The Benefits of Staging Your Home – Even When You’re Not Selling!
By MC Dwyer
The secret is out: Staged homes often sell faster, and for more money, than those that aren’t. Due to popular home and garden television shows and the internet, home buyers practically expect houses to be staged. Staging not only helps buyers visualize themselves living in a home, it also highlights the home’s best features. What you may not know, is nearly every seller ends up telling their REALTOR®, “We wish we’d done this years ago!” and, “We almost don’t want to sell now!” and, “We love living like this!”
What’s so magic about home staging? Often, it’s not so much magic as it is a lot of good old-fashioned elbow grease. The main components include decluttering, cleaning, painting, furniture editing and re-arranging, and landscaping.
We live in a consumer society – we collect, we shop, we accumulate. Over the years, bringing more things into the house than we take out, the accumulation of “stuff” can build up slowly, almost imperceptibly. “Things” often have an emotional value – we tend to relate “things” to family, friends, travel and other memories. As a result, many people end up having a hard time periodically purging stuff. The process of decluttering – removing as much as ¾ of your “stuff” by packing in preparation for your move, donating, recycling, selling, and throwing away what’s broken – opens up space, both physically and visually. People who’ve just decluttered may even feel a sense of relief, freedom, and lightness. It’s like that old saying, “less is more.”
Ronnie Trubek of Century 21 Showcase REALTOR®s recently said, “Paint is a REALTOR®’s best friend.” If you are on a limited budget, paint is one of the most cost-effective tools in our kit. If you are a do-it-yourselfer, plan to spend nearly as much time on prep work, primer, and cleanup as on painting. Look through a few how-to articles or videos on the internet before you start, and be sure to consider current color combinations. Your agent or stager can give you color advice if you’re not sure, or refer you to a professional painter if you prefer. Either way, when the job is done, you’ll be amazed at the improvement, and likely wish you’d done it sooner.
Ever been impressed by retail window displays during the holidays? That’s merchandising at its best, and professional stagers have a knack for it. They not only know what’s in vogue, they can visualize how to make a room – or an entire house – look and feel fabulous. Some stagers are willing to work with what you’ve already got, by repurposing and rearranging. When a home or room is vacant, for a fee, they’ll bring in their own fantastic furnishings and arrange them to maximize the appeal of the space.
“Curb appeal” is essential – you’ve got to get those buyers out of the car and inside the house. Nothing feels worse than looking out your window and seeing buyers just driving by, shaking their heads “no.” Leave tree trimming to the experts for safety, but look forward to enjoying the benefits of more sunlight and possibly even better fire protection. Pulling weeds or blackberries is tough work, not for everyone. Planting colorful foliage plants from the local nursery, spreading a few bags of mulch around, straightening that leaning gate post or mail box…for many people, light gardening is a rewarding and fulfilling do-it-yourself project. Ask the nursery staff which plants will flourish in your yard – some may even provide fragrant bouquets to bring inside your home.
Whether you are selling or staying, staging is a wonderful way to freshen up how you experience living in your own home.
Real Estate Facts: April Single Family Median Prices: California $584,460; San Francisco Bay Area: $1,010,000; Santa Cruz County $899,000; San Lorenzo Valley $745,000
Mortgage Rates – 5/23/18 30 Year Fixed 4.5%; 15 Year Fixed 4%
MC Dwyer (CA DRE#01468388) can be reached at: mcdwyer@century21.com / Century 21 Showcase REALTORs