It’s hot out there! Which means folks have caught the homebuying fever. And that also means that for homeowners who plan to sell, they need to have their homes looking their best with the right staging that result in a sale. 

We’ve gathered some valuable staging advice from the industry to keep in mind before you have interested homebuyers stepping foot through your front door (so they won’t turn around and run the other way)!

House Staging Tips:-

Keep it clean and simple

While it’s not necessary (and probably not in your budget) to make any major changes to the interior of the house, you should focus on making the home appear as neat and clean as possible. 

For instance, don’t paint the rooms any extra colors, repaint cabinetry, or upgrade to granite counter tops, but do a thorough cleaning, inside and out, including lawn cleaning, before you stage your house, plus:

  • If a décor element is broken, damaged or falling off the wall, fix it.
  • Upgrade kitchen and bath hardware if severely outdated.
  • If wall color throughout the home interior doesn’t have a nice, complementary flow, like an aggressive red, for instance, then it’s recommended to paint it a neutral.
  • Clean all the little, forgotten places, such as fridge pans, dryer vents and rain gutters.
  • Clean the carpets or restretch them, but don’t recarpet (the new homeowner will probably want their own carpets installed). 

Maximize space & use

With staging, it’s fundamentally important to keep in mind how a person is going to use a room. 

If you’re still living in the home, try to help make the room as functional as possible, whether that means rearranging the furniture or removing extra accessories and storing them elsewhere. Sometimes you can have too much in a room; too much furniture in one room shrinks the space. Maximize space with the flow of a traffic pattern. Even the wrong size rug or mat can make the room seem too small.

It’s even a good idea to pay attention to what’s inside your kitchen cabinets and how items are stored and organized because you know interested buyers are going to open them and take a peek. If you collect dishes, put three of your four sets away to show how much more space is available.

If you’re not currently living in the home, take advantage of this blank palette and take cues from the room on how someone would live in and use each particular room. This is where staging really enters the picture. 

Staging gives you a snapshot of what the room couldbe like. You only need to implement two or a few pieces and accents – not 12 beachy items everywhere – so it looks like a home and the homebuyer can still visualize what they can add to the room of their own. Each room can pull in different complementary color shades, but you don’t need it to resemble a circus tent. 

Minimize Height & Personal Items

Take another look at the height of your wall hangings. Each artwork or photo frame should be at eye level and any light fixture over the dining room table should be draped low enough to enjoy the light’s glow.

The amount of personal items should also be minimized, such as pet bowls, children’s toys family photos and memorabilia, and collectibles. 

It should only take a few weeks to prep your home to be shown, so get started now! Most home buyers like to move in and get settled before the start of the school year. If you have any additional questions or need more information, get in touch with our expert real estate agents in Myrtle Beach OR call us today at 843.839.4878.