Realtors Advice: Home Staging Tips for Your Sellers

Home staging is no longer for just the affluent. In fact, it has become so crucial that Realtors find it hard to sell homes that aren’t staged. If some of your clients are planning to put their homes on the market this spring, it goes without saying that they should stage their homes for maximum buyer appeal. Home staging can help them reach their asking price and sell their homes quickly. Advise your sellers to put these home staging tips into action to make their properties stand out from the competition.

Focus on Curb Appeal

If buyers don’t like what they see outside, they won’t be motivated to go in. Curb appeal attracts buyers as they walk on the street, as they drive by in cars, and as they view pictures online. Most buyers will drive by a house before they schedule a showing. Tell your sellers to boost curb appeal by doing the following:

• Hang beautiful and clear house numbers
• Power wash siding and walkways
• Thoroughly clean all the windows
• Stain or repaint the porch floor
• Plant greenery and blooming flowers
• Mow the lawn and add fresh seed where necessary

Bid Clutter Goodbye

Clutter, or the lack of it, can transform a home in an instant. A cluttered home can repulse buyers no matter how gorgeous it is. A clutter-free home, on the other hand, gives a home a clean, elegant look and makes buyers want to linger. Remind sellers that buyers buy homes with the future in mind. They envision themselves in the space as it is. If a home is cluttered, they will think that their home will be cluttered as well; if it’s clean, they will think their home will be immaculate.

Decluttering is the single most important thing sellers can do to improve the look of their homes without spending any money. Advise your clients to make a house rule to prevent their homes from getting cluttered: for every new item they get, an old one must go. They should get rid of every unused item in each room. One of the main contributors of clutter is furniture. Too much furniture can make a house seem like a tiny box with no space to move around. Homeowners might have to get rid of as much as half of their furniture to make their homes look bigger. Ask sellers to scrutinize their belongings to determine what they can live without before decluttering.

Choose Neutral Colors

Some of your sellers might love bold colors which draw attention, but buyers might not. Advise them to get rid of bright colors and choose neutral ones which make rooms look bigger and homely. To tie adjacent rooms together, they should paint them the same color. A unified look will make two rooms feel like one big room. To create the illusion of space, they should paint walls the same color as drapery. Homeowners with sun porches can paint them green to echo the color of nature.

Focus on Lighting

Lighting, whether natural or artificial, can quickly brighten up a room. Tell your clients to let in light during the day by opening window treatments and by replacing heavy draperies with sheers. At night, they should use sufficient lighting in every room to make their homes attractive. They shouldn’t just depend on one or two sources of lighting, they can mix accent lights, ambient lights, and task lights.

These home staging tips will not only be useful to homeowners putting their homes on the market, they will also help those whose homes are already on the market. Home staging might not seem important to some homeowners so it’s up to you to explain its benefits. In today’s tough real estate market, a small detail can make or break the deal.