Home Staging 103: Marketing and Design Fundamentals

If there’s one thing Home Staging is not, it is not decorating.

If you decide to hire a home stager to prepare your home for sale, be sure that they are accredited and that they agree with this concept. The purpose of decorating is to inject the personality of the home owner into the style of the house so that it is a comfortable space for that individual person/family to live.

Home Staging is the opposite: to highlight the best features of the house and to show an elegant lifestyle that is attractive to the largest group of people as possible. By trying to appeal to a wide audience, it is certainly not as simple as removing so much from your rooms so that they become about as interesting as a wet paper towel. There is a fine balance, and this is why the guidance of a skilled, accredited staging professional can help you immensely.

There are 3 questions that are used to build a staging strategy for any home:

1. What needs to be done to draw a buyer’s attention towards all the positive features of the home and away from any negative features?
2. What needs to be done to create warmth, elegance & luxury (this is what buyers want) without being too specific in style or personality?
3. How can all of this be achieved on a minimal budget?

Most staging work can be completed on your own, if you have the time and willingness to do the work. Hiring an accredited stager for a consultation to direct what work needs to be done is always a wise idea. It will ensure that every dollar of your budget is spent most effectively and not wasted. Better still, use a realtor who appreciates the importance of home staging (Shameless plug for Jeff O’Leary :-)) and they will often cover the cost of the consultation for you. If you get the basics right, you will get the results you want!