Property Staging Explained

Selling a property can sometimes be challenging, especially at such a turbulent time, so you should make the effort to give your home the best chance of looking appealing to potential buyers. For vendors who are trying to make a good impression, home staging is a brilliant way to increase the likelihood of selling your property at a good price and can help to decrease the selling time. In this blog, we explain how vendors can stage their home to entice viewers and potential buyers so that they can sell faster.

What is Property Staging?

Property staging is as simple as arranging furniture and the interior with the intent to showcase a home for sale. You don’t need to splash the cash on revamping your whole home; a deep clean and removing day-to-day items from sight is more than enough. Although, if you do feel it is worth enhancing the interior with a lick of fresh paint or adding some new pieces of furniture, do so, as this can significantly help the sale process. But it is important to remember that home staging is not decorating. It is more about depersonalising your home, so you should look to remove items such as family photos etc. The general idea is to set out your home so that prospective buyers can envision how the property could look if they were to live there.

Ensure You Don’t Have Too Much Furniture

In living rooms and bedrooms, we can often cram up the space with furniture as a storage solution. While this is okay for you to live in, when showcasing your home, you don’t want the rooms to look cluttered or smaller than they actually are. To avoid this, we would suggest you clear out any extra furniture that isn’t required, e.g. keep to two or three sofas and only have one chest of drawers in the bedroom. When you move, it is likely you will need to use a storage company, so maybe just move some bits in a little early while you have home viewings. Emptying out rooms and stripping it back to the basics and necessities can help prospective buyers visualise it as their home. In addition to this, for more advice on how to sell your home, take a look at our previous blog that explores the rooms that are most important to buyers.

Keep the Colours Neutral

When viewing a property, potential buyers can find it hard to imagine themselves in the home if there are bright and garish colours. While you may love your bright yellow kitchen and purple bedroom, people searching for a home may struggle with this, and it could turn them away from your property. So, it is advised that you spend a little money on neutral coloured paints, such as magnolia. Go around the house and paint the walls so that the home looks more like a clean slate and a fresh canvas for the potential new owners.

Update Old Appliances

If you have appliances that are noticeably old, broken or just generally dated, it is a good idea to update them. Showcasing a property with old appliances can devalue your home and potentially deter prospective buyers. It is recommended that you install some stainless-steel appliances as they are modern, aesthetically pleasing and work well. Although, so long as your appliances look current and are in good working condition, there is no need to go out and buy new.

Have A Deep Clean

Arguably one of the most important parts of property staging is cleaning. While vacuuming and scrubbing the bathroom is essential, the cleaning shouldn’t just stop here. You want your home to look its best so you should steam-clean carpets, polish all fixtures, wipe down appliances both inside and out, replace shower curtains, scrub away any grime on tiles and so on. Nowhere in the home should show dirt or dust! Windowsills are a spot that is often forgotten about, and these can have a build-up of mould or general grime, so it is vital you have a wipe around all the windows. If you find you don’t have the time to do all of this or you are worried that you won’t do a good enough job, it could be a good idea to hire a professional cleaning service.

If you want to sell your home fast, property staging is a must. We hope that you have found this blog insightful and that it helps you to find your new homeowners! If after property staging, you still find your home is struggling to get off of the market, take a look at our previous blog where we share our five tips to sell your home. Here at Godfrey, Short and Squire, we are estate agents in Okehampton and offer homes around West Devon. We are committed to providing people with knowledgeable property advice so that they can either sell, buy, rent or let with confidence.

If you would like some advice or you are interested in searching for properties in the area, please do not hesitate to get in contact. Please email us on info@gssproperty.com or give us a call on 01837 54504 and chat to our friendly team.