Comments on: Need help staging my house! Any suggestions?

By: breakfastissexy

breakfastissexy — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:21:59 +0000

Formal dining rooms are a big plus. If one of the rooms is close to your kitchen, make that a formal dining for sure. If not, make it a nice room to sit and have tea or a beer or whatever, while overlooking the backyard.

With the other room, make it a bonus room, like the dormer. This could be a play room, game room, den, whatever.

What do you use the two rooms as currently?

When staging, keep in mind that LESS is more. Take down all the things that personalize the house too much. Bare bones it. Take down your pictures, knick knacks, toys, appliances, books, ect. ect. Have one or two main pieces of furniture and maybe a nice rug or lamp in each room to give an idea of room size and usability, but other than that, let it be. Use NEUTRAL colors. 20 bucks to paint a lime green room over in beige is a good investment.

Also, air it out and be rid of any smells. However, I’ve heard that the smell of chocolate chip cookies in a room makes women more likely to purchase something. I really did hear that. Make a batch of cookies, and set them out

Good luck!

ETA: Save your $500 to $5,000 and use $150 of it to hire some housecleaners to clean the home from top to bottom and make it sparkle! Saves you tons of energy, and people will notice!
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By: godged

godged — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:01:59 +0000

There are interior designers in my area that offer staging consultations for under a hundred bucks, with your own items.

I have clients that love the "rate my room" stuff on HGTV.

I think unless it is a higher end house, renting furniture and staging a house excessively is overrated.
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Oregon Realtor

By: glenn

glenn — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 21:37:59 +0000

When my brother and his wife sold their home several years ago they had one room where they stored "junk" or "stuff" and said to people that it would make a good office.

When they actually took the "stuff" out of the room (and out of the house) and set up an office in the room instead the house sold pretty quickly.

The vast majority of the time that is what effective staging does. It allows a visual display of what promise the home holds for the future of the buyer’s family.

I don’t think that simply hanging a piece of wrought iron on the wall or bringing in a nice chair is going to sell the house. I think you have to present the house visually as if no one (and no pamphlet) would be there to point things out to the buyer.

We humans do not have the imagination that most of us think that we do. We need to be shown.
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By: Paul in San Diego

Paul in San Diego — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 20:54:59 +0000

Well, how much do they want for the staging consultation? If it's a couple hundred dollars, it might be worth it. They can show you ways to stage your house for very little money that makes a huge impact on how prospective buyers feel about the house. And, if you end up getting an offer from someone who otherwise wouldn't have because the house wasn't presented properly, you'll be very glad you spent that relatively small amount of money.
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