Posts tagged staging

Stage Your Home Without the Cost of a Stager

Apr27
2011 Leave a Comment Written by mary.w

There are simple things you can do to create an inviting portrait of your home. The purpose of staging your home is to reveal to your prospective buyers a vision of the lifestyle your home offers them. Rather than spending a fortune to accomplish this goal, spend some time doing a few specific things in living areas that will be their main focus. If you have hardwood floors, polish them immediately before your home is photographed or when your buyer is coming over. Open your window treatments allowing  sunbeams to stream across your floors. If you have a wood dining room table, remove your protective tablecloth and let the richness of the wood show through. Then enhance with a unique centerpiece or vase filled with fresh flowers that add a pop of color to the space. Set the table as if you were hosting a dinner party all the way down to place mats, dishes, flatware, candlesticks and sparkling clean crystal. Take it to the next level of elegance with your fine china and cloth napkins set within napkin rings on the plates. Kitchens are all about cabinets and counterspace so let those shine through. Clear away all the clutter and add a glass bowl filled with lemons or granny smith apples. Again, fresh flowers are always a plus. If you have stainless appliances take the time to polish away fingerprints. Get your granite gleaming and use some Murphy’s oil to showcase your cabinets. If you have a good sized dinette table, set that one too, but in a more casual manner. If you have a breakfast bar counter or breakfast bar island, set that instead of your dinette table to show the total potential of the space. In all the other rooms, shine, vacuum, and declutter. Remove remote controls and other eye distractions. If you have an ottoman, top with a throw and tray filled with a book teacup and saucer or coffee mug. This also works great if you have a lounging area near an outside pool or patio space.

Spend some time looking through home and decorating magazines and re-create scenes that catch your eye. Carefully staged bookcases can create a beautiful scenario. Make your master suite a private retreat. Something as simple as placing extra throw pillows on your bed and a fringed blanket across the bottom can completely change the feel of your space. Replace personal photos with carefully placed artwork.

If you have lived in your home for even a short period of time, things have become ‘ordinary’ to you and you will find yourself overlooking the scuff on the wall, the lack of window treatments, the mildew in the corner of your tub or the lack of shine on your floors, windows and appliances. Enter your home through the front door and walk through as if you were your buyer. You will see your home through a more discerning set of eyes and realize what you can do to create the best visual for your prospective buyers and convert one of them into the perfect buyer of your home!

Posted in Selling Tips, Tips and Ideas - Tagged , , ,

Latest Staging Tips

Apr15
2010 1 Comment Written by Shanna

A recent article in The Orlando Sentinel, “Staging Sells Homes,” examines current staging trends and how they affect what you should do to sell quickly.

According to Sandra Rinomato, host of HGTV’s “Property Virgins” show, “Until recently, ‘Staging meant pulling out all the stops — setting the dining table with your best china and crystal, arranging flowers, lighting candles … Now we take the minimalist approach. Basically, you want to strip the house to its bare essentials, depersonalize it, so potential buyers can superimpose themselves and their lifestyle on the house.’”

Keeping that in mind, what can you do to improve your home’s selling appeal? It’s all about making your home look new, move-in-ready and open for new owners.

Along the lines of answering that question, here are some past Buy Owner Blog articles worth reading!

  • 15 Minutes to a Better Staged Home: Do you have 15 minutes? Then you can start staging your home.
  • Spring Clean Your Way to a Sale: Though spring cleaning is a smart choice for all homeowners or renters, it is increasingly important for those trying to sell their house. Here’s how to get started.
  • Spring Means Declutter!: Beyond planting flowers and trimming your hedges, what do you need to do to prepare a home you’re selling for spring interest? In a word: declutter.
  • Depersonalizing for a Home Sale: There are many common problems sellers face when it comes to depersonalizing their home to make it more marketable. Take a look, and see if any of these hang-ups might be to blame in your home.
Posted in Market News, Tips and Ideas - Tagged , ,

15 Minutes to a Better Staged Home

Mar12
2010 2 Comments Written by Shanna

staging

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.

