Importance of Home Staging

Why Staging a Home Is Important

Author: Laura Mueller

If you want to sell a home quickly and for the best possible price, staging is one of the easiest ways to make it happen. Staging a home ensures that buyers see it in its very best light, and can help illustrate what a property can offer without requiring a complete makeover. And in an industry where making a great first impression can make all the difference, it’s easy to see how staging has become such an integral part of the selling process.

Buyers are encouraged (and rightfully so) to focus more on the “bones” of a house than its interior aesthetics. That can be tough to do though when clutter, outdated furniture, and loads of personal items attached to the current owners are on display in the listing pictures and during showings. As a seller, you have a lot to gain from making it easier on the buyer to see the true potential of a space—and to do it, you’re going to need to stage.

In the National Associations of Realtors’ (NAR) 2019 Profile of Home Staging report, they lay out a pretty good case for how staging a home offers benefits for both sellers and buyers. There’s a lot of good stuff in there to unpack, but let’s look at some of the specific statistics around home staging and its role in an efficient home sale.

1. Buyers know what they want
   
   74 percent of real estate agent respondents to NAR’s survey on home staging said that buyers know what they want in an ideal home before they ever get started on their search.
   Staging a home makes it easier for buyers to recognize when a house meets their expectations, while a lack of staging could mean that a buyer is unable to visualize the space—and what it can become—in relation to their vision. Among respondents, 40% said that home staging had an effect on most buyers’ views of a home, versus just 6% who said it made no difference.
2. Staging focuses on the potential, not the present
   
   Designing and living in a home is innately personal, and there’s a lot of variance out there in terms of style and taste. But it’s the buyer, and not the seller, who the home has to appeal to most while it’s on the market.
   According to 83% of buyers’ agents, staging a home makes it easier for a buyer to visualize the property as a future home. Meanwhile, 38% of buyers’ agents say that staging made buyers more likely to go for a showing at a home they saw listed online.
   Considering that half the battle of selling a home is just getting buyers in the door, it makes sense that staging would be a major help. Because while you can’t predict what everyone’s taste is going to be, you can stage a home so that it has much more broad appeal and is more likely to be attractive to potential buyers.
3. Staging prioritizes key spaces
   
   All rooms in a house aren’t equal when it comes to the importance of staging, says the NAR report. While 47% of buyers’ agents note that seeing a staged living room is important to their client, just 19% buyers’ agents say the same for bathrooms and 8% for guest bedrooms.
   This is good news for sellers, who may have limited resources to put toward a full staging. Knowing what rooms are important (the next three after living rooms are master bedrooms, kitchens, and dining rooms) allows sellers to prioritize specific areas when staging to make the biggest impact for the least amount of work—all while avoiding those rooms that don’t appear to make much of a difference.
4. Staging can increase the value of a home
   
   If you’re not convinced yet that staging a home is crucial, this might be the kicker. One-quarter of buyers’ agents told the NAR that staging increased the offering price by 1% to 5% compared to homes that weren’t staged. Among sellers’ agents, 22% say the same and 17% say it actually increased the offering price by 6% to 10%.
   Notably, 0% of sellers’ agents and only 1% of buyers’ agents said that staging had a negative impact on offering price. With nothing to lose and a lot to possibly gain, it stands to reason that staging is worth the effort. This is likely even more true for homes with unique or highly specific décor.
5. Staging can decrease the amount of time a home is on the market
   No seller wants to find themselves sitting on a stale listing. The longer a home sits on the market, the harder it can be to sell, meaning there’s a lot of incentive to get your home sold in as few days as possible. 28 percent of sellers’ agents note a slight decrease in days on the market for staged homes, and 25% report a substantial decrease. Only 12% of sellers’ agents reported that staging a home had no effect on days on the market.
   As for why staged homes tend to sell faster, it basically just comes down to the points listed above: staging helps buyers evaluate whether they can see themselves in a property and what the potential for the space is. And it can be a lot more productive than expecting them to do the heavy mental lifting themselves.

Effective staging doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. The median price of home staging is just $400, according to the NAR report, and this cost can easily be recouped if it leads to an increase in the home’s value.

As for who’s paying the price, many sellers’ agents take on the task (and the cost) of staging themselves, since it can make their jobs a lot easier in the long run. And in some cases it’s the seller who pays for staging, either putting that money toward hiring a professional staging service or tackling improvements on their own.

