If you want or need to sell your home fast, staging furniture can make all the difference in attracting a buyer. Successful staging is a contributing factor to many of the quickest sales and to getting the best price for a home.
Ready to stage?
These 10 tips for staging furniture can help you easily transform your house into an inviting environment that homebuyers can’t pass up.
1. Consider curb appeal
The exterior of your home makes the first in-person impression on buyers. Many people drive by a home with no intention to see the inside unless they’re impressed with the outside. Stage your outdoor areas for buyers by power washing walkways and siding, hanging house numbers that are easy to read, mowing the lawn every weekend, planting colorful flowers, cleaning windows and re-staining decks.
2. Create a welcoming entrance
Whether you have a large porch or a simple stoop, create a welcoming entrance for potential buyers. Place a clean and inviting doormat, put potted plants around and make sure any outdoor furniture is in perfect condition. Illuminate your front walkway and door. Motion sensor lighting is a nice touch.
3. Make the inside sparkle
If cleaning the inside of your house to model home standards will take too much time or effort, hire someone to take care of this task. Making sure your interior sparkles and will be comfortable for guests (your potential buyers) is critical. Imagine that the person you’d most like to make a good impression on is coming into your home. Clean beyond that expectation.
4. Focus on your floors
Flooring is an expensive home remodel project. Help a buyer see that there won’t be much energy or money spent to enjoy nice floors in your home. At the minimum, steam clean carpets and give all flooring a deep clean. Wood floors should be either refinished, treated or waxed.
5. Clear away clutter
Model homes are attractive for a reason. They’re minimally decorated and don’t contain a lot of clutter. The house stands out, not the stuff. This is what you should aim for when you clean away clutter to attract a buyer. Staging your home to sell means that you should remove anything you haven’t used in three months (ideally clear away more than that). Put it into storage or in a family member’s garage. Clear floors, cupboards, closets, pantries, drawers and any other spaces where buyers will look. Get rid of anything even remotely unsightly. Try to keep only items that are neutral or classic in style lying or set out.
6. Rearrange furniture
Staging your furniture to create conversation spaces and open areas is ideal. Symmetrical arrangements typically work well. You’ll want to pull all furniture away from the walls. Put any old, worn furnishings into storage. If you find that much or all your furniture should be stored away off of the property, you can hire a staging company to fill in missing key pieces like armchairs, sofas and dining tables.
7. Go with gender neutral décor
Many buyers paint their entire interior with gender neutral colors before they sell. Some simply choose to have neutral furniture, artwork and accessories staged in their home. You don’t have to go with all white or beige to stay neutral. Choose colors for paint and furnishings that don’t make too much of a statement in any way.
8. Balance clean with lived-in
Buyers want to imagine what it would be like living in your home. While they want to envision your house as a clean and healthy space, it doesn’t need to appear sterile. A lived-in look helps people feel the warmth that’s possible, but don’t think buyers want to see a family’s weekday mess. Place a simple bowl of fruit on the counter or bunch of flowers in a vase to create warmth.
9. Set the dining room table
Dining room tables can tend to look bare, cold and uninviting. Keep your dining room table set with pretty china, crystal, napkins and silverware. It doesn’t have to be formal, even vintage place settings can create a beautiful aesthetic.
10. Open your closets
You’re going to have to purge your closets and stage them as if they were in a boutique. Fold and hang closes neatly, create order with shoes and accessories, and store away anything that’s bulging out or falling over. Tidy everything up and keep closet doors open so buyers don’t have to think twice about peaking inside.
Staging furniture and as much of your home as you can to impress buyers is incredibly important. It may take a weekend, week or month to do it – and possibly a bit of money – but in the end your house will present much better for a faster sale.