Take a quick glance at the real estate section of your local newspaper, the archives of your favourite real estate blog (ahem...), or HGTV’s prime time line-up on any given night, and you’ll see that home staging is one of the most acclaimed tools a seller can use to help sell their home quickly and for top dollar.
And the reason that so many in the real estate industry sing its praises is simple - it works!
The Art (And Benefit) Of Home Staging Photo
The best way to sell a property is to show potential buyers what their lives could be like if they lived there.
You want them to envision themselves inhabiting the space.
It’s tough for buyers to do this though if a property is stuffed with furniture, decor, and personal items that clutter up the space or draw too much attention to themselves.
Home stagers have the ability to remove the clutter, pare a space down to its essentials, and then dress it in a way that suggests all the possibilities the space holds.
I recently had a listing in the St. Lawrence Marketarea, a one bedroom condo of approx 550 sq ft.
The sellers had already moved out and the space was vacant - a blank canvas.
The only problem was that the canvas was too blank!
I told them that if we left the space empty it would be tough for potential buyers to see how they could fit an adequate sized bedroom set or a decent living room set into the space.
We needed to furnish the suite to show buyers just how much space there actually was.
We enlisted the services of my stager and were able to show the property at its best.
Needles to say, the property sold with multiple offers for 102% of the list price!
I generally advise my sellers that home staging is something we should seriously consider when preparing their property to go on the market.
Yes, it requires more effort.
But the potential benefits are well worth the initial investment.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen cluttered, poorly laid out properties sit on the market while similar properties sell in the meantime because they’ve been properly prepared and staged.
This isn’t to say that every property needs to be professionally staged.
I’ve worked with a number of sellers whose properties were already in top showing form and staging wasn’t an issue.
But for those who can benefit from it, home staging often proves to be a key factor in achieving a successful sale.
If you're thinking of selling and are curious about the benefits of staging, feel free to contact us for more info.