STAGING YOUR HOME FOR THE RIGHT BUYER

Staging can be a great way to boost your home’s appeal to prospective buyers... but it can depend on the type of buyers in your market. Here’s one perspective on the right way to stage.

Staging a home to sell is the process of redecorating or cost-effectively renovating aspects of your home to present it in the best light. Much like cleaning up a home’s curb appeal to appeal to buyers, staging can position your house to sell faster and for a higher price than it might otherwise.

It’s important to remember with staging that you’re not decorating the home to appeal to you, the seller, but to the prospective buyer. When working with a stager, you have to learn to set aside your own aesthetic preferences and ask yourself how a buyer might see the home. Imagining who those buyers might be can help your stager make decisions about which direction to take the interior design.

So who are the buyers? Can you know? It depends on local market conditions and trends. A common scenario is when Baby Boomers looking to downsize or move into a condo living situation finally decide to put their family home on the market. Often these homes are in need of updating, and frequently the buyers for these homes are younger generations (i.e. Millennials) looking to upgrade from their first house or buy for the first time.

If home hunters in your market are younger, it makes a lot of sense to work with a stager who understands what younger buyers are looking for in a home. In fact, if you’re interviewing stagers, it can be an excellent idea to ask them specifically for examples of how they’ve staged homes to attract younger buyers. Furniture, window treatments, and design accents (or lack thereof) are all a big factor in how younger buyers judge a home. The last thing you want Millennial buyers to think is, “Oh, no, this looks just like my parents’ house.”

Make no mistake, there will be a lot of inventory on the real estate market from Baby Boomers over the next 15 years. If you want yours to stand out, try and look at your home with an objective eye and see if it looks outdated compared to newer construction on the market. Don’t stage for yourself... stage for the generation buying your home.

Ask your local real estate agent to help you find a stager who can help make your home as appealing as possible. I work with my clients to ensure their home sells for the best possible price.

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