Romancing a Home Sale: Staging to Be Engaging

Will it be love at first sight? The desirability of a home should be emotional and immediate. Yes, many home buyers will come with a checklist of their practical needs including square footage required, number of bedrooms, bathrooms and so forth. But in their hearts, they are also secretly hoping to fall in love with a home. They will be looking for that “oh wow moment” even before they walk through the front door.
This is the reason it is so important to show your home at its most attractive. The appeal of a place can be as important as its functionality. It should be fresh and engaging. It should draw people in. “Staging” your home refers to the act of improving your home’s appearance and enhancing its ambience in an immediately positive way in order to appeal to the widest segment of potential buyers. Your goal is to sell it quickly at a fair price.

Did you know that a survey by a large national real estate brokerage firm showed that staged homes sell in half the time? Another survey of Realtors® showed that a $500 staging investment recouped 343% of that cost. Staging is especially important in a slower market. Recently I had three identical units for sale (numbers 3, 4 and 5) in a building on Beacon Street. Number 4 was the only one that was staged and it sold first.

Another recent example I can give from my experience is that my real estate firm was given a totally empty home to sell on a Tuesday. We quickly staged it and it now has an almost a full price offer that we accepted on Wednesday. Staging can work - fast.
There is a big difference between selling and dwelling. As you may have a strong psychological attachment to your home, you may not fully appreciate hearing about a better way to show your home. But try to realize that the way you decorate to sell, may be quite different from the way you decorate to dwell. Staging throughout is important.
Both a real estate agent and a professional home stager can help to market your home successfully by highlighting its positive benefits and features, often in a multi-sensory way. How a home looks (including lighting) is the visual part of the equation, but the sounds, fragrances, and textures of a home can also influence potential buyers.

room before staging

The first thing I suggest a seller do is to de-clutter and depersonalize his or her home. Pack away CDs, videos, tapes, books, games, photos, collectibles and children’s items. (You may have to store a few pieces of furniture, too.) The idea is to simplify your home providing plenty of space for prospective buyers to imagine living there.
Then organize and clean your home. Make repairs, fix leaks, provide updates to areas and amenities that need it and put on a fresh coat of paint. It will work wonders. Make sure kitchen counters and bathrooms are free of clutter and spotlessly clean. If you have beautiful hardwood floors, show them off. Don’t hide them under an area rug.
Some items to consider adding to enhance your home that are favorites with staging professionals are: attractive table and floor lamps, flowers and greenery in most every room to add fresh appeal, a soft throw and new luxury fabric pillows in the living room, mirrors to make a room look larger and reflect light, candles for fragrance and a glass bowl of fruit in the kitchen for a touch of color. These are just a few ideas.

room after staging

Natural light and air flow are critical components that are often overlooked. Make sure your home’s windows are simply draped to allow sunlight and fresh air to enter and circulate. Arrange furniture in settings that illustrate comfort and usage. Put on some upbeat music that will suggest how great your home is for entertaining. Music helps create a mood. If all this seems like a lot, it is. Better yet, hire a professional realtor who has all the contacts you will need to be sure your home is so engaging, it gets proposals.