Staging Your Home Before Putting it on the Market

When putting your home on the market, small changes can have a large impact on your bottom line. Professional staging services out there can range from a couple thousand dollars all the way up to tens of thousands of dollars, it's up to you to decide if the ROI is right. However, if you have a home that's worth under $750,000 you're probably best off staging your home yourself. Here are some small staging strategies you can implement to ensure you get top dollar for your home. 

1) Maximize all space: After living in a home for many years, we often tend to overload rooms with furniture that we view as "nice additions". Often times what we perceive to be nice additions just make the room look smaller than it really is. For example, often times people put their TV's in entertainment units. If you want to maximize the space of that area, take out the entertainment unit and hang the TV on the wall. To make the project look professional add floating shelfs to put your cable boxes on, in some cases you could be adding on as much as 20 square feet to a room. 

2) Put away all personal items: This includes family pictures, your sons hideous painting from 3rd grade (which my mom still had on display until a couple years ago), etc. You want the potential buyers walking through your home to be able to envision the house as theirs and that is hard to do when you have family portraits all throughout your home. 

3) De-clutter: In general just de-clutter your entire house. If something is not essential to your every day living, then just put it away. It is a good idea to rent a small storage unit while your home is on the market to put all your personal items and any furniture that you have removed from your home. It is essential that you de-clutter your kitchen, this is the room where you want the buyer to feel they have enough space to be comfortable while preparing a meal. This means putting away the coffee maker, wooden spoon holder, TV, toaster oven, and just in general anything that makes the room look messy. 

4) Make everything symmetrical: Rooms must have a certain flow to them to appeal to buyers. Less is truly more when it comes to getting a home sold. You want to have everything lined up, and perfectly angled when showing your home. This includes pillows on beds and couches, dog beds, side tables, kitchen knife sets, blankets, etc. 

5) Make sure the house smells nice: When a buyer first walks in the house by nature they rely on their 5 senses to make a first impression. If the house smells damp or like an old dog who hasn't been bathed in five years, do all you can to cover up that smell. Whether you air the house out before the showing, light candles, or bake chocolate chip cookies make sure the house smells good and has a "homey" feel to it. 

As always, if you have any questions or comments feel free to reach out to me. KyleKovats@Gmail.com. 

-Kyle Kovats, New Jersey Realtor