearranging, and styling up parts of a home to highlight its strengths, downplay its weaknesses and impress as many potential buyers as possible.

There’s always the option of hiring professional home stagers or asking your realtor for help, but these services come at a steep cost. Thankfully, it’s totally possible to stage a home by yourself and still get a good return on investment. 

Here are some tips to give your home a fresh feel and set a scene that will leave your visitors in awe. And they won’t cost an arm and a leg.

Make a Good First Impression

There’s a reason real estate agents insist on good curb appeal. Before touring your home, many potential buyers prefer to do a quick drive-by before deciding whether it’s worth taking a look inside. That means you need to give your outdoor space equal importance.

You can nudge in onlookers by painting your neglected front door, power washing your siding and walkways, displaying charming potted plants, sodding and trimming the lawn, and re-staining the deck or porch. 

Purge and Declutter 

A home that’s on sale should appear ready for a new occupant. One way to help visitors visualize themselves living in your home is to clear the clutter. Remove all the unused stuff you have amassed over the years and put away personal items like photographs and knickknacks.

Likewise, get rid of non-personal items that can still congest the space. Fewer items give the impression that your home is spacious, while empty counters, cabinets, and closets show that you have ample storage. Where you can’t remove stuff, arrange them neatly to create a sense of order. 

Fix, Mend, and Repair

Home staging is the perfect time to work on that PunchList of small repairs you’ve always postponed. There are always some tiny problems hiding right under your nose, so dedicate time to inspect your house and make a list of everything that is broken. 

Fix those nicks and dents on walls, replace blown light bulbs, repair broken doorknobs, tackle squeaky doors, work on floor stains and scratches, unclog slow drains, and tackle other imperfections that signal neglect to buyers. If the foundation looks ugly but has been deemed sound by an inspector, patch those cracks, so you don’t scare off buyers for no good reason.

Highlight the Home’s Best Features

A key part of staging your home is to showcase what sets your home apart from the rest. If you have a unique feature in your home, make it the focal point, and arrange your furniture around it. It can be anything from a fireplace, a captivating piece of artwork to a charming arrangement of interesting objects.

In home staging, not all rooms are considered equal. So, don’t use all your time trying to make all the spaces look classy. According to the NAR, buyers are more interested in the living room, master bedroom, and kitchen. These are the areas you need to focus on most.

Keep Your Own Style Out of it

De-personalization is an essential part of staging a home. If you’re updating the paint, go for neutral hues like gray, white, and taupe—they appeal to the broadest range of potential buyers. You may have chic taste, but the people you’re luring may have other ideas.

If you have wallpaper, tear it down and replace it with plain painted walls. Next, replace any linen that could be too personalized. That includes the curtains, beddings, and towels. You also wouldn’t want to offend buyers, so only hang images or artwork that appeal to a broader audience.

Clear Odors and Make Your Home Smell Nice

Obviously, you need to deep clean every corner of your home before a single buyer steps foot inside. Equally important is showcasing a house that smells nice. Smell alone has the power to make or break a buyer’s decision.

Get rid of all smells from pets, smoke, food, bathrooms, and overpowering scented products. A better way to avoid polarizing scents is to use air purifiers. Also, open your windows, so the place doesn’t feel stuffy.

Staging Your Home can Do Wonders

After price and location, the next thing buyers focus on is the looks of a home. And the buyer decides whether your home is worth it within minutes of walking through your property. So, don’t ignore the importance of home staging.

A good home showing is a ticket to more interested buyers, quicker sales, and higher selling prices. With that in mind, work on the curb appeal, declutter, patch and repair, use focal points, settle for a neutral style, and keep the space smelling nice.

For more advice and tricks of the trade, schedule a free consultation with PunchList by using our free home repair estimator.