TOP STAGING MISTAKES TO AVOID WHEN PRESENTING HOMES FOR SALE

As with any other first impression, the first impression your house makes will have the greatest impact on potential buyers. It will linger to either work to your advantage or disadvantage, putting buyers in a positive, appreciative mood or negative, fault-seeing mood.

Most buyers will not even come into a house if they don’t like the outside. They may simply drive on to see the next house on their list.

Using Dream Home 30A will let skilled landscape contractors work for you at discount prices.

Brace yourself to see what can be done with a simple can of paint or two, with some hanging baskets or planters, and perhaps a new tablecloth or chairs coordinating with everything else including your house’s improved landscape.

A few simple but tastefully coordinated furnishings and accents can suffice to create inviting rooms buyers can picture themselves enjoying.

Elements that coordinate with each other accentuate one another’s beauty. Keeping this principle in mind, it is best for staging decor to be somewhat understated, preventing it from taking over. It must instead attractively coordinate with and enhance the house’s desirable features to make them pop (e.g.: furniture and a few accessories that coordinate with the beautiful hardwood floors, natural marble or stonework or woodwork).

Although somewhat painful, this is the time for sellers to face the fact that their house has ceased to be their home. The personal items they must allow me to remove include family photos, religious decor or political posters. All of these must never be allowed to distract or bias home shoppers.

Who will want a kitchen with black countertops, black appliances as well as a black backsplash? Or how about pops of bright dirty yellows and oranges in a room where everything else is gray? Such extreme and/or unattractive styles especially don’t do well in coastal areas.

To maximize the possibility that a house will sell, I often go with a beautiful style almost everybody can relate to that integrates timeless coastal design principles with the latest trends that don’t contradict these principles. Sometimes the distinctive character of the house (e.g., a very modern architectural design) will require the interior to match, but I tend to tone even that down a notch and avoid extremes.

I like to favor whites, warm whites or cream tomes for the walls which never goes out of style, which brightens and often drastically enlarges the appearance of homes to help sell/rent them.

In short, please always keep in mind that appealing to the taste of the majority will help sell/rent homes faster and for more, letting everyone avoid frustrations.

Imagine cool and severe looking modern style décor inside a Mediterranean-style house. This is unfortunately not a joke, I have personally seen amateur decorators stubbornly hang onto their own favorite style without respecting a house’s distinctive character or architectural style (or this may happen if the stager keeps her own inventory and brings in the same furniture and accessories to every house).

I would ensure that that a buyer who’s come to see a Spanish-style villa and who loves this particular architectural style does not feel confused and disappointed when he walks inside. I would not be afraid to use nostalgic decor inside a distinctively older house to emphasize that ‘Southern charm,’ causing the right kind of buyer to love it. I cannot over-stress the importance of using a decorator who does know what she is doing.

These stagers often keep everything all-white or all-beige to maximize the possibility that the same pieces will fit every setting. These insipid looking arrangements may disappoint home sellers and fail to attract and impress buyers.

Under-stated decor does have its place and value in staging real estate, preventing the decor itself from taking over and distracting from the house’s benefits and features. But the same furnishings for every house can fail to artfully coordinate with each house’s specific nice features to make them pop, also not coordinating with the distinctive character or architectural styles of some houses (e.g.: crisp whites and modern lines in a villa with a Spanish architecture).

Dingy rooms can look undesirable and even depressing. I make adequate lighting a priority, asking home sellers to increase the wattage of each light bulb in the whole house, as well as adding accent lamps if necessary. This also results in great-looking photos, ensuring that the online listing looks better than those of competitors’.

The National Association of Realtors recommends home sellers to make sure to stage the living room, master bedroom, kitchen, dining room and bathroom. Although these areas can have a higher impact, I do not recommend leaving the other rooms completely vacant. It’s certainly not necessary to fill every room with expensive furnishings, a few complementing pieces can suffice to ensure that buyers don’t fail to visualize the function and full potential of those spaces. Most importantly, not leaving any room completely bare helps maintain the home’s cohesive warm and personable look and feel.