Posted in Selling Tips, Tips and Ideas - Tagged , ,

Staging the Garage

Nov28
2009 4 Comments Written by Carrie

garage

When you’re showing your property to prospective buyers, you want every inch of the home to be inspected and improved (if needed) in some way. In all your preparations, don’t forget the garage!

A garage could be a huge selling point to the buyer, especially if he/she is looking for storage space or even the possibility of converting the area into a livable bedroom or bonus room. Keep this in mind as you are cleaning and decluttering. No matter if you have a one-car or a three-car garage, you want to showcase as much space as possible. Consider painting the walls a bright white or yellow to lighten up the garage and make the room appear larger.

If everything is disorganized in bunch of boxes, you may want to invest in some built-in shelving, a workbench, a peg board or some hooks. If all of your belongings are put in a particular place against the wall, leaving a large space in the middle, buyers will be able to picture their own possessions placed neatly inside your garage, alongside a vehicle or two, with plenty of room to spare.

You could even personalize the space a little bit. A lot of garages are fitted with a small window. Adding a small curtain tells a buyer that the garage is lived in, as well as cared for. A colorful, yet durable, rug by the door also lets people know that you want to keep this space just as clean as the rest of your house. Just because you might store lawn equipment, tools or a car in the garage, that doesn’t mean that the area needs to look like an outdoor space.

Posted in Home Improvement, Tips and Ideas - Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Stage the Spare Bedrooms

Aug10
2009 1 Comment Written by Alicia

guest-bedroom

When searching for a new home, surveys have shown that homebuyers mostly focus on the kitchen and the master suite. Because the master suite is in the spotlight, home sellers tend to upgrade this room while forgetting about the others. However, chances are, if a homebuyer purchases a home with multiple spare bedrooms, it’s because they plan to fill them. Instead of only focusing on the suite, make sure all the bedrooms are staged to sell.

Even if you use a room for storage, clean it up for a sell. The potential buyers need to visualize the positive features of a room in order to imagine living in it. If they view a picture that looks messy and cluttered, that’s what they’ll imagine living in. That’s not a positive view to walk away with.

Advice to keep in mind:

If you’re repainting the master suite, repaint the spare bedrooms. If you update the master suite flooring, update the spare bedroom flooring. If you add a ceiling fan to the master suite, consider adding fans to all of the bedrooms. Try to keep each room as equal as possible.

If a spare room currently contains no furniture, check out local garage sales, flea markets or thrift stores for some affordable items. You don’t have to break the bank to make a room look good. You just need to make it appear livable and cozy.

If the room looks drab, move some furniture from another room into the spare bedroom. Add some brightly colored accessories to make the room look inviting. Don’t cover the windows with unnecessary clutter.

If the room is used as an office, a toy room or anything that indicates possible disorder, tidy the room up before showing the house. If used as a bedroom, keep the bed made and de-clutter the closet. Allow the room to appear as neat as possible.

Spare bedrooms tend to show off custom décor that may not fit every personality type. If one bedroom displays Hello Kitty wallpaper and the other displays a mural of planets and rocket ships, you might find excited kids that love the themes, or teenagers who are less than thrilled. Your best bet is to offer to paint the rooms neutral at the buyer’s request.

If you’re not sure what to do with an empty room, here are a dozen ideas from a past Buy Owner blog.

Posted in Selling Tips, Tips and Ideas - Tagged , ,

Staging the Backyard

Jul13
2009 1 Comment Written by Carrie

backyard

Here at Buy Owner, we have given you tips on staging your home for the summer. But what about the backyard? Chances are that potential buyers will want to spend a lot of time outdoors if you have a patio, a lanai or a swimming pool. So why not make the space fun and inviting?

