Adding Value: How To Stage Your Home To Sell!

Getting your home ready for sale takes a well thought out home staging strategy. For the most part, the more time you put into the details of staging your home the more value you will get for your home when you list it for sale! Just remember to not get overwhelmed. Write up your to do list and prioritize.

Get your Real Estate Agent involved too. Depending on the market and potential buyers you may be better off putting more time in to somethings than others. A good Real Estate Agent will be able to pin point where you will get the most return on your improvement investments.

Here is our list of home staging tips in order to add value to your home & get the best return on your investment (and time):

Cut The Clutter

Make your life easier and prepare your home for sale by clearing out your clutter. This is the most important thing you can do to prepare your home for sale.

“Box up everything you don’t need on a daily basis and anything that's smaller than a football.” says home staging expert Lori Matzke of Realtor.com.

All the extra little things we collect should be boxed up and stored for your move. This will make your home feel more open and bring attention to the features of your house rather than your personal belongings.

This goes with big stuff too. Large furniture items will make a space feel smaller. Create a calm and open space by putting those oversized furniture pieces in storage. The oversized comfy chair can be replaced with a sleek sitting chair, opening up your living room and inviting people to the space.

Concentrate on the major items which will make the most difference. We love services like UHaul Moving Boxes. You can save money by picking them up yourself for only a $5 trailer fee and then fill them up and bring them back to the storage facility. They will store them until your move where you can take them by trailer again with no extra moving costs.

Create A Flow

It can be an inevitable outcome for most of us, our living spaces get positioned to maximize our comfort and space’s functionality. This doesn’t always look great to home buyers. Take away the lived in look and create a flow to your spaces so they are most pleasant to viewers.

Start by brining in the furniture away from the walls and create groupings. Position the seating so you can walk into it. This will open up the space and make it feel larger.

Neutral Colors

A fresh coat of paint might be in order. Remember home buyers want to see clean crisp walls and mostly all in one color. Paint the pink kid’s room & give your house a fresh look with a soft eggshell white or one of our favorites Sherwin Williams Kilm Beige (See photo above).

Even do it yourselfers can pull off a great painting job. Take your time on the edges and roll over your walls in smooth even strokes with a paint roller. Bathrooms & kitchens are always done in gloss. Unless you have been in your home for longer than 3 years you can probably get away with only touch up on the gloss areas.

Add Value

Have a room which ends up being used for storage more than function? Show the value of the space! Even if you haven’t a use for it, everyone wants to see functional spaces.

Don’t go over board with spending money on decorating a room. A yoga space or home office can most often be decorated using items from elsewhere in the house.

Try a desk, stylish lamp, and cozy chair in the corner with a few books on a side table. It can go a long way into making a lovey space out of an unused room. Or, try a nice plant, a shelf with aromatherapy candles and your yoga gear coupled with some fun oversized baskets. You can set a scene in the focal point area of the room without a huge investment.

Lighting, Temperature, Scent

These are super important in setting the stage for your home buyers to see the best value out of your home. The space should be set for when your potential buyers come through the door. Every moment from the time they drive up to your house, buyers will be deciding how they feel, not just what they think.

Focus on layering lighting and turn on all your lights before people enter your home. You should think in terms of three lighting layers for your spaces: ambient (overhead), task (pendant, under-cabinet, and reading lamps), and accent (table lamps and wall sconces). As a Realtor I cannot count how many times I ran ahead of my clients to turn on all the lights! The houses which were already lit with every overhead & lamp already on always show the best!!

Normally thermostats are set to a little different temperature when we’re not home. Re-program your thermostats when you have showings scheduled to keep a comfortable temp while potential buyers are visiting your home. Trying to get people to picture themselves in the space takes time, and it’s a lot more difficult when they are hot and the space is stuffy.

Sometimes people think their home needs to smell super good which causes them to go way overboard. Keep in mind when choosing scents that a lot of people have allergies to fragrances these days. A plug-in defuser with natural essential oils is a much better way to go than the chemical scent machines. Turn a fan on low in an out of the way corner to keep air circulating if your space tends to get stale while you are out.

Here are some of our favorate articles for great staging ideas & inspirational photos:

https://www.realtor.com/advice/sell/selling-a-small-home-staging-tips/

https://www.hgtv.com/shows/designed-to-sell/15-secrets-of-home-staging-pictures

https://www.hgtv.com/design/decorating/design-479-925-3333-cant-miss-home-staging-tips

https://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/479-925-3333/list/sell-your-home-fast-21-staging-tips