In this competitive day and age, selling your place of residence can often be a slow and painful process. Potential buyers, more often than not, expect the very best in a property. They want to move into a house that is reasonably priced, physically appealing, and one that does not need much, or any, work done to it.
Clearly, it’s fair to say that the stakes are high when it comes to selling your home. Luckily, though, there are many ways and means to market your house fast. One of these is home staging.
What is Home Staging?
According to the definition on How Stuff Works, this is a process in which a professional prepares a home for sale by decluttering, rearranging furniture, adding small touches, and ‘staging’ the home according to the ‘ideal lifestyle’ of potential buyers. It’s a great method to use if you want to set your property apart from the rest and make it look the best it possibly can to appeal to visitors.
Benefits of Staging a House
1. Desired Lifestyles Are Showcased
In the recent survey by the National Association of Realtors 83% of buyers’ agents said staging a home made it easier for a buyer to visualize the property as a future home. When a professional stages your home, they do so in a way that will appeal to the desired lifestyle of buyers.
They arrange the furniture and add intimate touches that will enable the visitor to imagine hosting dinner parties with family and friends. They set up outdoor furniture in the garden to enhance the image of cooking on the barbecue on a summer’s day.
Home staging is a successful strategy of getting inside the buyer’s head and showcasing their ideal lifestyle to them within the property they are viewing. In practice, it has proved to be very successful.
2. Flaws Are Leveled Out
With proficiency in interior design, an experienced home stager knows how to highlight the best features of a house and how to level out flaws.
Home stagers can make a small room look bigger and a dark room look brighter by choosing the right rental furniture, positioning it the right way, and applying other tricks revealed by the professional home stagers in the article put together by the Houston Department of Keller Williams Realty brokerage.
Even if you don’t want to pay for a professional’s help, such simple steps as decluttering, using cool-toned light bulbs, and opening all window blinds can be taken by any homeowner, yet will make a huge difference in the way the house is perceived by prospective buyers.
3. It Appeals to a Range of People
Home staging is usually done in a certain way, in which people with all tastes, lifestyles and preferences are able to imagine themselves living in those exact surroundings. Many types of living situations are taken into consideration by professional home stagers. In the long run, this makes the property incredibly attractive to a wide range of people.
4. A Speedy Sale is Ensured
Because home staging tends to be such a rewarding practice, it usually ensures the quick sale of your property. The process is great at achieving positive first impressions among potential buyers. And, when it comes to selling your house, you will know all too well that good first impressions really do count. If you want to sell in the fastest amount of time possible, then this process is definitely worth looking into. It can greatly reduce the amount of time that a home is on the market.
5. Competition is Greatly Reduced
Properties that are staged when up for sale tend to be bought quicker than those that are not staged. Having a professional make your home look the best it possibly can lessen any competition with other houses in the area. The interior’s appearance will contribute to this, and the fact that potential purchasers can envision themselves living there will set the dwelling apart from the crowd.
6. It Attracts More Viewers
Home staging doesn’t only help you during the showings. It’s also beneficial when marketing your property online.
When attracting prospective buyers to come and look around a property, it’s first essential to market it to the public. This includes putting the pictures of your well-staged home on special real estate sites and social media.
“Quality photos will increase the number of potential buyers, which increases your chance to sell your house for an amount of money close or sometimes higher than the asking price.”—notes Kristina Morales, the licensed California Realtor, in her article on how to successfully sell a house.
If the home has been staged, many more people will get in contact requesting to view the property. The pictures will be much more attractive after a staging, which is incredibly important to keep in mind. If you’re going to use this service, then you need to be prepared to welcome an influx of viewers through the door.
How to Find the Right Home Stager?
Real estate agents usually have established relationships with trusted professionals, so if you’re selling a property with a realtor, your best bet would be asking them for referrals. However, it’s also important to make your own research.
Search for professionals via online directories, where you can learn about companies, look at examples of their work, read customer reviews, etc. Here is an example of a well-organized home stagers directory where you can browse home staging professionals by location and read their reviews to help you make an educated hiring decision.
Final Thoughts
Clearly, staging your home is a good idea to take into consideration if your house is currently on the market. If it’s been on sale for a few months and you’re not having much luck, perhaps this is because the interior of your property just doesn’t quite fit the bill in terms of what some prospective new homeowners are looking for.
On the other hand, if you are yet to put your house up for sale and want a quick and easy process, this is the best way to ensure just that. Property staging is becoming increasingly popular among homeowners and real estate agents, simply because it has proven to be so effective. It makes the house a lot more attractive, helps visitors to envision themselves living there and is great at taking away potential competition.
