The importance of staging

The Importance of Staging

I wrote a piece a while ago on the Prep Steps for Sellers and that included a paragraph about how to best prepare your home to market to buyers. If you are considering selling now, I encourage you to really take that information to heart, and I will tell you why.

I have been working with some buyers looking for a home. The market right now is just crazy, and homes are being sold the day they hit the market. Our budget is absolutely sufficient for what we are looking for, but the inventory simply isn’t there.

That brings me to the home we saw today. It is almost exactly what we are looking for with an updated kitchen, under budget and in their preferred area – but it has been on the market for 30 days. 30 days?! In this market?! We wondered why.

Then we looked at the photos. 

The photo of the outside of the home is dark, obstructed, and just generally kind of messy. Photos of the inside are very hard to judge because there is so much STUFF.

Since I met my husband, we have moved 5 times in 9 years and I understand that when you are packing from a move, somehow STUFF just materializes. You wonder where did we get all this stuff? Why do we still have all of it? Do we even need all this stuff? The answer is LIFE and probably not. So, my advice is to get rid of it! Have a garage sale, put it in storage, give it to Goodwill, get organized! Do this BEFORE you list your home.

Back to our showing - We decided that since there were so many things that fit their list, we would give it a shot. When we pulled up to the house, I had to look again at the number – it doesn’t even look like the same house! The outside is frankly ADORABLE. Huge front porch, nicely landscaped and well manicured. You could see NONE of that in the photos.

When we went inside, we were delighted at how much larger the rooms felt, however – there was still so much STUFF everywhere. As a Realtor, I do try to encourage my buyer to try to see past the personal belongings of the sellers, but when there is so much, it makes it very difficult. When you are already trying to focus on not seeing one thing, it makes it even more difficult to see past other items that may impact your decision.

Ultimately, we felt though they had recently redone the kitchen with new counter tops, high end appliances and it did have great square footage and floorplan – the effort in seeing past the clutter, made it harder to overlook little things that needed updating.

I think if the home had been properly staged, and all the potential highlighted, the home would never have sat on the market for 30+ days.

Point of the story is – Declutter, Clean up and get Professional Photos. For examples of how this can change how you see things – see below. This room wasn’t repainted. It was simply cleaned, and then photographed by a professional. See the difference?

No one wants to buy someone else’s mess. Clean it up, and you can sell your home fast, and get what your home is WORTH!