10 tips on staging your home to sell
It doesn't take long for a prospective buyer to form an opinion about your house. Here's how you can tilt the odds in your favor by making your home appeal to the widest clientele possible.
By Christopher SolomonYou don't have much time.
Prospective home buyers form an opinion about the home you're selling in 15 seconds, by one estimate. And the clock starts ticking at the curb -- even before the home buyers get in the house. So how do you tilt the playing field in your favor? Increasingly, it's by staging your home.
Generally speaking, staging means making your home as appealing as possible, as quickly as possible, to the broadest clientele you can.
"In this market now, staging is desperately needed even more so, because it's so competitive," says Julie Dana, who runs The Home Stylist in Buffalo, N.Y., and who co-authored a book on staging.
In fact, Barb Schwarz of StagedHomes.com estimates that about one in four homes nationwide are now staged. So if you're not doing it, you may be at a disadvantage.
There are techniques to pulling this off -- some of them obvious, and some not so apparent. We polled the experts to get some of their top tips.
Staging as un-decorating
Staging takes some effort and some money -- but it works. According to a study of 2,772 properties sold in eight California cities in 1999 that was done by real-estate broker Joy Valentine, staged homes remained on the market less than half the time that unstaged homes did -- about 14 days versus 31 days. The average difference in sale price over list price for staged homes was 6.3%, versus 1.6% for unstaged homes. You stand to gain $9,000 on a $200,000 house, Dana and co-author Marcia Layton Turner point out in their book, "The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Staging your Home to Sell."
Here's what you need to understand about staging: "How you decorate to live in your house and how you decorate to sell your house are very different," explains Dana. Decorating implies adding. But staging is all about paring away personal decoration. Why? Because the driving idea behind staging is to let people imagine themselves living in your home, leading the good life. It's NOT about you and your stuff and your taste.
Nearly everything in staging sprouts from this basic idea.
posted by StagedHomes.com at
9:25 AM
4 Comments:
This was a very well written article on MSN.com.
I received emails and calls from several people, who are not Stagers but who had seen the article and forwarded it to me. It is wonderful that not only was this article published but features Barb, IAHSP and Barrie Pinnell who is an ASPM in Dallas.
Once again, StagedHomes.com is the definitive dominant force in professional Home Staging.
You are in the right place, at the right time, with the right designation.
By
Trish, at 9:20 PM
I just wanted to say that another stager in the article, Julie Dana of the The Home Stylist in Buffalo is also an ASP. She wrote the book,
The Complete Idiots Guide to Staging Your Home to Sell.
Being an ASP helped to get the book deal and be interviewed by MSN.
By
Julie Dana, The Home Stylist, at 12:12 PM
I am always amazed at how far reaching Barb is - with her impact on others being able to capitalize on the Home Staging phenomenon - and use their own backgrounds and abilities to write a book or be featured in articles. I think it's great - and appreciate when people give acknowledgement to the person that helped them get their ball rolling too.
Good for you, Dana, for the book, and good for us all that we have had someone pave the way for us all these years! - Jennie
By
Jennie Norris, ASPM, IAHSP Sacramento Home Stager, at 12:39 PM
This article made everything I learned in Barbs class come alive again. I am in Long Island, Ny having a a tough time selling the concept. I believe in it. I actually have my first job this week. Excited and Nervous. I am here looking for ideas for a nice house with a master bedroom , play/bonus room that need attention. The home owner has asked me to come and help her (hands on homeowner) for an hourly wage. Since I am starting off I have accepted. Did I do the right thing. I want in this marketplace anyway I can. I would love feedback.
By
mina, at 4:57 PM
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