Five Great Excuses For Not Staging Your Home
As a home seller, you may have heard that staging your home before putting it on the market can help you sell it faster and potentially for more money.
But then again, you may still not want to do it. You may feel that home staging applies to other people’s houses but not yours.
If this sounds like you, here are five common reasons for not staging. Does one or more of these sound familiar? If so, you may want to reconsider the benefits of home staging.
1. Staging is an unnecessary expense! A home staging consultation typically costs from $200 to $500, depending upon the size of your home — and right now you probably feel that it’s an unnecessary expenditure.
Well maybe… or maybe not. If staging can help you sell your home faster, it might save you from needing to reduce your asking price if your house languishes on the market for months.
In addition, the longer your home is on the market, the more monthly bills you’ll have to pay — which can quickly end up costing you much more than the price of a home staging consultation.
2. Our house has personality and we don’t want to change it! You, your family and friends may love your home just as it is; it makes you comfortable and it’s filled with things that make you happy.
But, when potential buyers walk through your door, they want to focus on the house itself. They want to see the rooms, the space, the layout. Staging can make your home much more inviting to buyers, highlighting these key elements so they can see themselves living in your house and adding their own personality, instead of moving into your life.
3. Staging is important for vacant homes. Many people think that staging is just bringing furniture into an empty home, so it doesn’t look so stark. But, if you’re already living in a place, then there’s no need to stage it.
The truth is that many homes on the market, including homes that have been professionally interior decorated, could look and feel more welcoming with just a few simple staging tweaks. In fact, once you see the difference it makes, you might find yourself liking it so much, (sorry!) you won’t want to leave.
4. Our view is our greatest asset, we don’t need to stage the interior: Yes, you might have a killer view all the way to Ngorongoro Crater or the Hollywood sign, but if house hunters don’t immediately notice your knock-out view because they are distracted by what’s inside your rooms, then you’ve downplayed your biggest asset. A good stager will create “pointers” that draw the eye to what you want them to notice first instead of your couch, your collection of porcelain tea cups, or a wall full of animal heads.
5. We know how to declutter our house, and that’s the same as staging: Um, not exactly. Staging involves calling attention to your home’s attractive details, such as the architectural sweep of a stairway, the height of a room, the lighting, windows, flow, and whatever else makes your home alluring to buyers. It’s like the difference between dressing in a perfectly tailored, elegant suit which highlights your best assets (and distracts from your flaws) instead of wearing a clean white smock.
If the idea of staging has piqued your interest and you see the benefits of staging your home, there’s many ways to move forward. If the cost is still a concern, you can pick up free home staging tips on sites such as RealEstate.AOL.com, you can buy a book on the topic or hire a Realtor who also knows how to stage homes as well as market them. And of course, you can hire a home staging expert in your area who specializes in making homes irresistible to buyers. What home seller doesn’t need that?
For a book full of ideas on how to make your home more attractive, get more buyers in the door and stay happier while you wait for it to sell, read Home Seller’s Blues and How To Beat Them, available in paperback and as an ebook through Amazon.com.
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Good blog post. I tell my sellers this all the time “you live one way, you sell another way”. Its so important to have a home staged either by a pro or the home owner just as long as it gets done. I see it all the time when we are showing homes or listing them, staged homes show better, sell faster and bring more money – its that simple.