5 Tips for Staging a Home to Sell

When it comes to selling your home and maximizing your sales price, it is essential to highlight the positives and downplay any weaknesses. Home staging is a critical step in preparing your home for the resale market. Staging a home is not decorating but helping potential buyers picture their life in your home. You know what they say, “first impressions never have a second chance.” 

Staging a home doesn’t have to be as costly as you think. The smallest attention to detail can make the biggest differences in appearance, such as rearranging furniture, decluttering, and depersonalizing. As a result, most staged homes sell for more money in less time. According to the National Association of Realtors, “83% of buyers’ agents say that staging makes it easier for buyers to ‘visualize’ the property as their future home.” 

This method of preparing a home for sale and creating buyer interest ensures you make a positive first impression of your property and helps set your home apart from the competition. In such a stressful and hot real estate market, sellers need to eliminate any distractions potential buyers may see and focus on promoting what’s most important.

Here are our five favorite home staging tips for 2022:

Clear the Clutter

When starting the staging process, one of the first things you should do is assess the accessories in your home. The goal is to arrange each room to feel as big as possible, and too much furniture and decor can make your home look smaller.

Remove anything that makes your space feel overcrowded, like decor from the walls or excess furniture. In the bathrooms, clean out the cabinets and drawers. Tidy the cupboards and store away any small appliances on the countertops in the kitchen. Evaluate the clothing in your closet and compress your items to clothing appropriate for the current season. People are touring your property to evaluate the home and its structure, not your personal belongings.

Home staging sheds the best light on your home and what your home offers potential buyers. By reducing the clutter, you are eliminating any distractions and highlighting the best features of your home and the lifestyle it can offer.

Depersonalize Your Space

When depersonalizing a space, the goal is to decrease the distractions that could cause your potential buyers to focus on your personal items and not the aspects of the home itself. The goal is to become neutral. Start with removing the family photos and personalized memorabilia and replacing them with neutral pieces of art and furniture. 

Create a space of zen. Add softer colors of nature to create a relaxing atmosphere for your buyers and introduce a sense of warmth and calm to each room. Shape your space to strike a balance between clean but also lived-in.

Sticking to neutrals can prevent your space from showing too much personality and allow the potential buyers to envision the property as their own. A neutral color scheme has also been known to help buyers sell their homes faster as it makes a home look cleaner and crisper to the potential buyers' eyes.

Check Your Curb Appeal 

Make the most of a first impression. As potential buyers pull up to your home, crucial first impressions are formed. Ensure your home’s exterior leaves no room for concern and gets your buyer's journey off to a great start. Add touches such as greenery, a doormat, or neutral decorations that give buyers a homey feel before they even enter the house.

Pay close attention to the condition of your home's exterior. Are the knobs and hinges of your door intact? Is there proper lighting and fresh paint? Are the windows and gutters clean and clear of any clutter? Making small improvements to your home’s exterior leaves your buyers confident there are no further improvements needed after they make their purchase.

A home's lackluster exterior condition is hard to overcome. No matter how impressive the home's interior experience is, the potential buyer will be reminded of a poor curb appeal impression once they depart. 

Let the Light Shine In

One way to help your home look as happy and airy for your potential buyers is by letting in as much light as possible to your space. Natural light makes people feel happy and hopeful and can help maximize the size and space of your home. So, keep those blinds and curtains wide open, and add more lighting wherever possible.

To add a warmer and more welcoming ambiance, you can add extra light fixtures and lamps around your space. Before a showing, make sure all your lights are, including the overhead and accent lights. Also, ensure that your light fixtures are functioning and fashionably up to date.

Clean, Touch up, and Repair

This is the time to make sure your home reflects the care you have put into it for so many years. A clean home looks well cared for and eases the mind of potential buyers. If there are damages and stains throughout your home, this could concern a buyer about other underlying issues that may be below the surface.

Before your showings, go through each room to find places that may need a touch-up or repair, whether that be bigger tasks like stains on your carpet or more minor concerns like streaks in your window. Prospective buyers will analyze every part of your home, so be proactive and give your home the attention it deserves.

Make each room shine. Scrub the bathrooms, remove odors, vacuum pet fur, powerwash the exterior of your home, or hire professionals to do some of the tough stuff, especially if you have a large house. Don’t look over this step — it could be the make-or-break moment for a potential buyer!

Ready to Get Started?

Here at Emerald Isle Realty, our staff of knowledgeable and experienced five-star service REALTORs® can guide you through the home selling process. Interested in learning more about our team of qualified real estate experts? Our top-performing agents at Emerald Isle Realty are available to answer any questions you may have – please give us a call at (800) 304-4060 for assistance in the buying/selling process!