Selling a house can be a real odyssey. If you’ve finally found the home of your dreams or if you’re in the process of moving somewhere new and exciting, worrying about listings, open houses and everything else is a mood killer.
Not to mention the costs of keeping a property listed for sale for a long time.
Every seller has a common dream: getting the top-dollar for their property as fast as possible. Giving your home a good staging is the best way to do it!
What is Home Staging?
In a nutshell, home staging is preparing your property to receive its soon-to-be new owners. Through strategic redecoration and cleaning, you can dazzle potential buyers and make them more open to the full potential of your home.
When it’s time to part ways with a place you called home for years, you’ll probably want to see all the care you’ve put into it over the years turned into a good financial compensation.
Many real estate agents consider staging a necessity when selling a property. Here are some key points that will help you understand why home staging works and it can help you when it’s time to pack your bags for somewhere new.
1. Sell Your House Faster
Keeping a house on the market for a long time is a nightmare in terms of stress and costs. Many people still believe that the only way to a quick sell is to drastically lower the asking price.
But they couldn’t be farther away from the truth!
Numbers from the Real Estate Staging Association show that professionally staged homes are sold on average 72% faster than non-staged or DIY staged ones.
In 2021, that meant selling about 9 days faster! This means that home staging is not only the best way to sell your house fast, but it also enables you to make more profit from it.
2. Help Buyers Visualize All of Your Home’s Potential
A survey conducted by the National Association of Realtors proved how vital staging is throughout the listing process. 82% of buyers have reported that staging helped them visualize the property as a future home, and thus made them more likely to buy it.
You might know very well all your property has to offer, but buyers can’t always see all the details. That’s why a strategic positioning of furniture, decor and accessories can highlight the best features of your home to catch buyers’ attention.
On top of that, the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically increased the necessity of having photos, videos and virtual tours accessible to buyers. Over 40% of them report researching properties online before visiting them.
That means your home needs to be aesthetically ready to be showcased to buyers on the internet before they get the chance to know it, and that’s where a good home staging comes in handy.
1. Sell Your House Faster
Keeping a house on the market for a long time is a nightmare in terms of stress and costs. Many people still believe that the only way to a quick sell is to drastically lower the asking price.
But they couldn’t be farther away from the truth!
Numbers from the Real Estate Staging Association show that professionally staged homes are sold on average 72% faster than non-staged or DIY staged ones.
In 2021, that meant selling about 9 days faster! This means that home staging is not only the best way to sell your house fast, but it also enables you to make more profit from it.
2. Help Buyers Visualize All of Your Home’s Potential
A survey conducted by the National Association of Realtors proved how vital staging is throughout the listing process. 82% of buyers have reported that staging helped them visualize the property as a future home, and thus made them more likely to buy it.
You might know very well all your property has to offer, but buyers can’t always see all the details. That’s why a strategic positioning of furniture, decor and accessories can highlight the best features of your home to catch buyers’ attention.
On top of that, the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically increased the necessity of having photos, videos and virtual tours accessible to buyers. Over 40% of them report researching properties online before visiting them.
That means your home needs to be aesthetically ready to be showcased to buyers on the internet before they get the chance to know it, and that’s where a good home staging comes in handy.
3. Increase Your Selling Price
The biggest showcase of why home staging works are the statistics of how it greatly increases selling prices.
In 2021 alone, the Real Estate Staging Association’s market survey showed that staged homes were sold on average $ 40,000 over their list price.
That means that for every 1.3% invested in home staging, sellers were getting a 7.1% over-list return.
Numbers like these put an end to the old myth that selling cheap is the solution for selling fast. The speed and price at which your home is sold has more to do with its perceived value than anything else.
4. Decrease The Overall Cost of Selling a House
We all know it can be expensive to sell a house. Between legal fees and commission rates, sellers in Ontario can expect to pay upwards of $ 30,000 in closing costs during the process.
