Home staging

Home staging

What a nice looking cup of coffee. Just looking at it can water my taste buds and I can almost smell it. It’s been well prepared and is just the perfect temperature. Now, this is only a picture of what I consider a nearly perfect cup of coffee but upon closer observation, I managed to also include, in the image, a crumpled up cellophane wrapper. Now, once it has been seen it can no longer remain unseen.

Home staging is similar. In showcasing a home many different things can make a potential buyer turn and walk away. It could be something obvious like wall to wall carpet in a washroom, or something more subtle like a dirty doorknob that your potential buyer happened to touch, even burned out light bulbs. The home could be cold or damp, too noisy, or too hot. The one thing for sure is that once they are turned off of purchasing the property it’s really hard to change their mind.

So, it’s up to you, the agent or the seller to make sure the home is completely ready to sell with no potential turn-offs ready to jump into your buyers' field of sight.

Sometimes very little work is needed to properly showcase a home and sometimes it’s worth being honest with the owner and telling them honestly that work needs to be done to the home in order to prepare it for sale. The home could need a fresh coat of paint, updated cabinet hardware, new carpet. Etc..

Lastly, an empty house is obviously move-in ready and yet a lightly furnished home could be easier to sell as the buyer will not have to try to visualize what the home could look like when furnished. So, give some thought to staging the home or having it professionally staged. This is also good to keep in mind when photographing to home.