Lanai/Patio
• Create the same feeling you would inside the living room; comfy outdoor furniture is a must.
• A dining area, with a table and chairs, is essential if you want to entertain outside.
• If you lanai is enclosed, potted plants will seamlessly connect this indoor space with the rest of the foliage in the backyard.
• If your patio is open, plant a garden nearby to catch the eye.
• Offer open house visitors some fruits or veggies from a tray you place on the patio table. However, if the patio is unscreened, completely outdoors, do not leave the tray outside and unattended where bugs and animals can get at the food.
• Set up the Wi-Fi capabilities to extend to the outdoor perimeter of your property.

Swimming Pool
• Check out this Buy Owner Blog post on swimming pool accessories!

Open Grass
• Consider adding a cement or brick paver patio.
• Create a small sitting area with all-weather whicker or wood furniture. Give the buyers something to do with the space. You can even offer to sell the brand-new patio furniture.
• If the lawn is bare, add foliage! You cannot expect trees to grow tall over night. Adding bushes and flowers is a start.
• Aluminum or wood sheds are great places to store equipment to maintain the pool or the landscaping.
• Create a “workout space,” complete with basketball hoop, a mini trampoline and plenty of room to lift free weights or do yoga.
• Build a fire pit, a custom bar or a niche for an outdoor grill.

Posted in Selling Tips, Tips and Ideas - Tagged , , , , ,

Staging for Summer

Jul06
2009 Leave a Comment Written by Carrie

floors

If you are selling your property during the summer season, it is important for prospective buyers to be warmly welcomed into your home. Buy Owner has also expressed that it is vital for sellers to stage their homes, to give potential buyers an idea what their furnished, decorated home may look like. So how do you get your home ready for a summer open house? Here are some summer staging tips:

Foyer

• If your foyer boasts tiling or hardwood flooring, keep the floor open. Remove any area rugs, as layers create unnecessary warmth when the weather is already hot.

• If you want to keep dirt from being tracked into the house, place a small mat right near the door.

• If you have a screen door, keep the main door open to allow for plenty of light to flow through the foyer.

Living Room

• Make sure a comfy chair is seated near the window to offer views of the outdoors; trade a lofty leather recliner for a light whicker rocking chair.

• For decoration, place a vintage screen door, garden gate, or a portion of white picket fencing in the corner of the room.

• Replace dark lampshades with white or cream-colored shades.

Kitchen/Dining Room

• Place a large bowl of fruit/veggies on the table, the counter or an island. Summer fruits include pineapple, peaches, cantaloupe and bananas. Summer vegetables include: tomatoes, green beans and cucumbers.

• Decorate the room with potted plants. Sunflowers brighten the room and give it a summery disposition.

• Cover dining room chairs with a light-colored slip covers.

Bedrooms

• Remove any heavy textures like accent pillows, down pillows, wool blankets.

• Create an airy, simple look on the bed with one or two white pillows, white sheets and a white cover sheet only.

• Exchange a wooden night table for a piece of whicker furniture.

Bathrooms

• Arrange a basket of scented soaps on the vanity; choose light scents like lavender, pomegranate or peach.

• Keep just one towel in the bathroom. Too many layers create too much warmth.

• If you have a shower/tub combo, keep the curtain/sliding door open.

It is not necessary to completely alter every single room in your house for a summer showing. If you making simple changes, lightening and freshening up your home’s decor, potential buyers will get the feel that your home is a comfortable place to live during the summer.

Posted in Selling Tips, Tips and Ideas - Tagged , , ,

Selling the Kitchen

Jun15
2009 Leave a Comment Written by Shanna

Kitchen

How to Stage Your Kitchen for Sale

When you’re selling your home, details matter. That’s why you should pay attention to every aspect, from the entryway to the laundry room and everything in between. Get these spaces into working condition, and you’ll get your home ready to be shown. But if there is one place that matters most—one place that deserves more attention than any other in terms of preparation—it’s the kitchen.

Long called the heart of a home, the kitchen is often the most-used room and the one where people tend to congregate. That’s why it only makes sense that by improving the kitchen, you improve your home’s likelihood of selling.

