Staging Tips for Your Home

Published: June 30, 2016

When it comes to buying a house, there are many factors that people look at during the process: proximity to city centers, school districts, home or neighborhood amenities… the list goes on! But no matter where your home is, or what it offers, one of the best ways to attract potential buyers is to stage your home.

Although it takes more time, effort, and work, staging your home can help buyers overlook your home’s shortcomings and fall in love with its potential. When it comes to a good staging job, you can go the expensive route and hire a staging company, or you can work with what you already have to spruce up your home and make it more attractive to buyers.

1. Get Rid of Clutter: the more cluttered your home, the less people can imagine themselves living there. If your home is messy or dirty, it might make potential buyers uncomfortable, and that’s not how you want them feeling when they’re considering buying your house!

2. Keep Everything Clean: Before you have people come over to view the house, vacuum, mop, and do some light dusting. Consider lighting candles or plugging in an air freshener that isn’t too strong (vanilla is a good choice), as people are easily turned off by scent.

3. Add Decorative Touches: Consider finding adding some colorful or eye-catching decorations—a new lamp shade, throw pillows, curtains—that give the home a clean, modern look.

4. Remove Personal Touches: Family photos are wonderful and heart warming to have in your home, but to potential buyers these touches are reminders that this home belongs to someone else. You want buyers to imagine themselves in this space, and that’s hard to do when they’re constantly reminded of you everywhere they look.

5. Neutralize Paint Colors: Although it requires a little more work than the other tips, painting interior walls a more neutral color (let your decorative touches be the bold, colorful things in your house) are more attractive and appealing to buyers.

6. Spruce Up the Exterior: the outside of the house is the first thing that buyers see when they’re considering purchasing your home. Consider doing some landscaping, pressure wash the house if it’s dirty, and make sure your gutters are clear and clean.