For the budget-minded, staging a home for sale may seem like an expensive hassle. But making a small investment, whether DIY or with a pro, can lead to higher offers. Here\u2019s what to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Repeat after me: It\u2019s not your home<\/strong> \u201cAny time you are marketing a product, you want to dress it up pretty,\u201d says Brandon Green<\/a>, a Washington, D.C., real-estate agent. \u201cBut people don\u2019t see their homes as products.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you were selling your car, you would toss out the fast-food wrappers, wash it, wax it and vacuum it, he says. And you\u2019d get a lot more buyer interest \u2014 and money \u2014 than if you didn\u2019t take those steps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The same is true when you are selling your home. You want to present it as a beautiful, desirable product. And you want it to stand out from all the other homes on the market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWith short sales, bank-owned properties and the traditional sellers \u2014 all of these entities are in fierce competition to get the house sold,\u201d says Barb Schwarz<\/a>, founder and chairwoman of the International Association of Home Staging Professionals. \u201cWe are now seeing even some short sales and bank-owned properties being staged.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n How to save on staging<\/strong> That brings us to our first tips to save on staging:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1.<\/strong> Consider hiring a professional.<\/strong> Do a little math and make a few calls to see what it would cost to hire someone to handle the staging for you. Professional stagers have an arsenal of furnishings at the ready and can hammer out a neutral, professional design much quicker than you can. If you\u2019re determined to do the work yourself, see about getting a consultation from a professional stager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. You don\u2019t need to stage the whole house.<\/strong> Whether you hire a pro or decide to go the DIY route, you don\u2019t need to stage every single room, Green says. Stage the main living areas \u2014 living room, dining room, kitchen \u2014 and at least one bedroom, preferably the master, he says. You should also stage any room that has a confusing purpose to show how it can be used. So if there\u2019s an awkwardly sized bedroom, stage it to show that it will fit a bed and dresser comfortably, for instance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut you can leave several rooms empty, and you can leave the basement empty, as well,\u201d Green says. \u201cThat can be a big saver.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you decide to go it alone<\/strong> \u201cNo one will buy your home until they can mentally move into it,\u201d Schwarz says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Clean, get rid of clutter and depersonalize.<\/strong> Staging is about making your home look nice, but remember that buyers have other senses and that a bad smell can be a deal-breaker. Nothing smells better than clean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCheck that all rooms are spotlessly clean, have washed windows, smell good and have been aired before showings,\u201d says Lauri Ward, president of Use What You Have Interiors<\/a>, which focuses on using a client\u2019s belongings to redecorate or stage the home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBy packing up your clutter, you create more space for the buyers to mentally move into,\u201d Schwarz says. And, she adds, \u201cIf you keep out all your collections and family photos, the buyers will spend their time looking at them and not your house.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Don\u2019t forget that buyers will be looking in your closets, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou want the buyer to have the perception that, \u2018Oh, there\u2019s so much storage in here,’\u201d Green says. \u201cIf it\u2019s chock-full of stuff, it automatically gives the perception that there\u2019s not enough storage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n You don\u2019t have to empty the closets and other storage areas, but Green advises paring them down to about 20% of what you normally store there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s nothing personal<\/strong> \u201cMost people have a design aesthetic that matches them as a person,\u201d he says. \u201cUsually, the stuff you have isn\u2019t fantastic for staging. Staging is going to need a fairly neutral design.\u201d He advises DIY stagers to be selective when finding furniture. \u201cTake the time to hunt for pieces that really are effective with the concept,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that doesn\u2019t mean you have to spend a lot. \u201cI had a client once who staged off of Craigslist,\u201d Green says. \u201cIt took her forever, but she pieced together a fantastic staging concept by buying used furniture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. Be resourceful when hunting for furnishings.<\/strong> If you have friends and family with updated or neutral furniture, see if you can borrow a few pieces to stage your home. If you need to stage a room as a bedroom but you don\u2019t have a bed, get an inflatable air mattress that rises off the floor to regular bed height. Once you get the linens on, it will look just like a regular bed, and you can use it for guests in your new home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are a few other quick tips from the experts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. Show off hardwood floors.<\/strong> \u201cIf you have hardwood floors in good shape that are covered by wall-to-wall carpeting, remove the carpet and clean the floor,\u201d Banks says. \u201cHardwood floors are a big selling point these days.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n 6. Remove heavy window treatments.<\/strong> Banks say buyers are looking for homes with lots of natural light and that lighter, less formal window panels give any room a lighter, airier feel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 7. Freshen the walls.<\/strong> \u201cPaint is always the least expensive way to make a major change to a home,\u201d says Jessica Dolan<\/a>, a home organizer and stager. Green says cleaning the wall may be enough to make it look freshly painted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 8. Remember the rule of three.<\/strong> Green says the golden rule is three items per surface, whether it\u2019s a wall, tabletop or mantel. \u201cQuantity is usually when people get a little too crazy,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rule of three applies to small rooms, as well, while larger rooms may get six pieces \u2014 four chairs, a table and a lamp in a dining room, for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 9. Do your research.<\/strong> If you\u2019re not sure what a staged home should look like, spend a half-day going to open houses to see what works and what doesn\u2019t. Take notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201csource: www.msnrealestate.com\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For the budget-minded, staging a home for sale may seem like an expensive hassle. But making a small investment, whether DIY or with a pro, can lead to higher offers. Here\u2019s what to do. Repeat after me: It\u2019s not your homeWhen you list your house for sale, it goes from being your home to being… Continue reading 9 Inexpensive Tips for Staging Your Home<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hbrtwn.com\/dora-mcgillis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hbrtwn.com\/dora-mcgillis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hbrtwn.com\/dora-mcgillis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hbrtwn.com\/dora-mcgillis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hbrtwn.com\/dora-mcgillis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hbrtwn.com\/dora-mcgillis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11,"href":"https:\/\/hbrtwn.com\/dora-mcgillis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions\/11"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hbrtwn.com\/dora-mcgillis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hbrtwn.com\/dora-mcgillis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hbrtwn.com\/dora-mcgillis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
When you list your house for sale, it goes from being your home to being a product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You may assume that you\u2019ll save if you stage your home yourself. That\u2019s not always the case, Green says. \u201cAlmost everybody who stages on their own comes to me at the end of the process exhausted, saying they completely underestimated the time it took to stage,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019re literally furnishing an entire house, and that takes time.\u201dWhat\u2019s your home worth?<\/strong>He says it can take 40 hours just to stage a one-bedroom apartment: gathering ideas, finding furnishings, putting it all together and then taking it all back out. \u201cDepending on what your salary is, is that full workweek dedicated to staging worth it?\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Homeowners can do many things to stage their home at little or no cost. The most important thing to keep in mind is that buyers must be able to envision themselves living in your home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When it comes to furnishings, Green warns that you may not want to use only what you have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n