We’ve covered the best tips for staging a home before, but here’s a quick overview of the staging-related tasks that sellers should be focusing on:

De-cluttering. There’s a lot to gain from a lack of clutter. Getting rid of clutter is effective home selling 101, since it opens up the space and makes it look both bigger and more appealing. When you’re getting ready to sell, box up everything you don’t need on a day-to-day basis (including seasonal items, papers, and a majority of your home décor) and store it all away for your next home.

De-personalizing. It can be difficult for a buyer to picture themselves in a home if they’re confronted with actual pictures of a home’s current owners. The goal is to create a blank canvas, and for that, you need to stow away family photos and any other overtly personal items—including things like your toothbrush on the bathroom counter.

Deep cleaning. The same deep clean you do upon moving into a new home should also be done prior to listing your home on the market. Cleaning is essential to staging since it goes hand-in-hand with the goal of making a positive first impression. And if you don’t have the time to do it right, spend a couple hundred bucks on a professional cleaning service—it will be worth it.

Small repairs. Big repairs can be handled in post-inspection negotiations, but small repairs—think paint touch-ups and a bit of spackling and caulking—should be done during the staging process. These little fixes are quick and cheap to take care of, and can be glaring to buyers if they’re not.

When in doubt, go neutral. The four tasks above go a long way in most homes for sale. But if your home is painted in bright colors or if you have a very distinct decorating taste, then it may be worth going a step further with your staging by neutralizing the space for buyers. Get rid of garish colors by painting over walls in white, gray, or another standard neutral shade, and consider swapping out bright carpeting for taupe or beige. You may also want to rent a storage unit to house bold and/or excess pieces of furniture. It’s a costly endeavor, but could have a major impact on how fast a home sells—and for what price.

How much (or how little) staging a home requires depends a lot on the current state of both the home and the market. In a seller’s market, for example, there might be more lee-way in terms of appealing to buyers, with less stress put on the need for proper staging. In a competitive buyer’s market though, staging becomes even more crucial, since you need any advantage that you can get.

Work with your real estate agent to determine whether staging is important for your home and to what degree. If it means a smoother sale, it’s worth taking on the task.

Why Staging Matters

by Barbara Ballinger

In its early years, staging was occasionally used in vacant and hard-to-sell homes. Nowadays, more listings are staged than ever. Here’s why. 

Selling a home these days can be tough. Buyers have become more particular. Few people care that a seller spent decades collecting snow globes, colorful Fiestaware, or mugs from around the world. Instead, they’re looking for fresh, thoughtfully furnished rooms where they can create their dream setting rather than buy into the seller’s life.

This is why staging has become so important.

Fiona Dogan with Julia B. Fee Sotheby’s International Realty in Rye, N.Y., is a diehard staging advocate who recommends the strategy to all her clients. “You can’t list a house without staging it, unless it’s going to be a teardown,” she says.

The prime reasons staging has become commonplace is due to consumer demand and the proliferation of online home shopping, says Amanda Wiss, a professional organizer and owner of Urban Clarity in Brooklyn, N.Y., who added staging to her skill set.

“Most buyers first see a home online, so photographs matter,” she says. “If it’s too cluttered, they might not go look at it in person.”

While staging may have attained its popularity in higher-priced and vacant listings, it now appears in all segments of the market. As a result, more savvy real estate pros like Dogan recommend sellers have their homes staged before they list, no matter the price, size, condition, or location.

The goal is the same for all listings: to help the seller achieve the highest sales price in the quickest time, says Adelaide Mulry, an agent with Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty in Locust Valley, N.Y., also a professional stager and designer. The good news is that the number of people available to stage a home has increased dramatically in recent years, with 28% of listing agents staging sellers’ homes before listing, according to the National Association of REALTORS®’ 2019 Profile of Home Staging report.

Sellers can take their pick of whom to hire. There are full-time professional stagers, real estate professionals who have jumped in to learn, and professional organizers like Wiss. Some home owners like to do staging themselves, motivated by reality TV shows and Marie Kondo–style decluttering books.

There’s a growing list of courses as well, such as the three-day program offered by stager and designer Kristie Barnett of The Decorologist in Nashville. Other accreditation programs and industry designations—such as the Accredited Staging Professional or the Designer Society of America’s Certified Home Staging Professional—give a stager the chance to tout their expertise. Companies that offer staging resources have also become more plentiful in the form of attractive rental furnishings, artwork, and accessories. Some stagers and real estate pros prefer to buy merchandise, which Dogan has done.

