To stage or not to stage, that is the question…
And it’s an important question because home staging can make or break your sale in certain situations.
The first thing you should know about home staging is you might not even need it!
This is really important to know because home sellers often get bad advice and are told to pay for staging when it’s not even necessary.
If your home already presents well with your existing furniture and you don’t want to go through the hassle and expense of staging, you can skip it!
About half of my clients are able to use their own furniture after my team comes in to help declutter and do some strategic rearranging.
We might add in a few of our own accent pieces, but for the most part, we’re taking furniture out of the house to give it a more open and accessible feel.
This is a great option for you if you plan to live in your home while it’s on the market and you’re looking for minimal disruption to your lifestyle.
On the other hand, if you’re not living in the home and it’s empty, then staging becomes much more important.
This is particularly true if the house is in good condition.
In my experience, buyers can’t fully appreciate what your home has to offer when the rooms are bare.
You’d be shocked how an empty space can look so much more elegant when it has the right furniture…and buyers definitely respond to this with higher offers.
The third most common scenario I run into is when a client is selling a home that’s dated and showing a fair amount of wear and tear.
This is what we call a “fixer” and it attracts buyers who are prepared to completely remodel the house.
In this case, the buyers will have their own vision for how to transform the space, so there’s no need for you to waste money on staging the home in its existing condition.