Live like you’ve always wanted to live — at least until the house sells
By Never teh BrideI just happened upon a The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Staging your Home, which is how you know some concept has officially entered the collective consciousness. Naturally, there’s also a Home Staging for Dummies.
I only saw a single staged home when searching for properties around Boston, and I was more than a bit surprised. I saw many, many houses that looked like the owners (or previous owners) hadn’t even bothered to run a dust cloth over the windowsills. Personally, I was mortified when I couldn’t really even tidy up when showing my old apartment. Yes, I could clean the cat hair out of the corners, but the mountains of boxes made staging utterly impossible. However, the apartment was in a desirable area and cheap to boot, so it was snapped up quickly.
Why stage? According to a study conducted by Realtor Joy Valentine, staged homes tend to sell more quickly than their un-staged counterparts. Even better, the average difference between the sale price and the list price is 6.3%, versus a paltry 1.6% for unstaged homes. That means mo’ money. It’s pretty easy, too, when you consider the basic rules: declutter, let there be light, give a good first impression, show off your trendiest and more beautiful stuff, make rooms look bigger, and hide life’s detritus.
You are, after all, selling a HOUSE not a HOME, and there’s a big difference between the two. My mother-in-law had a beautiful house filled with fabulous antiques that really enhanced the space from the point of view of someone living in the house. But her house didn’t sell until she took the advice of her Realtor and put all those wonderful pieces in storage. He said, and I quote loosely, that people coming to see the house were gushing over her antiques and forgetting all about scrutinizing the structure housing them. Oops!
Here are some basic staging tips from About.com:
- Arrange sparse pieces of furniture in an appealing grouping known as a vignette
- Showcase a generous usage of soft fabrics such as silk, lambswool, satin
- Display unusual knickknacks in units of 1, 3 or 5
- Drape window coverings with simple lines
- Add unique elements to shelving, bookcases and fireplace mantels, which draw attention to predetermined areas
If your furniture isn’t that hot, pick the best pieces and stow the rest. If you don’t have any high-end knickknacks, pick the funkiest, hippest ones that will have mass appeal–think a kitschy vintage glass elephant statue, not a penis-shaped lava lamp. Frankly, I try to keep my kitchen and living room at a staged home level of neatness all the time because, hey, I never know when the Queen or Patrick Stewart might drop by.
Whatever you do, for goodness sakes don’t “chop” your pillows. That was considered cool for about a week until someone finally had the guts to tell the San Francisco staging company that started it all that chopped pillows look ridonculous.
April 17th, 2008 at 9:20 am
But…but NtB! My penis-shaped lava lamp is the single coolest thing I own! I just know Patrick Stewart will love it when he drops by for tea along with Tim Gunn and Stephen Colbert.
Hey, it’s my imaginary tea party. I can invite whom I like.
I wonder if Amy Sedaris is free….
April 17th, 2008 at 9:30 am
How about “if the house stinks like wet dog, even Febreeze won’t cover it up, so don’t compound the error by leaving the bathroom a mess and a month’s worth of laundry on the floor” and “the life-sized Uncle Fester with the moving eyes and booming voice next to the tanning bed in the rec room should be put in storage.”
Just saying.
Signed,
Someone who has looked at 48 houses in the past three weeks
April 17th, 2008 at 10:52 am
I would add also that you should take out all “personal” items such as wedding photos, kid photos and the like.
The goal is for people to see it as THEIR home, not yours!
And a coat of fresh paint. Always a coat of fresh paint.
Signed,
Someone who will hopefully be selling her place within the next year.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Glinda, I don’t mind personal photos. Indeed, I think they make the home look like a home instead of a hotel room. Not a refrigerator covered with photos and kids’ fingerpainting, mind you, but nicely framed, well placed photos do enhance a room. The nice photos — bride dancing with her dad, cute kid in a cowboy outfit — seem to improve a home’s karma. To me.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Agents always suggest removal of photos when staging but then they end up looking like hotel rooms. Last summer, when I thought to move up to a bigger condo, I started looking at places and several of them were staged according to all those staging rules. But the problem was that they were all identical and impersonal.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Ga’Linda (with a Ga) OK I just saw Wicked in Chicago! Loved It! Do you think that NtB’s note about staging unusual knick knacks in grouping of 1 or three include my collection of heads? One is split on the diagonal and screaming, another has a little head peaking out of the right eye, and a third is called slipping away where the halfs are sliding apart? (go to Sean Connor–Google it…) Just wondering if I should substitute Hummels for the tortured mind series???
April 17th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Sorry! Cuse me! Awe Inspiring Artist!
http://www.seancorner.com/
April 18th, 2008 at 6:15 am
Little Red — exactly! The overstaged houses have no personality! I don’t want clutter, but I want to know there is love and happiness in a home!
April 18th, 2008 at 7:14 am
Hummels? Bleagh! Keep the heads!
April 18th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
I still stand by my no photos creed. I’ve toured many homes and seeing a bazillion photos of the family makes me uncomfortable, like I’m invading someone’s privacy.
And hey now, I have Hummels given to me by my German grandmother, let’s not knock the Hummels!
The thing is trying not to off-put the buyer. If a buyer has a strong negative reaction to something in your home, that isn’t what you want. Even if it screams of your personality.
If you want to sell, unfortunately bland is the way to go. Your home is indeed a reflection of your personality, but not so much when you are trying to sell it.