Do Your Own Home Staging. Tina Parker
to warm yet subdued colors, while the young family will be more open to what we think of as Crayon® colors with bright red, yellow, and blue as the basics.
Yvonne Root, rooms b.y. root, AZ
Developing Your Staging Strategy
There are various occasions when you might need to stage your entire home, but sometimes you will only need to stage a couple of rooms to sell a desired lifestyle. A staging strategy starts with developing an identity for your home and understanding where your house is situated in the marketplace.
Take an objective look around your neighborhood. Who would be most attracted to the area? Are there schools nearby? If so, what level? Are there shopping malls, fitness centers, nature parks, playgrounds, or skating rinks? You get the idea. Do not assume that potential buyers will be interested in your home for the same reasons that you were. The neighborhood could have changed for better or for worse or expanded to include facilities that weren’t previously there, and businesses could have evolved to accommodate different target markets such as seniors, families with young children or teenagers, singles, or couples with no children. All of these factors need to be considered.
Also take an objective look at the best features of your home to help you determine who would be most attracted to it. Does it have a large kitchen, a swimming pool, a large fenced backyard, a private tree-lined yard, a master bedroom with a bathroom and a walk-in closet, or four or two bedrooms? Keep these features in mind when considering how you will stage your home.
If there is a high school, shopping mall, or arcade nearby, stage the house to attract families with teenagers. Arrange the recreation room or family room as though teenagers live in the home. No, I do not mean piling clothes on the floor and putting posters on the walls. What I do mean is that you should borrow or buy items of interest to teens (if you do not already have them) and incorporate them into your home. Arrange your furniture for watching movies or playing electronic games, and perhaps place textbooks neatly on the coffee table or bookcase. Use your imagination — you may be surprised with what you can do! The space doesn’t need to look exactly as though someone in your target market really lives there, but your staging should suggest that the home would be a suitable choice for them.
The Key to Selling Quickly and for More Money
If you are like most home owners, you are emotionally invested in your home. You’ve poured a lot of love, sweat, and tears — not to mention money — into personalizing it to suit your own tastes and needs. However, if you want to sell your home quickly and for the largest sum possible, you’ll need to allow your potential buyers to imagine their own personalized vision of the space. Years of home ownership can foster strong emotional ties, and often, an initial hurdle to staging is detaching from these emotions. Begin to look at your home as a “house”; in other words, as a commodity, and as a product that needs to appeal to a wide market in order to sell quickly.
Most buyers rely on their hearts in addition to their minds when buying a new house. This is because they are not just buying a home, they are also buying into a dream or a lifestyle. If you leave it up to their imaginations to envision their dreams when they view your home, you are risking that they might not see any indication of the lifestyle they are looking for. If you use staging to guide their vision, you will influence how they feel in the home, which will have an effect not only on the number of offers, but also on the final sale price.
Preparing your home for sale is like dating!
I remember when I was single and looking for a soul mate to share my life with. You know: the dating scene. You send out smoke signals, tell people, maybe even place an ad in the newspaper or online that you are searching for a mate. You get several people interested in meeting you based on the characteristics they are seeking in a mate. You find someone you have things in common with — he or she may be what you are looking for!
Great, you’re excited! You’re getting ready for a date. Do you leave the house in your roughed-up jeans, with messy hair, wearing no makeup or cologne, and perhaps in need of a shower? NO! You get cleaned up, put on your best clothing and pretty yourself up the best you can with what you’ve got to work with. The potential mate meets you at a nice place and likes what he or she sees. You’re on your best behavior and display your most positive side. You talk positively and are positive about the future. Are you this positive all the time? Absolutely not, but he or she doesn’t have to know that on the first date. By now, he or she likes this first impression of you.
It is up to you to show your positive side, your lovable character, and your special features until this person falls in love with you. Then, and only then, do you show a little more of your negative side — which will be okay, because he or she loves you. If you show your negative side during your first or second date, he or she will run for the hills because he or she is not in love with you and cannot overlook your flaws.
The same principles apply when selling your home. Show off your home’s best features, make it look its best, make sure everything is functioning properly, and make potential buyers feel at home. Remember, if they feel at home, they will BUY your home!
A 2004 survey by Joy Valentine — Coldwell Banker Broker, on 2,772 homes in 8 cities, found that staged homes sold in 13.8 days, while homes that were not staged sold in 30.9 days. Even more convincing is the fact that the staged homes realized on average a 6.4 percent increase over the list price!
Why invest in a house you are leaving?
There are several reasons why you should invest in a house you are leaving. For example the marketplace is demanding move-in ready homes, the generation gap has created higher expectations, real estate is an investment to protect, and, by investing in your home it will sell more quickly and for more money.
When real estate agents were asked how much they thought staging increased the value of a property (in HomeGain’s 2007 national survey), 9.78 percent said $0–$1000; 11.96 percent said $1001–$2500; 29.35 percent said $2501–$5000; and 48.91 percent said $5001+! This is especially important when you take into account the 2005 and 2006 Maritz Research staging polls’ finding that 79 percent of sellers are willing to spend up to $5,000 to get their house ready for sale.
As mentioned earlier, most of today’s families and young professionals expect a beautiful and functional home, yet they don’t have much, if any, time to spend on home repairs. In previous decades, home buyers expected that they would need to take care of repairs, maintenance, and painting in order to get the home of their dreams. Buyers were also more likely to have the necessary tools and knowledge to make changes to houses with potential, which allowed them to buy with confidence. However, this is not the case with the majority of buyers today, who may require or demand a move-in ready home. The Maritz Research polls also found that 63 percent of buyers are willing to pay more for a move-in ready house!
Therefore, updating, repairing, and painting are necessary for preparing your house for sale in today’s marketplace. If not, you may have to wait a long time to find that rare buyer who knows how to see past existing challenges, such as outdated light fixtures, purple or dirty walls, green carpet, or dented moldings — all seemingly easy fixes, but not for those who aren’t imaginative or don’t have time for home repairs.
To protect your investment and maximize the value of your home, invest in small upgrades such as new countertops, faucets, light fixtures, flooring, and fresh paint. In fact, the Maritz Research polls found that the top three interior features for selling are freshly painted walls, organized storage space, and current flooring. If your house is up for sale in an area with other similar listings, your house will sell faster than those that have not addressed the features that will make them a competitive listing. Think about this. Your competition may have purchased this book as well.
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Home Improvements