Home Staging Tips to Help You Sell Your Home Quickly

Whether you’re working with a real estate agent or selling your home on your own, the process can be stressful. This is especially true in today’s chaotic real estate market.

With a shortage of inventory, you may assume that you don’t need to do much to get your house to sell, but that’s not the case at all.

In addition to the lack of inventory, there’s an overall shortage of buyers because of high interest rates.

With this in mind, it’s important that you take every step possible to set yourself up for success in the transaction. Getting an offer is great, but you want to get the best offer possible on your home.

You also don’t want to sit idly by for months as other homes in and around your area get purchased. This means that you want to get a fast and fair offer on your home.

While your realtor can certainly help with seeing up showings and advertising the property, there are some steps that you can take to help make your home more attractive to potential buyers.

One of the most effective tips for selling your home involves staging your own home. Yes, you can hire a professional stager, but doing so is going to cut into your profits when your home sells.

Based on national averages, professional home staging can cost anywhere between $750 and $2,800.

If you’re trying to walk away from the transaction with as much money in your pocket as possible, you need to know how to stage your home yourself.

Why You Should Stage Your Home

Home staging is about helping potential buyers envision themselves living in the space.

Many people assume that they can show their home to potential buyers after they’ve already moved all of their belongings out of the space, or that they should just let buyers see how they’re using the space.

While you can certainly sell your home that way, one of the most popular home staging tips involves making the home look inviting while still being neutral enough that anyone can imagine themselves in the space.

Additionally, staging your home allows your real estate agent to post high-quality listing photos.

In 2023, roughly 50% of homebuyers started their search for a new home with an online search. That means that they saw pictures of the home before they ever set foot inside.

When you have appealing photos of your home posted online, you’re much more likely to catch the eye of a potential buyer.

When they show up at your staged home and realize that it looks just like it did in the pictures, they’re more likely to give you a fair and reasonable offer.

Professional stagers agree that one of the most important home staging secrets involves getting rid of potential distractions so potential buyers can see the most important parts of the home.

With that in mind, learn more about some steps you can take to stage your own home and set yourself up for a quick sale, even in today’s turbulent market.

Declutter the Space

Most people have more clutter in their homes than they realize. When you walk in the door, you may have a table nearby where you drop your purse, wallet, keys, and sunglasses. You probably don’t think about that as a source of clutter because it’s a convenience factor.

When you make your way through the rest of your home, there are likely other areas that have clutter. Maybe you keep your favorite snacks lying on the kitchen counter, or some books that you’ve been meaning to get around to reading on your coffee table.

Over time, one or two items turn into five or six, and you have some cluttered spaces.

This is especially true if your home has a master suite. It’s so easy to leave clothes lying around or your toiletries around the bathroom sink.

If you and your spouse each use different shampoos, body washes, and other items in the shower, those things clutter up the space.

When staging your home, look for ways to cut down on clutter. The goal is to help potential buyers picture themselves in the space, and it’s hard to do that when there’s a lot of clutter lying around.

Start With a Deep Clean

When many people think of staging their own home, they envision the people on house-flipping shows on TV who have access to a huge warehouse of furniture and home décor.

Frustrated by their lack of resources, they assume there’s nothing they can do, so they just let their real estate agent show their home exactly as it is.

Deep cleaning your home is one of the most effective home staging secrets, and it doesn’t require you to purchase anything special.

Once you’ve got all of your clutter neatly put away, you can start cleaning windows, dusting your blinds, washing down walls, and doing everything possible to make your home look like something from a magazine.

When deep cleaning, make sure to focus on the areas that you often miss when dusting and vacuuming. Clean your baseboards and crown moulding. Make sure to dust your ceiling fan.

Scrub the grout between the tiles in your kitchen and bathroom. Deep cleaning is going to take some time, but it’s an effective house staging tip that doesn’t require you to invest in any furniture or décor like your favorite house flippers on TV.

Removing Personal Items

Removing personal items such as keepsakes and photos may feel like a tall task, especially if you’re still living in the home.

However, it’s one of the most effective methods of helping buyers picture themselves calling your home their own. 77% of homebuyers in 2022 said that walking into a staged home helped them visualize themselves in the space.

While your treasured mementos and family pictures are probably among your most prized possessions, it’s important to be honest with yourself about the fact that potential buyers don’t care about those things.

If you’ve already purchased your next home, this step is incredibly simple, as you’ll have already moved those items into your new home.

However, if you’re still living in the home that you’re staging, you’ll want to move these items into quality storage totes or boxes.

Keep them somewhere easily accessible so you can still look at them when you want to, but when selling your home, removing your personal items is a must.

Neutralize Your Colors

One of the most appealing aspects of owning your home is the ability to truly make it your own. Many people like adding bright colors to their walls or through their décor.

However, bright colors are incredibly subjective when it comes to their appeal, so you’ll want to dial the bold color choices back when staging your home.

If you have children, it’s also normal for you to let them have a say in what color their bedroom and bathroom is.

These bright colors probably brought your children plenty of joy, but they may not be a hit with potential buyers.

Invest in some neutral-colored paint and tone down any areas where you’ve gone bright to suit your taste and the taste of your family. Remember, you can implement your own color choices in the house that you’re moving into.

Improve Curb Appeal

Contrary to what you may believe, staging your home doesn’t only involve the inside. When potential buyers pull into your driveway, they’ll form an opinion about the property before they ever step inside.

With this in mind, it’s important that you also stage the outside.

Start by cleaning and repairing any issues on your home’s exterior. If you have a damaged shutter, replace or repair it.

If your gutters need to be cleaned out, get that item checked off your to-do list. If possible, use a pressure washer to clean your sidewalks and driveway.

If you have an outdoor seating area, such as a patio, you have an excellent staging opportunity. Create a space that looks inviting on the outside of your home so potential buyers realize that they can enjoy the outside just as much as the inside.

Rearrange Your Furniture

Finally, consider rearranging or paring down your furniture. Large pieces of furniture that you’ve accumulated over the years can make your house look cluttered, so it’s a good idea to strip every space down to the essentials.

Additionally, don’t fall into the trap of thinking that the best way to arrange your furniture is to just push everything against the walls.

While that will certainly free up more space in the middle of the room, it can also make the space look too sterile.

Remember, you’re trying to sell people on the hominess of the space. It’s generally a good idea to float your furniture a few feet from the wall to create cozier sitting areas.

Let Your Home Take Center Stage

All of these home staging tips have one thing in common. They highlight your home’s best features and make it more desirable to a potential buyer.

Remember, you bought your home because you walked into it and decided that it was the perfect place for you to start making memories of your own.

These home staging secrets can help you highlight the same things that appealed to you so someone else will love the space as much as you have.