These high figures might make you question whether you should spend even more money on staging.
But the numbers don’t lie. Home staging will make your house sell faster and for higher prices, thus decreasing the overall cost of the entire process.
Over 70% of staged homes are sold over list prices, and hiring a professional home staging company can increase the value of every dollar you spend up to $ 1,500.
The bottom line is: home staging should not be viewed as an expense, but as an investment!
5. Make The Selling Process Less Stressful
It might shock you to hear that moving has ranked in the top 5 most stressful moments in a person’s life. But you’re probably very familiar with the amount of worries it can generate.
The whole point in staging your home is streamlining this process to get you packing and moving as fast as possible. The faster your old home sells, the sooner you can start working on your new home!
Are you ready to make your home a place any buyer can see themselves living in? Get in touch with us!
4 Tips On How To Stage Your Condo
You’ve dedicated years of your life and thousands of dollars to your condo. All the time you took planning, choosing a mortgage, paying it, decorating and maintaining your unit needs to pay off when it’s time to sell it.
The best way to get the most out of your investment as fast as possible is through staging[1] . When you prepare your property to make potential buyers feel at home, they’re way more likely to buy it.
Here are some tips on how to do it.
Declutter
The more stuff you have inside your unit, the smaller it’ll feel. The average condo is already smaller than most homes, so stuffing it up will do you no good.
Here are a few steps to decluttering your unit:
- Clean your counters from utensils and kitchenware
- Pack up your personal items (books, clothes, pictures etc.)
- Remove knickknacks, junk and miscellaneous from all surfaces, room by room
- Get a storage unit for your items while you’re waiting to move
You should always remember that a wide variety of buyers will come to your unit, all with different interests, opinions and aesthetic preferences. Having a clean and neutral space helps them feel more comfortable and less like they’re invading someone else’s place.
Scale down
While they’re often the most useful and comfortable options, big furniture might be taking up valuable square footage of your home.
Replace them with smaller items to make the space appear bigger and have a wider appeal.
Bring in the light
The first trick is to let in as much natural light as possible! You’ll want to remove heavy drapes, blinds and coverings from your windows to let the sun make your home shine.
Next, make sure to have cohesive lighting throughout your home. Changing old light bulbs to LED lets you match warmth and brightness in various rooms while making sure they’re perfectly lit up.
Also, it’ll help you reduce the cost of your electricity bill during the selling process.
Bonus tip: layers of light
Rather than a single lighting source, having multiple lights around the room helps you create layers to draw the eye and accent specific points.
Try to mix ceiling and overhead pendant lights with table lamps and floor lamps, for example.
A coat of paint
Think of your walls as a canvas that you’ll paint over and with the right furniture and decor your buyers can visualize their own life inside the unit.
The walls must be clean, well-painted and welcoming.
Use neutral colors throughout your condo unit, especially in rooms like bathrooms or kitchens where there may be more brightly colored elements present already (like bright orange tiles!).
Neutral colors will make everything feel cohesive and clean, which is exactly what buyers want when they’re looking at homes for sale!
But be mindful of the sterile and hospital-white hues that will make your unit feel lifeless, neutral shouldn’t mean boring! Stick with warmer and blue-tinted hues for a better effect.
Get the cleaning and fixing up to date
It sounds pretty obvious. But in reality, a good chunk of all properties in the market are full of structural and cleaning problems.
So just by getting your unit as well-preserved and spotless as possible, you’ll get a good head start. You should throw away those old magazines, get rid of old furniture and replace with new ones, and clear out the closet.
Vacuum and dust regularly to keep your place looking fresh and clean.
Don’t forget to get that old tile or leaky faucet you might have overlooked for years fixed before buyers start flocking in!
We know it might seem like a lot to do, but you don’t need to do it alone!
Here at House of Cerrelli we are experts in turning even the tiniest units into elegant homes-to-be no buyer can resist! Get in touch with us.