I’ve sold a few houses of my own over the years and I’ve always “staged” them prior to pictures being taken. Lets face it…people are shopping for their next home online. The stats are something like 90% of people start their house hunt on sites like Zillow and Red Fin and Realtor.com. Depending on where you live there can be hundreds of listings to look at and sort through. You need to stand out amongst the competition…your photos need to be spot on!
The word staging has become a buzz-word. Most people seem to think you need to empty out your house and hire a company to come in and make your house look like a model home. Not at all! Most people have perfectly nice furnishings and can you their own belongings to stage their own home and save a ton of money!
So here’s my do’s and don’ts when it comes to staging your own home…
Do’s…
- Remove all clutter. What exactly IS clutter?? Well, first off it’s anything that’s not useful on a day to day basis. Secondly it’s anything you haven’t dusted in the last 5 years. LOL! Those tea cups, your grandmothers figurine collection, your husbands fishing lure collection?…all clutter.
- Clear off your counter tops. Bathroom counters should have only a bottle of soap and maybe a tooth brush holder but only if it’s cute and not some random kitchen cup. Kitchen counters should have the absolute minimum number of items out to be seen. Put away the toaster, the air fryer, the electric can opener, the blender as well as random decor and extra pots and pans. If you can reduce it all down to a bottle of dish soap, a scrub brush and your coffee maker then you’ve done good!
- Take down the family photos. Yes, I know this is always a hard one. But buyers need to imagine THEIR family in your home not yours. You are selling your house for a good reason…you want to move and make new memories somewhere else. You are going to have to pack all of those pictures away anyway, this is a great way to get a jump start.
- Get down to as few pieces of furniture in a room as possible. But make it make sense…I mean if you have a bedroom, make sure to leave a bed it it! Buyers don’t like confusing rooms. Sure they may want to use that guest bedroom as a yoga studio but they need to see it as it’s intended purpose first. In general, most living rooms should have a couch and a couple of chairs, or a sectional. Add in a coffee table and an end table or two…bam! That’s it…that’s all you need for every day life and now you’ve made that room look as big as it can.
- Deep clean. Yes you really should dust your baseboards and for goodness sake…dust those ceiling fans! You’d be surprised at just how many buyers look up to scope out the details of fixtures and you don’t want them looking at your dust bunnies hanging off your fan. Along with deep cleaning…wipe off around door knobs, vacuum with the intent of leaving the prettiest vacuum lines you can, make your stainless steel appliances SHINE, clean those tubs and toilets and for the love of all that is holy, PUT THE LID DOWN ON YOUR TOILET! No one, I mean no one, wants to look into your toilet. We all know what goes on in the bathroom but we don’t need buyers thinking of possible poop stains when instead we’d like them to focus on the beautiful counter tops and shiny fixtures.
- Add something pretty to your front porch. You don’t have to go over board here but make sure your walkway and porch are swept clean and that any dead or dying plants have been done away with.
- Make sure all of your lights actually light up. It’s so weird to me when I see beautiful listing photos but a few of the bathroom lights are burned out. Why? How long does it take to change a lightbulb? But also you want your rooms to be as bright as possible. One of the number one biggest complaints buyers have after a showing is “the house felt dark”. Open those curtains and blinds and turn on the lights!
- What about the books? I often get asked as to whether they should box up the books or leave them. I say if they are on an actual book shelf it’s fine to leave some. If you have a huge collection then maybe reduce it down by half. Also a cheap trick to make everything look uniform and tidy (instead of an array of colors) turn all the books around so that only the pages show not the spine. Seems silly and impractical (and it is!) but it means buyers can skim their eyes right around the room and not get hung up on your taste in literature.
- Wash your laundry, empty your dishwasher, take out the trash and CLEAN UP AFTER YOUR ANIMALS! Try to eliminate all possible sources of bad smells. No, I don’t think you need to bake bread or cookies (an old 80’s trick to making your house seem Home-y), now everyone just wants the absence of smell.
Don’ts
- Don’t burn a candle, spray your house down with Febreeze or simmer pot pourri. Fake smells make people wonder what kind of stink you are trying to hide.
- Stuff all the extras into a closet. Buyers are going to open those closets and they need to see that your home offers enough storage.
- Bother washing your windows. Sure, if there’s huge handprints from your kids are nose and paw prints from you dog, wipe those down. But no, you don’t need to wash each and every window inside and out.
- Break the bank painting your whole house. If you have some areas that really do need a freshening up, go ahead and take care of that, but a whole house painting is totally unnecessary. Most buyers are going to repaint it to their taste anyway.
- Leave any rooms off limits. I know it’s hard to deal with pets in the moving process. But it someone is coming to view your home, they really do need to see each and every space up close. Yes, it sucks, but take your pets with you during showings…even your cats. I will say if you have an outdoor enclosure that it’s ok to utilize that for keeping your pets contained. but all other spaces need to be available.
- Speaking of pets, specifically dogs…clean up the poo! The last thing you want is your possible buyer leaving with your dogs poo on their shoe.
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So you see, staging isn’t making a home model perfect but instead it’s about simplifying. You have to pack everything anyway…rent one of those PODS and get a jump start on your move! I would say the goal is to remove atleast 40-50% of your belongings. We all know we have too much stuff but we become immune to it and don’t see it anymore. If you think you’ve become house blind (or nose blind) then invite a friend over to give you their honest assessment as to what needs to go and if they detect any odors that may be irritating to potential buyers.