When you envision home staging, does it automatically pop up many dollar signs in your mind? Maybe there is an assumption you’ll need to pull out the ‘ol credit card to make it happen so that your house can sell. We’re here to tell you that staging a home on a budget is possible, and it doesn’t mean that you’ll have to shop at the Dollar Tree to make it happen. In fact, you may have what you need already!
Here are 5 Creative and Cheap Ways to Stage a Home in Kansas City (or Wherever You Are!)
- Turn those themed rooms into a neutral zone. It can be hard for a buyer to walk through your safari-themed living room and envision their modern farmhouse style taking its place. Or that chicken-themed kitchen that we know means a whole lot to you but will turn a buyer off even though you’ve got great countertops!
It might be hard for you to even see the noise of a themed-room, so ask a trusted friend (with good style) to come over and point out some of these things that you may be blind to. Give them a margarita so their honesty comes out, and drink one yourself so your feelings don’t get hurt.
Making these spaces more neutral will help your buyers walk through and envision the space as their own. - Keep it clean. Deep cleaning your home before listing is a must. Whether you can afford to hire this out or you need to ask that friend that likes margaritas to come over and help – make it happen. Buyers will notice the dog hair on your baseboards, the inch of dust on your ceiling fans, cobwebs in the corners and the rings around the toilet. Ew.
And as you show your home, you’ll want to tidy between each showing to clean up any dirt that’s been tracked in (by your own kids or the potential buyers!). - Pack it up. Stagers say that packing up 30% of each room will help create a bigger feeling to the rooms. While you’re doing this, go ahead and work on de-personalizing the space as well. As special as family photos are, you want a new family imagining themselves in the space without your faces in their mind. Cause that’s just weird.
You have to pack anyway, so why not get a head start on it to help your home sell faster? - Optical illusion closets. Storage is usually a big deal to most buyers, so by keeping your closets half full, this creates the illusion that you have lots of storage space within your property. “Illusion, Michael.” (Any other Arrested Development fans out there?)
- Welcome home! Small decorating touches, such as, setting the dinner table or putting out a small cheese board with a couple glasses and a closed bottle of wine on the island say “welcome, home – can’t you see yourself living here?”
Photo by Francesca Tosolini on Unsplash
Or go ahead and try the old bake-chocolate-chip-cookies-so-your-house-smells-good trick. Some say that’s a myth to make the buyer want to buy your home. We say, it’s worth it because you get to eat cookies (just don’t burn them!).
Now that you’ve learned some simple ways of how to stage a home for sale on a budget, it’s less overwhelming, right? Awesome! That was our goal. The other thing we want to tell you about is how this whole staging thing works if you’re a Dani Beyer Real Estate client.
When listing your home with Dani Beyer Real Estate, our stager will come out and do a visual coordination appointment. This means she takes measurements and gives sellers lists for every room regarding what to pack (remember that 30% rule?), what to move around and how to make the space most appealing and ready for photos. This comes at no expense to the client. We know the value that a properly staged home makes for the sale price!
If you have any questions regarding staging a home on a budget or listing your home with Dani Beyer Real Estate, give us a call! We’d love to get the process started.