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The housing market has been hot. Throughout the country, a housing shortage mixed with high buyer demand has sparked a frenzy. Home buyers had been jumping on homes as soon as they were listed. But no matter if your housing market is still seeing quick sales or some softening, home staging remains important to get the best price.
What Home Staging Does to Your Selling Price
Staging is the art of preparing a home to appeal to the greatest number of potential buyers in your market. The right arrangements can move you into a higher price-point and help buyers fall in love the moment they walk through the door. Staging can transform blank walls and floors into a warm and welcoming home that buyers can relate to. The right staging can inspire buyers to realize just how valuable your home really is, and see the potential of their life in that home unfolding with every room they explore.
Home buyers who have toured a staged home are more likely to bid and accept negotiations well-above the market value. In a 2021 survey by the Real Estate Staging Association of 4,600 properties, homes that were staged sold on average $40,000 over list price. They also sold an average of nine days faster than unstaged homes—even in a hot housing market.
RESA found that investing 1.3% in staging results in an average of 7.1% over-list returns.
Why Buyers Bid Higher for Staged Homes
So why is home staging so powerful? Staging combines architecture, aesthetics and furnishing to manifest what really makes a home attractive to buyers. Staging can use the lines of furniture to enhance your sweeping architecture or turn a small space into a cozy retreat where buyers feel immediately at home in.
Staging is not “just decorating,” it's applied market research on what makes your house feel like a buyer's dream home.
Staging Shows Your Home's Best Features
Consider the difference: Here’s a before and after of a home staged by a professional stager. Staging transforms plain painted box-rooms into realistic and inspiring home environments. Every room is part of the lifestyle a home has to offer and every piece of furniture is an inspiration for how the home could be used by a real buyer family. Most importantly, a few details used by a home stager will show a home isn't just a set of rooms, it's a warm and welcoming lifestyle waiting to happen.
Professional staging often upgrades a home from “one of many” to “one-of-a-kind.” Buyers will be able to see the unique features and imagine how they might optimize those architectural lines and floorplan flow.
Staging Reduces Seller Stress
When you're planning to sell a home, the stress of preparing it for sale can be intense. After all, the right furniture arrangements, window treatments and wall art can increase the sale price—but how do you choose? One of the crazy and stressful truths of the real estate industry is that furniture arrangements and color pallets do make a difference. But you shouldn't have to guess at what that difference will be.
Working with a home stager takes that stress away. A professional stager is trained to bring out a home’s best features. They know how to draw eyes toward that cozy fireplace and enhance the natural light from the home’s picture windows.
Staging Helps Buyers Envision the Home
Most importantly, staging inspires home buyers to see their own lives unfold in each room. The simple placement of an elegant dining table, beautifully made beds, and welcoming seating arrangements transforms empty boxes into a future life.
Rather than walking through an empty space, in staged rooms, buyers can more easily imagine what they'd do with the space and how much they will love it.
Who Should You Hire?
Many homeowners consider tackling staging DIY but may find they don't have the right furniture, accent pieces or a designer's eye for real estate value-adding impact. Home stagers are plentiful. Some are trained and linked with a trade association, such as RESA.
Check out RESA’s Consumer’s Guide to Real Estate to learn more about the benefits of staging.
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