Learn these essential ideas on how to stage your home like a professional stager and get some home staging tips.
Looks make all the difference when you’re selling your home. You need your place to read as: homey, open to possibilities, while also being move-in ready.
Standing out in a challenging real estate market is no easy feat. To get the most offers and the highest asking price, you need your home to appeal to a wide range of buyers without appearing boring. That’s where expert home staging comes in.
Expertly staging your home requires a delicate balance of style and mass appeal. It can be a challenge, but with the correct information, you can stage your home like a professional stager all on your own.
It’s a lot to learn, but don’t worry. We’re going to walk you through the best home staging tips, skills, and tricks you need to know.
Get Home Staging Inspiration from These Famous Realtors
To learn how to stage your house like a pro, you should study the pros. Famous realtors from shows like Fixer Upper, Million Dollar Listing, and Property Brothers are all master home stagers and often share their favorite staging tips on their shows.
If you’re not already familiar with the HGTV and Bravo superstars, then now is a great time to learn about them. You’ll find useful design tips and learn how to appeal to your local real estate market.
Here’s the first home staging tip you’ll learn: don’t underestimate the value of home staging. Even if it seems like an expensive investment, the returns are huge.
According to Meredith Baer of Meridith Baer Home: “The truth is that the homeowners reap the benefit usually by two to 20 times, and in a very short amount of time,” she said in an interview with Forbes. “Houses will sell a lot faster and for more money.”
Famous realtors are famous because they’re good at their jobs. They know how to get top dollar for the home seller and how to make buyers fall in love with a space.
Home Staging Tips
If you’re a home seller, you can try to spruce up your home with these DIY staging tips.
The most popular home staging strategies used by professional home stagers are actually pretty simple. If you’re thinking “who will buy my house in Bristol?” we’re going to give you the rules to keep in mind when staging your home, so you find someone to buy your house fast.
Use Art as Inspiration
You want your home to have personality- but not too much. Homebuyers need to be able to visualize themselves moving in so it can’t look too much like someone else’s house. But your home also should not look boring or bland- like a hotel room.
Put appealing art on the wall but keep it neutral. If it has bright colors, maybe use something abstract- you can even use those colors as inspiration for accents like pillows and rugs.
You could also include inoffensive pieces like landscapes or engaging photos of places or things. Not too personal but not too dull either.
Remove Clutter
One of the best home staging ideas you’ll come across is removing clutter. But, this is harder than it sounds.
This can be removing pieces of furniture completely or replacing them with lighter pieces. For example, you might remove a bulky closet and replace it with open shelving if you still need room for linens, books, etc.
You should absolutely remove bulky furniture and create a clean and open space. However, you don’t want to remove too much- a home seller should want their home to look lived in but not messy. Too little furniture makes a room look small and even stale. Too much and it’s overwhelming and hard for the home buyer to picture their own furniture in the space.
Make Your Home Staging Fun
You want clean lines, well-arranged pieces (meaning they’re set up to show how a room can be used), and space-defining features. If a room is multi-use like a combo living and dining room, then a rug under the sitting area furniture and another rug under the TV area can define an otherwise open and bland space.
Keep pieces light, airy, and comfortable. Just because they should be neutral doesn’t mean your home staging pieces should be boring. Make boring rooms enjoyable with strong accent colors (such as bright rugs, pillows, or art).
You can make “interesting” rooms (such as those with an unconventional shape) livable by showing how a potential buyer can set them up. You can show how it’s usable by staging it as an office. Or, you can display it as a game room or indoor garden. Something to show that its uniqueness isn’t a challenge but a bonus.
If you want more ideas on fun staging, here are other upgrades that can increase your home’s value. Some of these will be more costly and intrusive than the basic staging but worth looking at for the ideas.
Create an Event Experience
You can make your open house feel like an exclusive party or at least a fun destination. It can feel like a low-key party with caterers and drinks.
