10 Essential Tips for Staging a Home

Summer is the home selling and buying season. With the housing market on the rise, and in order to attract the most potential buyers, a seller needs to make a home attractive to potential buyers by emphasizing the strengths of the home and downplaying its weaknesses. In order to do this, most realtors encourage their clients to “stage” their house to sell. Home staging is the process of decluttering, painting, re-decorating and in some cases upgrading the home to make it appeal to buyers. This can be done by the homeowner, realtor or staging companies. There are many companies throughout the Baltimore, Washington D.C. and Northern Virginia area that partner with realty companies to help their client’s home sell faster. As part of this process, staging companies and realtors often rent self storage units to store their client’s excess items during home staging. ezStorage has 46 locations in the Baltimore, Washington D.C. and Northern Virginia area that have a variety of storage unit sizes to fit both personal and business storage needs. Below are ten essential home staging tips to follow if you decide to stage your home on your own. These tips are finishing touches to help your home sell faster.

How to Stage a House for Sale

1. The first step in staging a home is to declutter! Fewer items in a room actually make the room appear bigger! Remove excess books and accessories from the rooms and place in a self storage unit. 
2. Pack away personal photos and collections. A cleared room allows the potential buyer to envision their items in the room. Replace the photos with neutral artwork or mirrors.
3. Paint the room in neutral hues such as beiges, tans and soft blues.
4. Do not push furniture against the walls. Place the furniture in conversational groupings. This will open up the room and allow for a nice traffic flow.
5. Finish up projects around the house that have been started, but never completed. Fix cracks in the bathroom and kitchen tile, wood floors, windows and walls. If these are not fixed, it may affect the bid amount and buyers may ask for money for repairs.
6. Use fresh flowers in vases as accessories in your kitchen, dining room and living room during home staging. This is a great welcome to prospective buyers and it makes the room smell good as well.
7. In the kitchen, change out old cabinet doors and hardware for a fresh, updated look. If that isn’t in the budget, paint the cabinets and change the hardware.
8. Be aware of pet odors in your home. Remove pet toys from view during home showings. Be diligent in cleaning and be aware that prospective buyers could be allergic to pets.
9. A vital step in staging a house is making sure that the house is cleaned from top to bottom. It is important to sweep, mop and dust all surfaces so that the house is shining and inviting. Don’t forget to thoroughly clean storage spaces in the attic and basement.
10. Last, but not least is the curb appeal of your home. Power wash the porch, patio and walkway. Fix broken lights, windows and steps. Paint the front door an inviting color. Plant fresh greenery and plants around the entrance to the home.