Trade Secrets Every Baltimore Area Realtor Should Know About Home Staging
With the Baltimore area real estate market shifting, Home Staging is becoming more important than ever. Shamrock Hill Design wants to give you the inside scoop on trade secrets and how we help buyers form an emotional attachment to a house.
Kerry Whippee, Founder & Creative Director of our Shamrock Hill Design team, likes to say, “empty homes produce empty feelings. When we’re trying to convince buyers to get off the couch to come look at your listing, we want them to be full of emotion and excitement. We want them to change their plans to come see this house.”
Home Staging is important during ANY market!
In a sellers’ market because staged homes tend to sell faster and for more money than other homes. We’ve often witnessed two similar houses on the same street, with the same style for sale and the staged one sells quicker with multiple offers.
In a buyers’ market, home staging creates a model-home look that can help sellers stand out among the multitude of other houses on the market at a time when buyers have many choices.
We have some hot insider tips to help Maryland realtors with their sales!
Tidy everything: Closets and cabinets are not usually photographed with the doors open, but buyers will open them. What’s behind closed doors reflects (in a buyers’ mind) how you’ve taken care of the house (refrigerator, too!).
White towels, white pillows, white quilts: White photographs well and gives a crisp, clean feel to a room. To make bathrooms look their cleanest, white towels are best. To make bedrooms look fresh, white quilts and pillows with a pop of color from added pillows and throws.
Sellers on a budget don’t need to buy all new stuff. If upholstered furniture is in decent shape, a sofa cover or lots of nice pillows and throws can camouflage wear and tear.
Remove the cushions on chairs. Dining room and kitchen chairs without cushions project a streamlined look. Always take arm rest covers off upholstered sofas and chairs.
Lighting is paramount! Be sure all lightbulbs are in working condition (over bathroom mirrors, hallways, etc.) and use lights that are cool or bright white, not blue or yellow. Check out our blog that explains lighting here: link to our last blog on how to make kitchen look more expensive.
Lastly - Mirrors: Mirrors often make a room look bigger but beware of what is reflected in the mirror. Reflection of the outside trees? Great! Reflection of the bathroom? Not so great.
Selling a house is stressful! Professional home stagers not only make the house inviting and emotionally appealing to potential buyers, but we also do all moving of staging items. Once the seller has packed away all items that won’t be used in staging, home stagers bring in furniture, art and décor. After the house sells, the Shamrock Hill team comes back to pack it up so it’s all ready for the new owners.
Vacant Stage or Occupied Stage?
If the owner will be living in the home throughout the sale, it’s considered an occupied house. We often recommend that sellers take a mini vacation the first weekend of showings and Open House. It’s tough for them to clean up/get the house ready repeatedly as buyers want to see the house.
When the house being sold is empty, with no seller schedule to worry about, and nobody living on the premises to add the clutter of dishes, toys, or unmade beds, it’s a vacant home. We bring furniture and accessories to these houses to give them that model home look.
What should you, as the realtor, be sure your clients understand about home staging?
Since realtors have a fiduciary duty to present all possible ways to sell a house, home staging should always come up in listing conversations. Home staging isn’t just decorating a house, it’s a marketing tool to sell houses.
Return on Investment. Paint, floors, and carpeting are huge items. Those are the items stagers focus on also. Neutral colors provide an easy palette to bring in colors for wall art, pillows, and accessories.
Depersonalize the house. You want to help buyers feel like this property is their future home, not like they’re a guest at someone’s house. Seeing someone else’s vacation photos, sports pendants, and religious items takes the buyer out of the experience of visualizing it as theirs.
Decluttering is essential. The more floor a buyer can see, the better the room will photograph and look in person. Especially closets—we always recommend a cleared-off closet floor to make closets look neater and bigger.
Why is it important to have furniture in the main rooms? We hear, “can’t we keep them empty and let the buyer imagine their items there?”
Buyers like to see where they might place their furniture and belongings. Seeing updated furniture and accessories help show the potential of the house and help buyers envision how the rooms could be used.
Client Testimonial: “Our house looked so good after staging that we almost decided not to sell.”
Pets
As realtors know, it’s hard to show houses with pets. If possible, suggest pets stay at a kennel or go on short vacation with seller.
Staging a house is hard with pets. Furniture could get stained or covered with fur, fragile items could break, and potential buyers could have pet allergies. You don’t want your buyers sneezing their way out of the door remembering this house as the one that made their allergies kick in.
Realtor feedback on the benefit of bringing in “the professional”: Sometimes, the stager must deliver bad news to my clients. If a house smells like pet urine, it’s great to have that backup from the stager to remind clients how pets and smells could affect offers.
Do you have any additional tips to add to this list? Drop us a comment and let us know!