Staging Works

After Wiss staged a two-bedroom condominium in Brooklyn, the owners received four offers at an open house that sparked a bidding war. The property sold for 25% more than the listing price.

Sellers who don’t stage a home before it’s listed risk losing out to comparable staged homes, says Christopher Barrow, co-managing partner and broker with Foundation Homes Property Management in California’s Marin County. “Nobody wants a home with Venetian plaster from the ’80s,” he says.

Staging first emerged in the 1970s after real estate pro Barb Schwarz, who has a background in theater, developed the concept and trademarked the term to help show her listings. It originally involved simple decluttering, making basic repairs, and arranging furniture; nowadays, it’s used to completely transform rooms and sometimes entire homes, so they look new. It can even go beyond adding furnishings; some use luxury towels, designer shoes, and handbags to suggest a lifestyle, says Lynn B. Telling, an agent and luxury specialist with Illustrated Properties in Palm Beach, Fla.

The number of rooms staged in a listing typically depends on a home’s overall condition, market competition, and listing price. But usually staging a few main rooms will suffice. “You can always leave a few spaces to a buyer’s imagination rather than do the entire house,” says Macie Barnes, director of strategic growth at Prevu Real Estate, a New York–based real estate company that focuses on buyers.

Buyers consider the living room the most important to stage, followed by the master bedroom and kitchen, according to NAR’s staging report. In each staged space, the goal is to create a universally appealing, updated, clean setting—what Dogan calls “today’s staged aesthetic.” Common denominators include neutral colored walls and hardwood floors (a rug is OK as long some flooring shows), a few pieces of comfortable, modern furniture to hint at a room’s use (perhaps a laptop on a table), mostly empty countertops and bookshelves, good modern lighting, a few accessories, and some art or a bit of color to add a pop so the space isn’t devoid of personality.

Fresh greenery offers a bit of warmth, says Barnes. Often, the desire to show some creativity is reserved for a small space, such as a wallpapered powder room. Barnes also likes to include a seasonal reference—a beachy vibe come spring and summer or cozy feel in the fall and winter—and at least one hot trend, such as a smart-home tech device.

Sometimes, however, more work is required to make a listing showing-ready because of the home’s condition or the market it’s in. Agent Barb St. Amant with Atlanta Fine Homes Sotheby’s International Realty recently had a listing in an Atlanta suburb that required interior and exterior paint, wood rot repair, kitchen and master bathroom renovations, and property landscaping to compete in that area. The home sold for 96% of its list price, went under contract within a month, and closed 30 days later. “There were nine to 11 months of inventory in that area, and typical days on market were from two to three months,” she says.

Although staging often calls for a spare look, in some areas complete household settings are making inroads—at least in trend-setting Los Angles. There, luxury staged homes are displaying more furnished interiors that are so complete, some buyers purchase what’s featured after they buy the house, says Meridith Baer. Her 30-year-old eponymous firm, Meridith Baer Home, in L.A., is hired both by agents and developers to stage their listings. The firm routinely stages 30 properties a week. “We want buyers to fall in love, and we do a variety of looks, from more minimal to very layered,” she says.

The Cost Breakdown

What a seller typically spends on staging is proportionate to the home size and condition, listing price, estimated return on investment, and competition. Sometimes sellers may not have to spend funds at all since some agents offer their time for decluttering, rearranging furnishings, and making suggestions. That’s the approach Kati Baker takes, a luxury home staging specialist with Downtown Realty Co. in Chicago. She rearranges furniture, bookshelves, and art and removes anything in the house that may cause an off-putting smell.

Dogan always works with sellers to determine the level of staging needed to best show off their home and within their budget. She covers the cost of a staging consultant to assess the home pre-listing. If the seller wants to use the stager, Dogan hires the person, but the seller pays for the services and any related costs. Dogan will also tap into her own inventory of items for some stagings. Typically, her sellers’ costs range from $2,000 to $5,000, which might involve a simple paint refresh or furniture rental, she says.

However, staging a large vacant house may cost significantly more, upwards of $30,000 for some of her listings. But Dogan says the return on investment can be $50,000 or greater in her New York market. On average, sellers see about a 5% return on investment nationwide, according to the 2019 NAR report.

