What do Realtors mean by 'Staging'?
Staging your home for realtors, photographers, and potential buyers means arranging your things and presenting your home in a way that maximizes visual appeal. How a home is staged for photographs and viewings can make a big impact on the number and value of offers, it's an important consideration where there's a goal to sell a home for as much as the seller can get for it. Whether your listed property is a little apartment, a modest family home, or a magnificent mansion, you should consider staging for when photographs are taken to market your listing, and before potential buyers come to view it.
Here are some Staging Tips
Entryways
From the top of a driveway to your sidewalks leading to your door and through your doorway itself, all are important regions of your property that make powerful first impressions. Mow and trim, sweep and tidy, hide away any yard clutter. If you have children, put away their toys such as wading pools, bikes, particularly anything brightly colored that will stand out in photos. The photographer wants to capture your home without colourful distractions, and as much as we love children we know that not everyone has a positive impression of children's clutter around a home, it can bring down the perceived value of a property.
Polish, Polish, Polish
Polish everything you can to a clean shine for both photography and showings. Start with your entryway, number signs, lamps, mailboxes, and move into the house, polishing relentlessly. Streaks can show up terribly in photos, particularly in sunny windows, use proper window cleaning materials to get a flawless finish. polish sink and bathing taps, polish appliances, polish furniture, polish lamps. Mop those floors until they shine. The gleams and glimmers make a tremendous difference in the overall impression both photographically and during a walk through.
Hide Yourself Away (Declutter)
Hide as many personalized items of your life as you comfortably can. By this we mean toiletries, kleenex boxes, paperwork, condiments and spices, remote controls and phonebooks, slippers and housecoats, basically hide away almost all the clutter of daily living. Through the lens of the camera the clutter just looks like a mess, and to potential buyers walking through the clutter interferes with their ability to imagine the house as their own home, it can devalue their opening offers.
Staging for the Aging
Like with clothing, music, and cars, trends change over generations and interior design is no different. If you're older, consider honestly whether some of your decor choices are too old-fashioned for the current times and whether there are any easy things you can do to minimize the impression that the home is 'dated'. Ask your realtor for advice on this matter, but for starters some things that aren't typically fashionable according to modern design sensibilities include crocheted blankets and throws, fluffy toilet seat covers, and lace doilies, Simple slip covers and throws can modernize rooms where upholstery and bedding would otherwise look very dated, there are staging companies that can help visually transform your space in ways that may help you sell your place faster and for a better price.
Remember Why You're Doing This Staging Thing
Some people find staging quite irritating, they like their home the way it is and don't see why they should worry about their tastes being different than those of potential buyers. The motive behind staging is to generate the quickest and highest offers on the real estate listing. Buyers are influenced by all sorts of factors when determining how they value a potential property purchase, if they are buying it to reside in, they want to feel at home in your space, if it's dated they may consider the costs of updating to be more, reducing what their initial offer is. You're staging your home to get buyers in and buying it at the best price you can get under current market conditions.