Buy Owner Blog

Shanna 12 March 2010 Selling Tips, Tips and Ideas 544 views 2 Comments Print This Post  Email This Post

You can’t learn too much about real estate without hearing this crucial truth: staging matters. Take our posts here at the Buy Owner Blog, for example, where we’ve given you 12 Tips for Staging to Sell, the Top 10 Staging Tips and tips on staging for summer, staging the backyard, even ways to stage the garage!

It can seem like a lot to take in, especially if the idea of staging is new to you. But don’t lose heart! At its heart, staging is very simple. It’s all about making your home look its best.

So do you have 15 minutes? Here’s what you do:

1. Pick a part of your home: Choose the living room, a bedroom, that nook behind the laundry door that you’ve turned into an office, whatever.
2. Evaluate it: Thinking like a buyer would when coming to visit, evaluate your room/area and how it will come across. If it’s a bedroom being used as a closet, will this lessen its appeal to buyers? If it’s a laundry room with too much on the floors for people to walk through, will this hinder buyers from stepping through and noticing the built-in ironing board?
3. Make a plan to change: Based on the new perspective you’ve just gained, come up with one or two specific changes you can make to improve the area. Note that this step just requires you to come up with changes, not to implement them—that’s for later. Stumped for ideas? Consider these: clean the floors, pick up clutter, get a door fixed, dust the furniture, move the sofa to create a seating nook, repair the hole in the wall, etc.

15 minutes over yet? No problem. What you now have, based on a quick survey of the space, is a plan of action to make it look better. The next chance you get, put that plan into action and conquer one part of your home’s staging! Then, repeat the process with another room. Before you know it, you’ll have the entire interior redesigned and staged beautifully!

Bonus Tip: If staring at your home for 15 minutes leaves you drawing a blank, consider bringing in a fresh pair of eyes. Ask a friend to look at the space and give you their perspective, particularly if it’s someone who hasn’t spent a lot of time there before.

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