Home Staging Tips to get Top Dollar for your Home

Home Staging Tips to get Top Dollar for your Home

When the weather gets nice, we all want a new house. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but it feels like the sun gives us a burst of energy! Moving seems like a surmountabletable feat on a beautiful day. Families want the time to settle in before their children start school in the fall, and the real estate market responds. When it comes to home staging your home for sale, some simple but significant changes can make all the difference.

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Ditch the Clutter

Okay, yeah. It's the most obvious tip. That’s because it’s the most important! If you’re in a position to move out of your home before you sell, this is your best possible option. A clean space is full of possibilities. If you must stay in your home, consider storing away extra items and furniture while it’s on the market. De-personalizing your space keeps buyers focused on the big picture, instead of zeroing in on something small. I heard a potential buyer once reject a house because “the place wasn’t dusty, but it looked like it would become dusty”. I didn’t have the heart to remind her that everything will, in fact, get dusty eventually. We are full of emotions and energy when touring a home, and sometimes we as buyers get distracted by the smallest things.

HOW TO ACHEIVE IT: My favorite approach to organization is geographical. Pick a corner of your home at random and move left to right. If a shelf has nine items, can you reduce it to three? If a coat closet is stuffed to the brim, empty it entirely or leave just one coat to suggest its purpose. When it comes to personal belongings, less is more. The goal is to have our potential buyer saying, “I could fit my stuff in here!”

Keep walkways open

Maybe you have large family gatherings for the holidays... or host a full house for game night. Your home is probably set up to fit your personal lifestyle, and that may mean lots of big furniture to seat your guests. While seating and storage are musts for a functioning home, staging has some different priorities. It’s important that a buyer can tour through your home with ease, and that means areas around doors and doorways need to be wide open. Sometimes, we even remove end tables in the living room so buyers can walk freely between chairs. You may benefit from some slightly smaller pieces of furniture, so there can be plenty of space between items. An open flow from space to space gives the buyer some elbow room, and suddenly that price per square foot looks pretty good!

HOW TO ACHEIVE IT: First, make sure all doors (including closet doors) can open fully and easily. If they do, congratulations! You’re already ahead of the game. Next, think about the route buyers might take through your home, and eliminate any tight squeezes. This may be the time to put that giant, beloved recliner in storage. These days, many buyers opt to move out entirely and place staging furniture in the house. This furniture will probably be smaller, trendier, and professionally spaced throughout the home for the optimal tour.

Bright, Bold, and Beautiful

Color will always make an incredible statement. Blue is calming, purple is opulent... but all colors have the capacity to engage your staging superpower: light. Every color of the rainbow reflects a certain amount of light, and that reflection can turn a sad, dark cave into a bright, fun studio! The lighter the color, the more reflective quality it has. For this reason, a stager’s favorite wall is white. Not only does it provide a blank canvas for the buyer to envision their life on, but the reflection of light throughout your home makes it happy, sunny, and even energizing! Lucky for you, paint isn’t your only tool to bring light into your home. A well-placed mirror in a dingy hallway can reflect some light into the space. Open blinds, lots of lamps, and ceiling lights in a soft white color temperature all bring the sunshine in, letting buyers feel inspired by a home they can actually see!

HOW TO ACHEIVE IT: Honestly, I think you know what I’m going to say. If you have it in your budget, now would be the time to paint your walls. If you’re concerned about a white house looking sterile, go with a bright but creamy color like Sherwin- Williams “Alabaster” or Benjamin-Moore “Simply White”. If you want to go even further, replace your light bulbs throughout the house with a soft white bulb. Please be advised that this is NOT the brightest bulb available. It is merely the brightest bulb that still has warmth to it. The warmth will prevent your home from getting too sterile or fluorescent looking. These small details should brighten up your space and make it feel fresh for its buyer!

Call in Reinforcements

At this point, your To-Do list is getting pretty long. Preparing your house to sell is labor intensive, and sometimes sellers feel understandably overwhelmed. In these cases, consider calling for the help of a professional staging service. Professional staging lends the talents of experts in the field to help your home look and feel its best. They stage the home with new furniture, decor, and art that tell an intentional story to your buyers. Using this resource can give you peace of mind as a seller, and with up to a 20% value increase for staged homes, the investment has

proven itself to be valuable. As stagers, we often feel like fairy godmothers. We get incredible joy out of waving our magic wand over your home, and seeing our sellers reap the rewards!

HOW TO ACHEIVE IT: If you are a homeowner, talk to your realtor about professional home staging. Design2Sell is a real estate design group local to Atlanta that provides superior service and expertise in home staging and interior design. Our clients come first in everything we do, and our designers are excited to talk with you about your staging needs.

Reach out to us HERE to get started, and let’s make that dream listing price a reality!