8 Home Staging Ideas to Sell Your Home Faster

If you’re ready to sell your home but don’t know how to get it ready to list here are 8 Home Staging Ideas to Sell Your Home Faster!

Why Would You Want To Stage Your Home?

You spent all these years in your home and you absolutely love the way that it looks and feels. And why would any buyer not feel the same way when they came and took a tour of your home? Well, a lot of reasons, but first of all, your taste is probably so specific to you.

Making a home feel as neutral and non-specific to one person or one’s family’s tastes is going to help buyers that are walking through your space. Feel like this could be their new home, and they’re not touring somebody else’s home. And they’re opening the closet of somebody else’s home and feel like they’re intruding on your space. You want them to come into your home and feel like they want to look at every single detail because this is their new home.

Neutralize Decor

It’s no longer your home, it’s their home. You should remove things like Mickey Mouse decor in your kid’s bedroom, or the very specific daisy print that you like. The goal is to make everything feel very neutral and universally likable.

Think about hotels and hotel lobbies. Not only do they feel luxurious, but they also feel universally likable. Nobody walks into a hotel and goes, “Yuck! It’s so ugly!” High-end lobbies feel like you want to be there, but it’s also very neutral and non-specific to anybody’s tastes. So that’s what we want to do sort of as a goal to our staging.

But why are we doing it?

Great Photography is Imperative

We want real estate photos on a listing to be so enticing that they cannot wait to come and see your home! Especially now during COVID, every single person is looking at real estate online before they go and see anything. Buyers are telling their real estate agents if they want to go see a home based on the photos they see online. If the house does not feel in photos like it could be their home, if it’s too dark, or has outdated decor they’re probably not going to want to come to see your house. Making sure that your photos on the real estate listing look like a million dollars can be the difference between a potential buyer coming to see the house or just skipping over it.

Not only do you want to be on their list to tour, but you also want to be at the top of the list of houses that they want to tour. If you’re at the top of the list, let’s say they’re going out on a Saturday with a real estate agent. And they have five properties to see. They could see one or two and decide they want to put in an offer immediately because they don’t want anybody else to grab the house. And if you’re the fifth house down, they could have liked your house more, but they don’t know. So you want to be the top house that they want to see and staging is what’s going to allow your photos to get you there. If you make your photos look great and there’s a high demand to see your house, the likelihood that you’re going to close at ask above, ask or close to ask is so much higher.

How To Get Great Photography

Great photography does not mean that you have to buy all new furniture for your house. It just means that you need to: clean everything out, deep clean your spaces, neutralize decor, and accessorize appropriately.

Remove Eye Clutter

The bookcases are a perfect example of removing eye clutter. Although they were filled with books and utilized the space well when taking photography, filling packed bookcases would have looked cluttered to people viewing the listing. When a potential buyer sees clutter, it subconsciously tells buyers the house doesn’t have enough storage. By removing the “extra stuff,” you are able to convey to buyers that your home has ample storage and they will have plenty of space for their stuff when they move in.

Intentionally Add Decor

Now that you have removed the eye clutter, adding in decor that elevates the home is an intentional process. Using fruit to fill large bowls is a great option for tabletops, counters, and pantries. It will give the air of luxury by remaining neutral, fulfilling a need (everyone has produce), and subliminally indicate the abundant and fruitful (pun intended) lifestyle they will have if they live in your home.

Using trays to corral items like remote controls, books, small plants, etc. allows you to have everyday items out for use while still looking pulled together. I use trays everywhere from bed top to countertop, to coffee tables.

Remove All Indications Of Pets

The last thing you want to happen is for a homebuyer to walk in and smell your pet! It will automatically indicate to them that there are projects they would need to do if they bought your home. We definitely don’t want to give buyers a list of projects to do! (Humans naturally want to do as little as possible, it is neurologically part of survival). Here is the best way to remove the visual indicators of your pets:

• Put away food bowls
• Store toys away
• Move litter boxes to a closed closet
• Put away pet food
• Fold up and store crates
• Store beds (under the sofa usually works well)
• Clean your upholstered items (I use this for my sofas and it is amazing!)
• Take your pets out of the house for showings!

Clean Your Air

One of the first things home buyers do when they walk into a home is take a deep breathe, Do they smell some mildew? Is that a cat? This is a natural human instinct and it allows them to take inventory of the quality of the home they are looking at.

Now that we have removed all visual reminders of your pets, let’s move onto their odors. We go nose blinds to our own pets, it is totally normal not to smell your pet’s natural odors in your house, but visitors do smell it! Here is the process for removing pet odors from your home:

• Clean everything! A deep clean of all surfaces and upholstered pieces is very important.
• Have carpets and sofas steam cleaned if they are old or especially dirty
• Use activated charcoal to remove excess odors throughout your home. THIS IS LIFE CHANGING! All you have to do is hang 1-2 sacks of activated charcoal in each room of your home, it’s natural properties will absorb any excess odors.
• Make sure to remove the sacks from every room before showings and for photography.
• Place the charcoal sacks in the sun to “charge” them which allows you to reuse them again.
• Add a LIGHT scent story to your home by lighting candles in the bathrooms for showings. Use a scent like mint, eucalyptus or green tea so you don’t overwhelm buyers or make them think you ate covering up a smell.

Last, if there are any mildew or other scent issues not related to pets in your home, make sure you spend the time and energy to resolve them before you hit the market. If you don’t you will end up taking longer to sell and also probably paying to fix it in the long run anyway.

Make Them Forget About Chores

This sounds silly, but if a home buyers walks into your house, and is subconsciously is reminded about the chores and upkeep of the home, they will be turned off. Remember, humans naturally want to do as little as possible, it is neurologically part of survival.

How to make people forget about chores in your home:

• Clean up before they come
• Hideaway cleaning supplies like brooms and mops
• Put away all indicators of doing the dishes (sponges etc)
• Use beautiful amber bottles for soap dispensers
• Make sure the dishwasher is empty
• Make sure the washer and dryer are empty
• Put your laundry basket in your car (make sure they don’t see dirty laundry anywhere)
• Make sure all of your clothes are hung or put away in an orderly fashion
• Fold the towels in your drawers and linen closets
• Ensure the lawn is mowed and landscaping looks neat
• Make sure trash cans are empty

Remove Personal Photos

It is important to remove personal photos not just to avoid the awkward moment of a homebuyer recognizing you in a family photo! (Imagine if your co-worker toured your house! Awkward!) Removing personal photos also allows homebuyers to visualize their family living in the space and mentally making it their own. If they see pictures of your and your kids, they feel like they are snooping through someone else’s home, not visualizing their future!

Now it is time to implement all of your new home staging ideas and put your house on the market!