Home staging is critical for any home on the market. Staging your house for sale can help prospective buyers picture themselves living in the house, predict future changes, and imagine what they would do differently in each living space. If the house is too tailored to your needs and way of living, it might make it difficult for others to envision living there, thus risking losing the sale. If you’re unsure where to begin with staging your home, we have seven simple tips that just might help you get started.

Happy staging!

1. Perfect the Curb Appeal

The first thing that prospective buyers will see when they visit your home is the exterior. By creating an exemplary curb appeal, you can maximize the chance that they will fall in love at first sight. First impressions do count for something, after all.

Perfect the curb appeal of your home by revamping the landscaping. This includes everything from mowing your lawn and trimming the hedges, to planting fresh flowers and replacing the mulch. Take this time to remove any weeds, eliminate any awkward or drab areas, and really brighten up the exterior of your home.

2. Reduce Personal Items

Clutter is your worst enemy during an open house or visit from a potential buyer. Personal items and clutter can make your home appear messy and unorganized, giving buyers the wrong impression. By providing them with a clean slate, they can properly visualize their own personal belongings in each room, rather than yours.

The best way to reduce clutter is to purge, pack and store.

Purge

You’re planning to move anyways, so this step is inevitable. And if it means that it will help your house to sell faster and at a higher price, it’s a good step to take. Go through each room and decide which items won’t be coming with you, so you can sell, donate, or toss!

Pack

Next, start packing. We recommend using large plastic bins, as they are easy to move and store, and you can fit more items into them than traditional cardboard moving boxes.

Store

Once you’ve packed up most of your personal items that aren’t critical to your living on a regular basis, store them neatly at a friend or family member’s house or rent a temporary storage area. Keeping them in your basement will use up valuable free space that can become a selling point.

Stage

Most of your remaining visible personal items should be perfectly chosen. Each should be neutral, of good quality, and add to the aesthetic of each room. You do want to achieve a nice balance between clean and lived-in, after all. Think of how a modern hotel room would be decorated. The personal items usually include stylish soap dispensers, hand towels, vases filled with flowers, fruit bowls, and/or books/magazines.

3. Deep-Clean the Entire House

Do not overlook this step.

Your version of clean might be very different from a prospective buyer’s version. Please everybody who walks through your front door by doing a deep cleaning of your home. This includes steaming/shampooing carpets, waxing the floors, cleaning the baseboards, removing pet odour, washing all the linens, cleaning the windows, and everything else in between.

If you need help with this step, because let’s face it – not everybody has the time or willpower to deep clean their entire house, hiring a cleaning agency may be a reasonable solution for you.

Selling a home this year? Here is some recent information about the real estate market you should know:

• Should You Wait Until the Timing is Better to Sell Your Home?
• How to Stand Out in a Changing Market
• Are Conditional Offers Making a Comeback?

4. Create a Welcoming Atmosphere

The little things can truly go a long way. Especially when it comes to creating a warm and inviting area. Some things that you can do to create a welcoming atmosphere include:

1. 1. • Placing a clean and friendly welcome mat on the front porch
      • Investing in a wax warmer and opening the windows for a fresh and clean scent
      • Placing potted plants on the front porch
      • Placing vases and flowers throughout your home
      • Opening the blinds and allowing natural light to enter
      • Arranging furniture in a way that creates conversational areas

It can be difficult for prospective buyers to truly explore your home and envision themselves living there if it isn’t friendly and welcoming. By creating a happy and inviting home through strategic home staging, you can help increase the chance of someone falling in love with the house.

5. Keep it Neutral

Prospective buyers might not share the same style as you. That doesn’t mean that your home décor and style isn’t cool, it just means that everyone is different. Appealing to all buyers isn’t easy, but keeping it neutral is a great place to start. The master bedroom should especially be gender neutral, with the rest of the house following suit.

We can’t believe another new year is upon us already! Find out our real estate predictions for 2023 right here!

6. Power Wash the Exterior

Never underestimate the effect that a power washer can have on the exterior of your home. You should give the siding of your house, walkways, and driveway a good cleaning with a power washer to get rid of debris, dirt, and everything else. This can help add to the curb appeal of your home that we were talking about earlier.

7. Style All Tables

Tables are often overlooked while staging a home. This is unfortunate because styling them properly can really help bring a room together. Small assortments lining the centre of your dining room table can help avoid the stiff look of a large centrepiece, while accent pieces of décor on side tables can help add to the inviting atmosphere of a room.

The items on bedside tables and coffee tables should be kept to a minimum. A simple plant, book, and reading lamp are all you really need for a bedside table, while a coffee table can benefit greatly from a small bouquet of flowers or elegant candle centrepiece.

Home Staging in Burlington

Well, there you have it! Some of our favourite home staging tips and tricks. Lucky for you, it doesn’t end there. In our blog, there’s a lot more where that came from! For hands-on help staging your home, contact our experts at Woolcott Real Estate. We offer a home staging service for our listings in Burlington, Waterdown, Ancaster, Hamilton, and the surrounding areas.