Consider creating an experience that highlights your home’s best features. If you have a fantastic backyard, host a barbeque- buyers will be able to visualize having your yard and what having their own BBQ party will feel like.
Create a chill hangout vibe if you have a great living space. A pizza party in your living room will let buyers feel what it’s like to host their own friends in the space.
Free food is sure to get more buyers to your property. Also, buyers won’t forget the good time they had at your open house, and they’ll remember it over a boring house tour any day.
Make Your House Fresh
Cleanliness is vital for any home seller, whether you stage or not. Deep clean everything that is staying in your home. Repair anything that needs even slight repairing – squeaky door hinge? Oil it. Chipped baseboard? Spackle it. There should be nothing left that says to a buyer that your home is too old or has too long a to-do list.
Replace anything that can not be cleaned. There should be no worn-out or dingy colors if you can avoid them. If you have a beloved chair or rug that has any amount of staining- even if it’s barely perceptible- replace it with something new and fresh.
Every visible towel in the bathroom should be new. If your window treatments have sun damage or fading, replace them. Your home should appear immaculate- it’ll make buyers want to live there.
Use the Right Smells
To make your home as inviting as possible, don’t underestimate the power of smell. Not only should you worry about removing personal smells with your cleaning process (like past pets or old cooking), but you should also bring in the right smells.
The right smells are things people find universally appealing – plants are the most popular. You can bring in real flowers on open house day to make sure you have the smell of fresh plants.
You can also purchase an oil diffuser and choose a pleasant, fresh, and natural scent like lavender, rosemary, or eucalyptus.
If the weather is cooperative, keep your windows open. This will keep the house from feeling stale and keep whatever scents you do bring in from getting overwhelming.
Keep Your Decor Neutral
A home buyer will want your home if they can picture themselves living there. That’s difficult to do when a home has too much of someone else’s personality. You can keep your home staging decor neutral without being boring. The walls should be bright reflective colors like off-white or beige. You can choose a bold accent color to make one wall pop – a serious buyer will know they can always change paint color, especially on a single wall.
The main pieces of furniture should be reasonably neutral while matching your home’s style. If you have an old Victorian house, then some antique pieces won’t be too unusual. But you don’t want too many outdated pieces in a modern home.
Keep colors light and basic. However, accents can have bold colors or patterns as long as you don’t go overboard. A bold tapestry can add texture, print, and some personality but is, as a buyer will note, easily removable.
Using at least some of these staging techniques will absolutely increase your home’s value. But, if your home has a lot of personalities, this may seem like too big an investment. You can weigh the pros and cons of selling your house as-is. Instead of looking for an individual buyer, you can find companies that buy houses in Rhode Island outright.
Should You Work with a Realtor or Sell By Yourself?
Selling your house by yourself vs. with a realtor is a big decision. There are pros and cons with each path, and you should think carefully about what you want to do.
Making your home “for sale by owner” (FSBO) will save you the money you would have spent paying a realtor. But you’ll lose time and some money on doing everything else yourself. You’ll have to list your home, which costs money. You’ll need to manage open houses, private viewings, and finally, the legal documents all on your own. Depending on your current lifestyle, this may not be feasible.
Selling with a realtor solves the time management problem of selling your home by yourself. The realtor will be dedicated to the sale of your home while you just have to worry about moving. There is also some evidence that realtors can negotiate a higher price for a home than a homeowner can on their own. They also know the community and can find a way to find cash home buyers in Lincoln. So any realtor fee you save by selling yourself, you likely will lose on the final sale price.
Conclusion
Staging your home by yourself may be labor-intensive and require some cash up-front, but it’s ultimately extremely rewarding. By making your home sparkle, fresh, and tastefully appointed, you can significantly increase the value of your home and get an offer way over asking.
Following home staging tips that the pros use isn’t easy, but it is doable. If you put in the effort to stage your home on your own, the payoff is so worth it.