Staging Your Home to Sell

Staging your home to sell is the best way to maximize the chances for a fast and profitable transaction from any real estate deal. Home staging is the fastest growing sector of the property industry and has also been proven to be the most effective form of real estate marketing. The development of the staging industry has made a real estate agent’s job so much easier and has also created an entire new profession called home stagers.

Many people still do not understand exactly what home staging really is. They get the idea that staging is similar to decorating or remodeling, but this is not true. Staging is a unique and cost effective way to improve the look, feel and flow of any property, inside and out. It works equally well for residences as it does for commercial spaces. Best of all, staging has many inherent benefits which not only help to sell real estate quicker, but also for more money.

Home staging differs from decorating, in that interior design and decorating are geared towards fulfilling the aesthetic and functional requirements of the present owner of the home. These arts reflect the preferences and personalities of the client and the results of decorating and design are most typically very taste-specific. Additionally, decorating implies an investment in the home, since the client will most likely choose to live there for a long time and expects to enjoy a considerable lifespan from their design elements. Home staging, on the other hand, is specifically personality-free and neutral. This helps create an atmosphere of universal appeal, rather than one which is exclusionary or even distasteful to potential buyers. Furthermore, staging is not designed to be in place for extended periods of time. Furnishing choices are usually rented, allowing more design for far less money invested…

Home staging is also unlike remodeling, since renovation seeks to make drastic functional and possibly structural changes to the environment, while staging is concerned with pure aesthetics and surface enhancements. Remodeling requires permits and considerable expense, often in the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to complete. Meanwhile home staging can usually be completed for about 1% the cost of the listing price in most instances and far less in some cases. Personally, I can usually stage a home for about.25% to.5% of the list price, using my particular consultant model for DIY staging.

So why stage a home and spend any money when you can just list it and hope for good results? This is a common question, but the answer is much easier and more convincing than you might think! Listing a home without staging is like inviting prospective buyers into YOUR world. They will come into your home and see your stuff. They will see YOU living here and are unlikely to value the home as the best place for THEIR family. This plays into well established psychological concepts of real estate marketing. Staging removes YOU and YOUR STUFF from the equation, as well as enhances the home and camouflages any less than ideal property characteristics. Staging creates an atmosphere which is perfect for buyers, creating a feeding frenzy and most often results in a fast sale at the highest possible price. However, this is just the tips of the iceberg…

Staging is also tax deductible in the United States, making it a completely safe investment. Think of it this way… You can spend $2000 dollars to fully stage a $300,000 residence and deduct the entire expenditure. Furthermore, that $2000 is likely to net you an increased sales price up to 17% above list. This would translate into a final price of $351,000! Even if you only received an offer of 5% above list, the total sale price would be $315,000. A nice extra profit of $15,000 since the original $2000 is tax deductible…

The best part of my home staging consultant business is that I teach people how to make staging a part of their lives now and forever. I do not just do the work for them and force them to hire stagers every time they have a new property to sell. Instead, I teach them how to actually DO the work, allowing them to build the skills to use throughout their futures. Some of my past clients liked the process so much that they actually joined the staging career field for themselves and are now very successful! I am truly blessed to help people achieve their goals when it comes to selling real estate. Best of all, the buyers of these lovely homes win also, since they see the dream-like vision of the home they always wanted and get a real sense of how to set up their own furnishings to optimize the home to their own preferences.