The Complete Guide to Staging Your Home for Buyers
If you’re about to put your home on the market, you obviously want your property to look attractive to buyers. Instead of simply tidying it up and hosting an open house, invest some time into staging your home so that your property truly shines. If you need a little help with staging, or you’re just not sure where to begin, you can seek guidance from Palm Beaches Home Staging! Furthermore, these tips will help you start decluttering, get organized, store your personal items, and stage each room one by one.
Declutter Your Home
When prospective buyers walk through your front door, you want them to see your home at its best. Even if you don’t mind a little bit of clutter, potential buyers might! Therefore, it’s crucial to start the staging process by decluttering your home.
Decluttering can be cathartic, and if you’re getting ready to move out soon, it’s important to get rid of anything you no longer need - that way, you won’t get stuck packing up unnecessary items. To declutter your home efficiently, A Blissful Nest recommends scheduling blocks of time to focus on decluttering, getting rid of items that you haven’t used once in the past year, tossing duplicate items, digitizing paperwork and important documents, and donating items in good condition that you don’t personally need.
Organize Your Belongings
Now, it’s time to organize any items that you have left. This might involve getting creative when it comes to storage solutions. For example, you may want to use flat boxes to keep items under your bed, or get some storage boxes for your garage, attic, or basement so that you can keep items out of sight from visitors.
Depersonalize and Stage Each Room
Staging your home is crucial if you want to sell your home quickly. By staging each room of your house, you can impress more buyers at open houses, draw in a higher number of offers, and even secure a higher sales price in the end. To stage your home in the most attractive way possible, you don’t actually have to spend lots of money. Instead, just focus on creating curb appeal, letting lots of natural light into your home, and highlighting your property’s best features.
Depersonalization is the first step in the staging process. You may love the family photos and sentimental items that you’ve put up around the house over the years - but potential buyers want to envision their own families living at your property! To depersonalize your home, StorSquare recommends putting your personal belongings in storage for the time being. You may even want to paint your walls a neutral color.
Staging Your Home Office
You’ll want to take a slightly different approach to staging each room in your home. After all, every room serves its own unique purpose! If you have a room office, you’ll want to set it up so that your future buyers can see themselves working productively in this space. Naturally, you’ll begin the process by decluttering and moving any of your own paperwork into storage. Next, you’ll want to include some basic storage tools, such as a sleek filing cabinet and basic floating shelves. Finally, make sure to add some lighting - a desk lamp or standing lamp can help illuminate the space.
Spruce Up Your Kitchen
When it comes to staging, it’s important to pay special attention to your kitchen. Prospective buyers anticipate spending lots of time cooking, socializing, and relaxing in the kitchen and dining areas of your home, so you’ll want to ensure that your kitchen looks inviting. Spend some time decluttering every nook and cranny of this room (including areas that you could easily miss, like the top of your refrigerator). You’ll also need to dust carefully, deep clean the entire space, and add a few colorful touches to the room, like a bowl of fruit on the counter.
Show Off Your Bathroom
Your bathroom may be a small space, but you don’t want to overlook it in the staging process! Bathrooms can easily get dirty, so it’s extra important to deep clean every bathroom in your home before welcoming any prospective buyers. You’ll also want to go the extra mile to make your bathroom smell nice. Air freshener and potpourri can both freshen up a room!
Focus on Curb Appeal
Finally, don’t forget about the exterior of your property! Curb appeal is important - your potential buyers will see your home from the street before they step inside, so you want to make a great first impression right away. To create curb appeal for your home, Real Simple recommends painting your front door, replacing your mailbox, updating your street numbers, adding potted plants to your front porch, refreshing your outdoor furniture so that it looks clean, and including some extra lighting around your yard. Throughout the process, you can take a step back and check out your house from the sidewalk to note any additional changes that should be made.
Take Great Photos
Now that your home has been properly staged, you’re ready to put up your online listing! To create an eye-catchinglisting, you’ll need some great photos to go with it. If you have a smartphone with a good camera, or if you own a high-quality camera, you may be able to tackle this on your own. If not, talk to your real estate agent about having professional photos taken. You’ll want to take lots of photos of both the interior and exterior of the house, and you may even want to add a few pictures displaying features from the surrounding neighborhood!
Staging your home takes time, so don’t try to tackle this entire process the night before you host your first open house or private tour. With these tips, you’ll be able to make every room of your home look appealing, from your kitchen to your office to your bathroom! Soon, you’ll be ready to show off your home to prospective buyers.
Ready to start staging your home? Turn to Palm Beaches Home Staging for guidance! Visit our website today to book a consultation.
Author: Erin Reynolds - Ms. Reynolds is a single mom who taught herself how to do home improvement projects and repairs to save money. She created DIYMama.net to help others find their spark to tackle home improvements too.
