As the market changes, marketing a home and staging it for sale become ever more important. With our home sellers, we focus intently on preparing their home for sale. One of the most important tasks that we help with when it comes to marketing and getting a home ready for showings is staging. So what is staging and why is staging so important? Put simply, staging is the process of "setting the stage" for a home sale. We always tell people that we all live in a home one way and we sell a home a different way. When selling a home, we need to present a clean, well-kept, lovely, blank slate. I don't know about you all but our home doesn't look like that when we are living in it! Staging helps us all remove our personalized touches, elevate the aesthetics, present a home in its best light, and show buyers how easy it would be to move right in.
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Staging helps buyers imagine themselves and their furniture in the home and it also helps buyers envision how to use any awkward or small spaces that might be present. In staging a vacant home, the home is completely packed up, cleaned, and the stager brings in furniture, decor, art work, towels, and more. They create a unique vision for the space and bring everything they need to execute on that vision. If the seller will occupy the home during the sale, staging includes packing up the home, de-cluttering, de-personalizing the space, and likely redecorating a bit to allow buyers to easily see themselves in the space.
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How do we stage properties? We frequently work with Debbie Miller and her team at Main Street Staging. Debbie and her team do such an excellent job in helping our clients prepare their homes for the market. There are several different ways that Debbie helps our clients. If a home is vacant, Debbie and her team scout the property, envision how a home will show best in online marketing and during showings, and they make a plan for what furniture, art work, and decor they will bring in. They bring in the furniture, set it all up, and then remove it all before the home closes. If our sellers will be living in the home during a sale, Debbie does a staging consultation with them. In this consultation, she walks through the home with the sellers, gives recommendations on moving furniture, different maintenance projects that would be good to take care of prior to listing, and generally up-leveling the presentation so the home will shine when buyers walk through. She provides a comprehensive written report that clients can use to prepare their home for the market.
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If our sellers need to list their home quickly and working with Debbie isn't an option, we have a DIY Staging Checklist that sellers can use to prepare their home on their own. We have seen some great results lately with our staged listings. Even as the market has slowed a bit, we have seen our listings get good buyer activity and capture buyers even as the competition has lagged. Thank you Debbie and the crew at Main Street Staging for all your hard work! Until next time! Ken and Allison |