Staging a home for sale is done for the purpose of creating the largest number of potential buyers. If a home is vacant, a professional stager will haul in furniture and accessories to create an atmosphere where potential buyers can imagine themselves living in the space.
If a home is occupied, a professional stager will de-clutter, neutralize and decorate in a style that holds wide appeal. While staging won’t make a home sell for more than it’s worth, it can set your home apart and boost the selling price to the top of the range for comparable listings. Staging a home can also cut market selling time. With nearly 90% of home buyers starting their search on the Internet, staging ensures that your potential buyer’s first impression is the strongest it can possibly be. Home sellers spend an average of $1,800 to stage a home, but staging costs can range from a several hundred dollars to $5,000 or more. To maximize your results and minimize cost, pay for a plan, but do the work yourself. Many stagers work as consultants, touring your house and offering suggestions on how best to present it.
When working with a consultant, you do the cleaning, the de-cluttering and the trips to the dump, or rental of storage space. Load up a portable storage unit from PODs, which will deliver the unit to your driveway for $75, transport it to a secure storage facility for another $75 and charge you a monthly storage fee of around $150, depending on where you live, the time of year and other factors. If your home is very cluttered and you have lived there for a long time, you may want to rent a trash dumpster as well.
For items you do not wish to keep, but still have value, many charities like the Salvation Army, Kidney Foundation and Battered Women’s Shelter will pick up unwanted items at your curbside and provide you with a receipt for tax deduction purposes. Among the accoutrements of home you’ll need to remove or stow: family photos, magazines, toys, cosmetics and other grooming supplies in the bathroom, counter top appliances and cutting boards in the kitchen. For fresh ideas, walk through a model home or view new home developments on the internet.
Your professional realtor will be the best source for finding a home stager who actually stages homes to sell. There are many decorators out there offering their services for home staging as an ancillary service, but there is a vast difference between adding personal touches to a home and staging a home to sell. The end game is for the prospective buyer to imagine themselves living in the home and making it their own. A well staged home will be neutral enough for the seeds of imagination to be planted, but will not feel so barren as to be impersonal. Your realtor will work with you to recommend staging if (s)he feels it’s warranted and will steer you to the best resource for your specific need.