St. Amant offers sellers a free two-hour consultation with a stager. Most stagers in her area charge $125 to $250 an hour. The goal, she says, is to spend the least amount of money and get the greatest return. And some sellers invest significantly. A client of St. Amant, who lived in a neighborhood with $1 million homes, recently spent more than $100,000 getting the house ready to list, half of which went toward deferred maintenance.

“With advice from the stager, we made necessary changes to the 30-year-old home and quickly got an offer that was nearly $200,000 over what we might have if it hadn’t been updated and staged,” she says.

Not all sellers can afford to do this, so it’s important that agents work within a budget.

Mulry reminds sellers that the cost of staging is nominal compared to a possible price reduction they’d have to make if the home sits on the market, unstaged, with little interest from buyers.

10 Questions to Ask When Hiring A Stager

Help clients do their staging homework. First, find out what comparable homes look like and whether they’re staged. Then interview potential stagers with these questions.

•  Can I see before-and-after photos of jobs you’ve handled? Can you explain what you did and why?
•  Do you usually stage all the rooms in a house or condo, or just a few key rooms? Which ones?
•  Do you recommend taking down artwork and curtains and removing most accessories?
•  Do you have access to a staging inventory that you own or rent? If the furnishings will be rented, how long is the rental period?
•  Can any of my client’s furnishings be used for staging, and if so, which ones?
•  Do you recommend other improvements, such as painting, polishing floors, or resurfacing kitchen cabinets if you believe it’s required?
•  Do you offer expertise concerning the property’s exterior?
•  How will the seller will be charged? Is it by the number of rooms, hours on the clock, or a flat fee for the entire project?
•  What’s your average return on investment? How much might my seller might realize if the home is staged versus not staged?
•  Can my client get the specifics of your staging proposal in writing?

Source: Christopher Barrow, Foundation Homes Property Management, Marin County, Calif.

The Importance And Impact Of Staging Your Home For Sale

By: Melinda Estridge

Staging has been a buzzword for many years in the real estate business, but it’s important to understand that staging goes much further than placing furniture in a home that is going on the market for sale. Preparing a home for the current buyer demographic these days is critical in order to achieve top dollar.

Why Invest In Staging?

Well-executed staging takes a look at the overall condition of the home with the help of a pre-inspection and updating any dated or tired elements of the property. Crystal and brass chandeliers, different paint colors in every room, gold fixtures in bathrooms and dated cabinetry and appliances are all typically seen as negative finishes to buyers today.

When facing the question of staging, sellers often respond with, “Why would I go through the effort of remodeling when a buyer is going to want to choose their own updates?” The answer is a lack of time and resources. Usually, a buyer buys at the top of their price point. There is often not enough money in the budget left for improvements after the down payment and closing costs. In most cases, buyers also do not have the time to take on projects right away, especially if they are new to the area and do not know contractors.

Essential Elements In Staging

If you as the seller can neutralize a home, update lighting fixtures, paint dated cabinetry, replace older kitchen appliances and flooring, refinish hardwood floors with today’s preferred color schemes and install new carpeting where needed, your profit is often three times the investment in the upgrades. I have been staging and preparing homes for over 30 years and can assure this.

Mismatching or tired furniture is also not the best way to highlight the home. Smart staging will result in placing new or rented furniture, art and decorative items in the home, or it will work with an owner’s existing pieces and add or subtract whatever is necessary. Don’t forget the exterior as well. Chipping paint, rotted wood and overgrown or badly tended yards are also turn-offs to potential buyers. Working with a seasoned real estate agent can help sellers come up with an overall plan to maximize profit, work with contractors and handle all the details that would be involved.

The Digital Difference

A home being camera-ready for today’s swipe-left buyer population is crucial. How a house looks in photographs or videos is often very different than how it looks in person. If it does not resonate with a buyer online, chances are they will not even make the trip to see it. A home that is in move-in condition makes it easier for a buyer to immediately acclimate without having to have workers in their home to make improvements right away. The less they have to do, the more attractive the home becomes. When a home is staged and in good condition, it moves to the top of the list. 

Because homes are one the most valuable assets a seller has, it just makes sense to maximize your profit for a quicker and more seamless sale. I can tell you that it works every time if you do it correctly. Now more than ever, buyers are looking to simplify their lives. Staging and proper preparation are crucial elements of your home’s overall marketing plan.