To stage or not to stage?

Is it worth it? That’s a question that comes up a lot. The good news is that there are different approaches to staging your home, depending on its value, the scale of the job and your budget. Whether your home is perfectly maintained and move-in ready or hasn’t been updated in a while, there are customizable solutions that will help you increase the value of your home when the time is right to sell.

Before getting into the various ways of HOW, let’s talk a little more about the WHY.

Even in a sellers’ market, if you want to get the best price for your home, it needs to stand out amongst comparable homes to a broad audience. More specifically, because buyers do their initial home search online before going to see anything in person, photographs are everything. What looks great in person doesn’t always translate as well in photography.

Once your home is camera ready, it will connect with more buyers online, generate more interest, more showings, ideally more offers, and everybody’s favorite – more money.

Now that you have successfully attracted serious home buyers with drop-dead gorgeous photographs, they will flock to see your home for real. Your home will connect with buyers emotionally (“I see many happy family game nights in our future in this awesome family room! Or – “I can so see myself unwinding in this luxe bedroom suite after a long day of conference calls!”) and rationally (“This home is a better value because it doesn’t need a huge reno!”). Staging helps buyers envision how your home is right for them, compared to other properties out there.

As a real estate agent, I get to see a lot of homes and understand what buyers love and what they don’t. When we live in our homes, we adapt our spaces to suit our particular needs. But how we live may not be how many home buyers would use the same space. If you have used an extra bedroom as your work-out room or meditation retreat since the kids are out of the house, a first time home buyer would probably be more drawn to a nursery or home office.

“But can’t they connect the dots themselves?” you ask “And see that this room could be anything they want it to be?”

In theory, yes, but physically staging a room allows buyers’ imaginations to do the rest and connect with your home. As a former advertising and marketing exec of fourteen years, I have learned that there is no replacement for creating such a connection with a customer and the way to do that is to allow them to experience it.

Now for the HOW

Depending on your property, I see 3 basic staging solutions that can help you sell your home quickly and for a good price. But before we get into any of that, it’s important to point out that a recommendation to stage your home is not a reflection on your personal style or how you live. It’s a strategy, which – I’m not going to lie – can feel invasive because this is your home after all. Your own personal lair.

It helps to keep in mind the overall objective is to have your home appeal to a broad array of qualified, serious buyers. That usually means depersonalizing it, nothing personal.

3 Ways to Stage: The All In, The Modular, and The Staging Light

The All In

The All In makes sense for different homes for different reasons. If you own a luxury home, a home in an affluent town, are due for a complete cosmetic refresh, or your home is vacant and has no furniture, this could be the right option for you.

The All In requires hiring a professional stager to fully stage most of the house. Your Realtor should have contacts with a handful of stagers that he or she recommends, based on your home.

The stager will often have a warehouse full of furniture, artwork and staging accessories at the ready. They will come to your home for a preliminary consultation and follow up with a proposal to stage all or most of the house. They will recommend what furniture and artwork should be removed (it can be stored, sold or donated), and will recommend updates like painting (almost always white) and replacing light fixtures.

Ultimately, you’re the boss and will decide what you are willing or unwilling to do.

Further, removing a lot of your things can seem daunting, but keep in mind that this exercise will ultimately make your actual move that much easier in the long run because you will have already partially moved out.

Your Realtor should help you organize the pre-staging work, by connecting you with storage companies, painters, and merchants that sell antiques and other valuables.

Physically staging a room allows buyers’ imaginations to do the rest and connect with your home.

The Modular

The Modular is a great choice if you only need certain rooms staged or you are able to use a lot of your own furniture.

Maybe you recently redecorated the living and dining rooms but the family room has a definite 1990’s vibe and your bedroom could move from functional to pretty and posh. This is a more cost effective way to stage a home and can be a solution for a house or apartment. In this case, your stager may own or rent the needed furniture, and you will choose whatever is more cost efficient. Either way, your Realtor is there to ensure that everything goes smoothly and the stager delivers on expectations.

The Staging Light

Staging Light can be accomplished by your Realtor and his or her many contacts.

She or he should give you recommendations on how to get your house ready for market and will help move the process forward. Usually getting a home ready involves painting (white), decluttering, perhaps replacing a carpet, minor repairs, moving around or storing some furniture, and getting the windows washed. Your Realtor will bring things in like throw pillows, plants and accessories to brighten up what you already have in your home. Staging Light makes sense when your home is relatively up to date and just requires some rearranging and sprucing up to make it feel more current.

Getting your home ready for market does take some time and planning so factor that into your timing of when you want to put your home on the market. Whether you are entering a buyer or seller’s market, an investment, large or small, in ensuring your home makes an impact when it hits the market is worth it. Done, right, you will save time by having your property sell more quickly and will get a good return on your investment.

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3 Approaches to Staging:Why Do It and How