The Art of Staging: How to Make Your Home Irresistible to Buyers

The Art of Staging: How to Make Your Home Irresistible to Buyers

When listing your home, it’s important to take strategic steps to make it as appealing as possible to buyers. As buyers view photos and videos of your home and eventually tour it in person, they’re looking to be able to envision themselves in the home. Staging your home, which involves rearranging furniture—or even temporarily decorating your home in borrowed furniture and décor—removing personal effects, and arranging décor, such as plants and artwork, is so that your home attracts the widest buyer pool and fetches the highest price possible.

Why Staging Matters

Staging a home highlights its potential and minimizes its flaws. A professional stager understands how to play up your home's best features by arranging furniture and décor that will draw attention to particularly desirable features, like high ceilings or hardwood floors. If a room is small, choosing a sparser design will open the space up and create the illusion of more space. According to a 2021 Profile of Home Staging by the National Association of REALTORS®, 81 percent of buyers said they find it easier to visualize a staged property as their future home with 27 percent even saying that they’d be more willing to overlook other faults if a home was staged well.

Staging Success Stories

Staging sets you up for success when putting your home on the market. The 2021 Profile of Home Staging also revealed that 23 percent of sellers’ agents reported that staging their clients’ homes increased its value by 1 to 5 percent. Ultimately, it's an investment that sellers can make. Once a home is in its best condition possible, taking high-quality, professional photos of the house with good lighting and strategic angles will allow buyers to view the home as its most appealing version.

Staging Tips and Best Practices

Removing personal items, like family photographs or sports memorabilia, is the first step to de-personalizing the home in your quest to create a blank slate that invites buyers to picture their future within its walls. Keep the decor to a minimum; a few books, a chic vase, and some flowers go a long way, and less is always more when it comes to staging. Make sure large furniture is not blocking windows, fireplaces, or any feature that you want to draw attention to rather than hiding. Lighter, neutral tones for furniture, curtains, and rugs will brighten the room and make it feel more open.

DIY Versus Professional Staging

If you can hire a professional stager to take care of transforming your home, then definitely do so. Stagers have the contacts, inventory, resources, and expert eye to give your home the makeover that will take it to an entirely elevated level. However, if you are unable to enlist the services of a professional, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t attempt to stage your home yourself. In fact, even a DIY staging endeavor can set you up for success.

Start by performing a deep clean of your home—you don’t want potential buyers to tour your home and get the sense that it looks and feels particularly “lived in.” Next, store clutter and personal items. If you’re not sure whether something should be left out, ask yourself if you would rather see it or not if you were in a buyer’s shoes touring a home. It may seem overwhelming, but if you’re moving out anyway, it will just give you a head start on clearing the home out. If you have house plants, make sure they all are in good health—remember, the idea is to promote a vision of freshness and that the home has been well cared for.

Some rooms have a clear purpose, like the living room, kitchen, or primary bedroom. If you have extra bedrooms in the home or nooks, decorating these rooms with a specific purpose for its use in mind, like putting a desk and table lamp in a home office, can inspire and excite buyers. Staging doesn’t stop indoors, it extends to the exterior of your home with your landscaping, porch, and driveway as well. Mow your lawn, trim shrubs, clear out flower beds, and power wash your driveway, front door, and roof.

Whether you enlist the help of a seasoned professional or attempt to tackle the task yourself, staging a home has proven to increase its chance of fetching a higher sales price. The planning and extra effort will be worth it down the road when you’re closing—consider it a valuable investment in the sale of your home. For more guidance on how to strategically sell your home in our current market, please reach out and we can get started on achieving your real estate goals.