Home Staging Explained

Home staging is the process of arranging furniture and neutralizing home decor to make the home appealling to the buyer mass. As you are well aware every home owner has their own personal taste when it comes to decor. Although this may be appealing when you are living in your home but once you have decided to make the decision to move, you have to view your home now as a product. Neutral paint colours to keep rooms feeling bright and light, decluttering to help the home feel spacious, depersonalizing to let the buyers invision their family in the home, help to capture your target buyer market. It is a proven fact that the average buyer takes 7 seconds from the time they set foot in the door whether they like the house. Your home as you state (2-story and 2000sqft.) would have a buyer market of a family with children. I would assume your home has 4 bedrooms. Each room should be displayed as it was intended. This means bedrooms should be shown as bedrooms, etc. Buyers need to invision space for furniture placement and also help establish spacial relations. In family rooms and living rooms, the furniture placement should be positioned around focal points ie. fireplaces., the rooms should have a flow and no visual or physical barriers. The furniture should be positioned as if you were having a conversation in that room, not strictly lined up against the walls. All personal pictures should be packed away. It is hard for the buyer to invision their own family in the space if someone else’s family is looking back at them. If you are thinking that you need a contractor to do repairs or worried about what a home inspection might find then I would suggest have a home inspection done yourself. I would even suggest a home inspector first before you hire a contractor or handyman to give your home a once over as they are familar with items that are necessary to present the home in tip top condition. Any good real estate agent who would bring you an offer on your house will have a condition in the offer regarding a home inspection. If you were to do a home inspection prior, there will be no surprises and therefore no abatement in accepted asking price. Keep in mind when you hire a home inspector, that inspector is working for you. You can speak to Roger Frost 795-8255 www.napoleon.cc for more info on that. Curb appeal is necessary and is the first impression of your home. In this weather the snow must be shovelled, walks salted at all times. In nice weather, trees and shrubs trimmed, planters with bursts of colour. All exterior lights should be working, house numbers in plain view, fresh mulch on the garden and lush green lawns. Furniture rental: I usually work with what the home owner has. I do this because it is not the decor we are showcasing it is the home. As long as the furniture is in general good repair and odour free is it workable. Furniture is only to show function of the room. I would only rent furniture in vacant homes, condos or model homes. For a home your size I would do a 1-2 hour walk through and prepare a detailed report with photos itemizing interior and exterior work that needed to be done both for preparing your home for the Real Estate Market. Depending on work entailed I would quote $200-$400 for home staging. Keeping in mind this is quoted for a sight unseen. I generally like to work closely with the home owner. I utilize your accessories and furnishings to create areas of interest in your home to showcase it’s feature strengths and minimize the weaknesses. You have made the decision to move, the first thing you can start doing now is collecting boxes and packing material and start packing…..! Leave big items out and work with those. Be ready to repair any dry wall cracks, peeled grout and leaky faucets, fresh paint on baseboards, repair nail holes from artwork etc…. and if you smoke now would be the best time to quit! You don’t want any potential buyers to knock your asking price. MOST of all, be realistic about the price of your home. Remember you don’t set the price, the MARKET sets the price of your home. If you want further information regarding anything please contact me at 734-7437 or through my website at www.centrestagehomes.ca Thanks again for your time and question. Sherry _________________ Sherry Wood-Canadian Staging Professional CentreStage Homes 705-734-7437