Tactics for a Successful Home Staging

After months and months of pondering about the pros and cons of selling your home, you have finally decided to put it on the market. Huge weight off your shoulders? Hardly. This is the point where you actually get in the game. Stepping into the labyrinth of our current real estate market needs strategic approach to secure a sale --- or your house will be sitting out in the open for months, or even years.

The best way to put up a good fight: a well-priced, beautifully-staged home.

A lot of potential home-sellers begin feeling adamant or at certain times ambivalent when it’s time to stage their homes. Understandable --- staging can become extremely stressful. Your house can become a sitting duck for criticisms (good and bad) so a great working relationship with your trusty agent is definitely a big plus at this point. An open communication with someone who understands real estate more than anyone, who knows what the place needs to get it ready for listing, will make things a lot easier.

So now that you’ve reach the point of no return, leave your emotions at bay and start getting technical --- and hardcore. A Trulia article shares 7 tactics to win the game.

• Conduct a recon mission. Jargon, that’s right. But it simply means scope out the competition. The moment the thought of selling comes into mind, go out and visit other homes being sold in the area during their Open Houses. That way you’ll be able to gather ideas about what potential buyers look for in a quality home.

• Create your plan of attack. Home-selling should be dealt with a scientific approach. Write down everything, be systematic. Comprehensively plan out your steps.

• Deploy the stealth tactic of demolition. It always seems like a great idea to buy new things for a more polished home pre-staging but with a very limited budget, bear in mind that the most powerful staging techniques are the basics: removing and getting those unsightly features out.

• Pre-pack. Taking the pre-packing approach harnesses the power of momentum toward the end of putting everything but the items you actually need to live your daily life in boxes and putting those boxes in storage or - neatly - in the garage, so they’re ready to go when your home sells.

• Wash, rinse and repeat. The kind of cleaning we are talking about is not the friends-are-coming-over type. No, no. You will be covering the entire home, corners, surfaces – even the places you haven’t thought existed. To achieve efficiency, clean from the outside in. It would also be a wise idea to hire a professional, a local cleaning crew for example.

• Fixate on trims and details. The scope of the whole homestaging process can be overwhelming so you will naturally think of the bigger things to do: house painting, floor stripping, moving furniture etc. Be aware that these things are just mere distractions that will knock you off your focus. Think of DETAILS. Concentrating on these little details will help you save both money and energy. 

One pattern you might note on your recon mission is that the homes that show as the most pristine, the most polished, are often the ones which were prepared with the most attention to detail. On the outside of the house, this involves making sure details like mailboxes, window shutters, eaves and even shrubbery are meticulously painted, trimmed and even replaced. Adding attractive flowers, door kick plates and knockers and house numbers are some inexpensive ways to add visual detail and a polished, cared-for look to an otherwise plain property.  Inside, window trims, door casings, moldings and baseboards have the same effect, as does ensuring that drawers and doors operate smoothly and that walls are scuff mark-free.

• Be brutally honest with yourself. After all the hard work, it’s time for evaluation. This may seem to look like the easiest of all the tactics but NO, it is not. This entails a high level of self-awareness. Have you done everything right? What else can you do? Go visit some more Open Houses and see for yourself. You think you do not have the technical observational skills, talk to your agent.

Do you want to work with a Realtor who provides quality home staging tips to his clients to help them save time, energy and money? Call me, Mynor Herrera, today for expert help buying or selling in the DC, MD, & VA areas! I also specialize in Bethesda and Chevy Chase, as well as the subdivisions of Rosemary Hills, Rock Creek Forest, East Bethesda and Whitehall Condominium.