Home Staging: Tips to Prepare your House for a Quick Sale

When selling a property, it is important to make sure you are
getting the best price you can for it. And while it may seem like a bit of a hassle,
property staging has been proven to help you get some extra cash when selling
your house. If you want to learn more about why home staging works and how you can do it is
properly in order to get the best profit, then keep reading!

What is staging your home?

When you are staging a home, you are preparing it in a way that entices
potential buyers to make an offer. The opposite of a staged house would be an
empty one, where no effort has been made to fix it up, such as a fresh layer of
paint, adding some plants, or decorating it with some artwork.

The role of house staging is to make potential buyers
visualise themselves living in the house. And as mentioned before, that can
mean moving furniture around to maximise the space properly, adding all sorts
of decorative material such as plants, paintings, rugs and so on, and making
sure that the basics such as paintwork, and flooring look their best.

Why should you stage
your home?

When potential buyers walk into an empty room, that may also
look slightly neglected, it will be difficulty for them to form a connection
with the place and visualise themselves living there. This is why you need to
give them all the material they need to help them make your house their home.

Not to mention that fact that staging your home will add value to your property and put some extra cash in your
pocket.

How much does staging a home cost?

This
will depend on the amount of work your home needs in order to look visually
pleasing, but home staging can cost anything from a couple hundred, up to
around £5,000.

How much can you earn
from staging your home?

While it may seem like staging your home is a waste of energy
and money, in fact all the effort you put into doing it will pay off in the
end.

Previously experts in the industry have estimated that
staging your house will increase the value of your property by 8%, so that can
translate to a nice sum of extra cash making the process more than worth it.

How to stage your home in 8 easy steps

Starting the process of property staging can be a bit
overwhelming, especially if you don’t know where to begin. We’ve put together a
list of the top 8 things you need to do if you want to sell
your property quickly and for the best price possible.

Declutter

This might sound like common sense to some, however, homeowners who are in a rush to sell their houses often miss out this step, which can lower their selling prices significantly. Decluttering doesn’t only involve cleaning the house, but it also involves removing excess furniture to make the rooms look spacious. Leave only the nicest pieces of furniture inside to give potential buyers enough to visualise themselves living there, but not too much to make it feel crowded. If you need help packing away your clutter, check out our blog post on packing tips for moving house.  

Rearrange the furniture

A good tip when it comes to house staging would be to do some
furniture grouping, away from the walls. You can take couches or chairs and
group them with other pieces of furniture, such as tables, making the room look
more spacious.

Repurpose rooms

For example, if you have one room that you use just for
storing stuff, a good idea would be to take the clutter out and give that room
a new purpose. This will show buyers that all rooms have a meaning and every
little space can be used for something good.

Change the lighting

Lighting is not only great for your selfies, but it can also
change the whole vibe of a property. Making sure you have good lighting is a
huge part of staging your property, and it’s something worth investing in. It
is recommended to have three types of lighting: ambient, task and accent, to
get the best effect.

Update the paintwork

A fresh layer of paint can make a room look bigger than it
actually is. When it comes to the living room, it is recommended that the walls
are pained in light/neutral colours, as bold colours may put potential buyers
off. However, when it comes to other rooms, such as bedrooms and bathrooms,
feel free to experiment with colour if you want. Darker and dramatic tones have
been especially appealing to young buyers in the past few years.

Accessorise the walls

Wall art can make a property feel like it has personality.
Empty walls will make it look boring and not at all appealing to potential
buyers. Any kind of art deployed in your house will break up the monotony and
make it look much more interesting.

Accessorise the room

Just like with the walls, it’s important to accessorise the
rest of the room too when staging your home. A tip would be to group together
objects, preferably in odd number like three. This has been proven to be very
appealing to the eye.  Playing around
with other things such as textures, shapes and colours in order to get the
interest of a potential buyer.

Don’t neglect the bathroom

Potential buyers will not only be interested on how the
living room and kitchen look like, but a nice bathroom may be what it takes for
them to say yes (or no). To make your property worth more, make sure the
bathroom looks brand new, the tiling is immaculate, and it’s just as nicely
decorated as the rest of the rooms. When you are home staging make sure you
don’t overlook this room.

If, for any reason, home staging is not a viable option for
you, and you are looking to sell your property fast, there are other options that can
help you to do so.

For more information, don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Feature image credit: arfa adam/Shutterstock