When it comes to selling your home, staging can make or break a buyer’s interest. It’s important that you stage your home to appeal to a wide range of prospects. Here are some tips on staging that you can’t afford to miss, brought to you by TableChamp.
The Basics
Before investing in home staging props, view your house with a critical eye. You can easily fix basic issues, such as:
- Clean floors, baseboards, light fixtures and windows.
- Clean the furniture -- or for a reputable pro’s help, just search Angi for “furniture cleaners near me.”
- Declutter junk. You might as well tackle this project in advance. You may even be able to sell some of these items at a yard sale to help build your staging budget.
- Do basic repairs first such as tightening faucets or filling in nail holes.
- Depersonalize your home, but don’t make it sterile. Remove photos, trophies and plaques from your home.
Budgeting For Staging
You don’t need to spend a bundle to stage your home, but you might need a few key items strategically placed and a fresh coat of paint. Add sparkle and shine with projects including regrouting your tile, shining cabinet handles and reorganizing cabinets and pantries to be more appealing. Be sure to use a checklist to find other ways to make prospective buyers fall in love with your home.
Another thing you’ll need to do is to cover up damaged furniture. Of course, you are taking the couch with you, but tears and dents can give prospects a negative impression of your home. Look around to see what items need to be repaired, replaced, or covered over. Professional Staging has some easy, affordable home staging hacks to help keep you on budget.
Kiplinger has some interesting tips for staging on a budget, including “shop at home.” In other words, rather than going out to shop for perfect staging pieces, search your house, yard and shed for interesting items that can be repurposed, for example, replacing a broken curtain rod with a fishing rod to create a nautical-themed room.
Curb Appeal
An often-overlooked aspect of home staging is curb appeal. This is critical to get visitors into your home! Here are a few ideas that can help you:
- Make sure your lawn is freshly cut and free of weeds and bushes and trees have been pruned.
- Clean your gutters.
- Paint exterior trim and update anything weather worn (doorknob or knocker, shutters, etc.)
- A new mailbox can be a cost-effective upgrade.
- Wood chips and rocks are an economical way to add some landscaping.
Check out these 16 additional ideas to improve curb appeal from Reader’s Digest.
Staging Around Pets
If you’re a pet owner, you may have some extra challenges that you might not have considered yet. First of all, it’s critical that your pets are out of the home when you’re showing it. Here’s how to clean up if you have a pet:
- Have a friend come over to do a “sniff” test. You may not be aware of how it smells to people who don’t own pets.
- Clean up any outdoor pet messes and put away all your pet’s items. If you have a cat, that includes your litter box!
- S. News also recommends you get something to neutralize odors. Remember not to get anything with a heavy scent as some visitors may be allergic.
Staging your home can be scary, but with some elbow grease, a little creativity and a sharp nose, it doesn’t have to cost a lot to make your prospective buyers fall in love with your home.
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