Here’s how you can turn yours into a true selling point:

1) Get Back to Basics: CLEAN! Scrub every nook and cranny of this space until it shines. Keep things clean, too – there should never be dishes in the sink on the day of a showing, and throughout the time your home is on the market, you’ll want to keep everything in mint condition.

2) Find Order: ORGANIZE! From the contents of your cabinets to the drawers to your pantry, organize everything. Put spices into alphabetical order, place all the cereal boxes together and keep silverware in compartmentalized trays.

3) Freshen Up: PAINT! Newly painted walls can be just the finishing touch that your home needs. Avoid bold or trendy colors, and choose instead warm neutrals that can work with a variety of tastes.

4) Replace Appliances: BUY! Energy-saving appliances would be your safest bet, as they’ll not only increase your kitchen’s appeal but also offer cost savings for their greater efficiency. That’s an upgrade buyers are sure to notice!

5) Give It a Face-Lift: UPDATE! Completely replacing all cabinets and countertops is a good idea if you can afford it, but if you’re looking for a lower-cost alternative, consider replacing the knobs or replacing the cabinetry with a less-expensive material. Cosmetics matter in a home showing, so think about visual appeal!

Posted in Selling Tips, Tips and Ideas - Tagged , , ,

12 Tips for Staging to Sell

Apr06
2009 1 Comment Written by Shanna

12

It’s a basic fact: Make it easy for buyers to see themselves in your home, and you make it easy for them to make you an offer. The thing that encourages this feeling could be called the secret to the home-selling process: staging. Effective staging should showcase your home’s strengths by opening up the rooms with strategic furniture and décor placement. It uses proper maintenance and appealing aesthetics to woo buyers. Here’s how:
1. Focus on Firsts: First impressions, that is. You only get one chance to make an impression, so the exterior of your home (what buyers see first) matters. Manicure the lawn, trim hedges, plant colorful flowers. Make sure anything that needs to be repaired receives attention. Aim to greet first-time visitors with a WOW factor.

2. Clean: Concentrate on the main living areas and the focal points of the home, the spots that guests are most likely to see. Ideally, you’ll want to work thoroughly through this step, getting into every nook and cranny of your residence. However, if you’re crunched for time, don’t worry so much about the less noticeable places.

3. Declutter: Especially in high-traffic areas like hallways, remove every bit of unnecessary stuff. Whether this means selling, putting things away in storage or giving donations to Goodwill, it’s time. Once your home sells, you’ll be moving anyway, so it makes sense.

4. Depersonalize: The point is not to make your home look sterile and stripped of character, but to make it neutral and inviting so a wide variety of potential buyers can envision themselves living there.

5. Draw in Sunlight: There’s nothing better than natural light. Open curtains, remove anything blocking windows and allow as much natural light into each room as possible. Bright spaces will appear larger, not to mention more aesthetically pleasing.

6. Add Strategic Lighting: Direct your lighting to highlight key pieces, such as the fireplace, built-ins or the dining area! Recessed lighting and dimmers can adjust to complement any kind of daylight, and track lighting can focus in on specific areas of a room. Every light should be deliberately placed to lead the eye toward a different part of the room.

7. Create Groupings: From a couch and two chairs to a loveseat with a side table and an accent piece, individual groupings, sometimes called scenes, are sectioned areas that draw the eye and create the illusion of space.

8. Think about Details: Take simple steps to increase the interior appeal by throwing a soft, colorful (not gaudy) blanket over a piece of furniture; adding an accent piece in an area you want to focus on; add scented soaps to each of the bathrooms; make sure that your laundry machines, the dishwasher, or other loud appliances aren’t running while visitors are in your home. The key is not to mask your home’s weaknesses, but to enhance its strengths. You are staging your home for an important date; make sure it is staged to perfection!

