What is "staging"?

What is Staging?
Staging is the process in which you get your home ready for sale, ready for the market.
Staging can be as easy as turning on all the lights and opening the blinds for showings, or as complicated as repainting walls, and rearranging furniture and decluttering the house- sometimes even storing some belongings.
Why "Stage" the house?
Statistics report that in tougher markets, staging is more important than ever. Staged homes can spend on average 50% less time on the market and yield almost 7% more in sales price. (info. provided by International. Assoc. of Home Staging Pro's. 2007)

What should I do to stage my home?
There are many things you can do to stage your home to help your home sell faster and for a better price that does not mean you have to hire a professional stager. Do the easiest things first, and go from there!
1) Clear the clutter. Box it, hide it, move it all into storage. Mounds and piles of clutter here and there turn buyers off and makes the home feel smaller.
2) Make the furniture make sense. If you have 2 chairs a coffee table and a loveseat, make them a grouping. Develop the area into a visiting place instead of just a spot for individual seating. COZY is the key.
3) Empty the countertops, clean off refrigerators. Make the kitchen look sanitized.
4) Empty off the bathroom vanity. Clean off the bathtub edges and shelves of shampoo bottles and soaps. Scrub the soap scum. Make the bathroom look sanitized.
5) Repaint. A fresh coat of paint helps every time.
6) During shows turn on all lamps and light fixtures. Open up the shades and let in natural light.
7) Keep the inside of the home warm in the wintertime and cool in the summer time.
8) Put everything you do not use into storage. Leave no clutter behind!

For more information or a copy of an article on staging, please email me your contact information.