How Staging Your Home Impacts Your Sale

This post is sponsored and contributed by a Patch Community Partner. The views expressed in this post are the author's own, and the information presented has not been verified by Patch.

Have you ever looked at a home for sale online and thought it didn’t ‘feel’ right to you? Like, something was just off about it? Maybe it lacked curb-appeal. Maybe it was outdated and worn-out looking. Perhaps the layout didn’t make sense or it was too cluttered.

Did you keep clicking through the pictures? Were you inclined to want to see this house in person? Chances are that for most consumers, the answers to those two questions would be ‘no.’ The reason why is essentially psychological, but also emotional.

We feel a connection to places and things when they are visually interesting and appealing to us. If we are buying a home, we want to be able to imagine ourselves living in the home. That’s where staging comes into play.

Design magazines and HGTV shows do a great job of showing us what potential homes can have with the right design elements & furnishings. In the same way, staging a home helps potential buyers to visualize the space and see how a floor plan could work for them if they lived there.

Now, there are different kinds of staging and different levels of cost and effort for staging a home. If a house is totally empty, for example, it may require having a professional staging company come in and set up furniture & accessories throughout the main living areas.

For someone selling a house that they still live in, a stager can work wonders with the existing furniture and decorations the homeowner has on hand. It really can be as simple as moving around what somebody already has, maybe removing a few extra items & clearing up clutter.

Keep in mind that a stager is different from an interior decorator. A stager’s focus is to maximize the home’s appearance in the pictures and in person. An interior designer will make the house comfortable and livable for the people who live there. And sometimes, there is a bit too much personal individuality when a designer is involved as opposed to a stager.

Take a look at this example with the before and after pictures. The ‘before’ pictures are for a home that was previously on the market. The ‘after’ pictures are after the home was staged. Ultimately, this home was sold within one week of going back on the market.

It’s important to remember that before you make the decision to have your home staged - in any capacity - you should definitely seek the advice of a real estate agent first. The reason for this is, the agent will know the marketplace and what buyers are looking for in that particular area & price point.

There are almost endless options when it comes to staging a home, and a real estate professional can help you determine what will be best for your needs if you’re considering selling your home.

The Spaniak Team - eXp Realty is one of the top real estate teams on Chicago's North Shore. http://www.spaniakteam.com

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