7 Tips for Staging Your House To Sell

Springtime is the hot season for selling a home. That’s because everything’s starting to bloom, there are more daylight hours to flood homes with natural light, and it’s a bit warmer.

There are several things you might need to do before putting your home on the market - renovate the kitchen and bathrooms, paint the bedrooms in more “sellable” colors, and patch up any damage that has occurred over the years. In addition to sprucing up your home, you’ll also want to stage it. Staging your home helps potential buyers imagine living in your house. The point is to provide enough of a lived-in feel without overwhelming a buyer with all of your personal things.

Keep reading to learn some of our favorite tips to staging your house to sell.

Beautify Your Landscaping

While most of us would like to say we don’t judge a book by its cover, the sad news is we’re evolutionarily programmed to. Within 5 seconds we can form a judgment of a person or situation to include a house. That’s why it’s so important that the landscaping in front of your home (and in the back) is well groomed. Be sure to pull up weeds, mow the lawn, cut off any dead limbs, and plant some fresh flowers to make your home look inviting.

Pro tip: trimming back trees or bushes that are blocking your windows can help increase the amount of natural light you get in your house - a HUGE selling point.

Have an Inviting Porch

Whether you have a front porch or front stoop, you want it to look inviting and cheerful. You can do this by giving your door a fresh coat of paint, adding a couple of pots of flowers, and placing a cute bench nearby.

Make It Squeaky Clean

We’re talking about everything here. The inside and outside of your house should look clean and well taken care of. Outside, you should powerwash your house siding and sidewalks and wash your windows. Inside, scrub and polish all your surfaces and deep clean your carpets. Being a bit neurotic about cleaning can be helpful when selling your house.

Declutter

When staging a house, you want to remove enough of your personal items like family photos and extra “junk” so a potential homebuyer can imagine living in your home. Getting ready to sell is actually a great time to declutter your home. Go through and declutter every cupboard, closet, and room to get rid of things you don’t need anymore. As you declutter, also organize those places. Homebuyers will want to open your cabinets and closets to see how big they are and you don’t want all your stuff to fall out on top of them.

But Make Sure It Feels Lived-In

Yes, we did just say take down excess photos and store personal items but you don’t want your end result to feel like a sterile showroom. Try moving other pieces of framed art to where family photos once hung or add a couple of blankets to comfy chairs. Moving small pieces around can still give a home a lived-in feel without it feeling like a buyer is intruding on your personal abode.

Dress Up Your Dining Room Table

Many home sellers overlook the importance of the dining area in a home. Homebuyers want to see the comfort they’ll have while eating in an informal dining space. If your house has a formal dining room, buyers will also get a better sense of how they’ll be able to entertain if you dress up your dining room table.

Maximize Awkward Areas

Every house has some awkward space in it. Instead of treating it like the ugly stepchild, make the most of the space. For example, a spare room might currently serve you as a bedroom/office/workout space. However, you can convert it into a fully functional dual-use room that doesn’t look terrible. Another example might be an area under the stairs. Add a bookshelf and a couple of lamps to add light to the space and serve a purpose.

Staging your home doesn’t need to be a troublesome activity. When you stage furniture and objects to show off all the space and utility you have in your home, buyers will chomp at the bit to put in an offer. The important things to remember are to keep everything looking neat, clean, and organized so a buyer can imagine themselves and their things in your home.