9. Add Visual Interest to Rooms: This previous Buy Owner Blog article offers some great tips for maintaining visual interest. Examine your rooms with a fresh perspective and ask yourself what a new buyer would see. Use decorating accents to draw buyers towards selling points: the fireplace, the gleaming hardwood floors, the elegant crown molding.

10. Get a Fresh Perspective: Ask a friend to come over and look at the way you’ve reorganized things. Ask him or her to imagine being a prospective buyer and see if this gives you a new way of looking at your rooms.

11. Appeal to the Senses: On the day of a showing, try to appeal to all five of a buyer’s senses. Visually, your home needs to be clean, well-decorated and arranged. But also, it should smell good (see this Buy Owner article for tips) and feel good (let buyers enter rooms before you do to maximize the sense of space). Putting out fresh coffee and cookies takes care of taste, and you might choose to have soft music playing in the background to complete the mood.

12. Spruce up the Backyard: Backyards have become a big selling point for people looking to purchase a home.

The ultimate principle to remember in home staging is simple: Get buyers to see themselves (not you) living in your home. Follow these steps, and you’ll be well on your way to a great showing!

Posted in Selling Tips, Tips and Ideas - Tagged , , , , ,

Top 10 Home Staging Tips

Feb16
2009 1 Comment Written by Shanna

Top-10-Staging-Tips At its heart, staging is about setting the stage for potential buyers, making it easy for them to imagine themselves living in your home. Here are some ways to do just that:

1. Focus on first impressions: You only get one chance to make a solid first impression, and those initial 10 seconds can make or break your sale. Look at your front entryway: It is the first part of your home to greet your guests and gives them something to study as you amble up to open it, so you don’t want a door that is flawed in any way.
2. Create curb appeal: Part of a buyer’s first impression will be dictated by your landscaping and the outdoor maintenance of your property. Manicure the bushes, mow the lawn, plant pretty flowers. In winter, shovel the driveway and salt down walkways. Work to create an impressive exterior, one that will draw buyers in!
3. Declutter: Get rid of all clutter—anything that you don’t need, put away. Rent a storage space if you have to. Doing this will make the rooms appear larger and full of potential, ideal for helping the buyer imagine living in the home.
4. Clean: Clean your home from top to bottom. Everything should be spotless, like a show home. Get inside the cabinets and drawers, too: potential buyers will open everything.
5. Freshen up smells: A pleasant aroma will invite guests into your home and it might even distract them from any clutter you didn’t have time to clean up. On the day of a showing, try baking a delicious treat, letting the scent waft through the entire house. Check out this post for some ideas on eliminating odors in your house.
6. Paint with neutral colors: If you repaint, choose neutral colors that could accommodate a variety of tastes. Remember, your preferences don’t matter here—this is about appealing to the largest number of potential buyers. Also, avoid stark whites in favor of warm creams and beiges.
7. Fix ups: This should be obvious, but it is worth saying—if anything is broken, fix it or have it fixed! Buyers want homes that are move-in-ready, not homes that need work done. Have you been waiting to replace the broken window in the bathroom, or were you putting off cleaning or replacing the stained carpeting in the living areas? Do it now!
8. Create clusters: Be willing to experiment with your furniture arrangements. Make sure that high-traffic areas are clear of excess furnishings to maximize space, and reposition sofas and chairs into cozy conversational groups. Arrange things to make the path for traffic flow obvious.
9. Details: Essentially, staging is about uniting various elements into one cohesive design. Think about details: An odd number of accessories is preferred, especially threes. Consider scale and placement when arranging knick-knacks, or try grouping them by color, texture or shape.
10. Turn on the lights: To make your home more inviting, increase the wattage in your lamps and fixtures to 100 watts for every 50 square feet.

Stage your home effectively, and you are on your way to a speedy and successful sale. Remember to focus on appealing to the largest pool of buyers and to do everything you can to put your home’s best foot forward!

Posted in Selling Tips, Tips and Ideas - Tagged , , , ,

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