When should you stage your home before selling? To what extent should it be staged? Why even consider staging in the first place? These are common questions that acome up as clients look to prepare their homes to sell. We will take a look at these 3 questions and why your real estate agent should be ready to answer these questions in reverse order.

Why should you consider staging your home in the first place? The purpose of staging a home is to help your would-be buyers visualize how their stuff may fit in the home. For instance, when viewing your master bedroom, a buyer may wonder how their bed would fit. Having a neatly-staged room with a bed, nigthstands, and dresser can help them to visualize how their stuff would fit in the room.

When should you stage your home before selling? In other words, should you always stage your home when selling it or are there times when it does not matter as much? If we could view staging and not staging on a spectrum, there would be very few instances where staging would not be of some benefit. A better way to approach this is to view that staging spectrum on top of a buyer versus seller market. In a buyer's market, buyers have many options and hold most of the cards in a negotiation. In this type of market, having your home stand out and shine against the competition will be vital to secure the best value for your home. On the other hand, in a seller's market, the seller has much of the negotiating power and will not need to do as much to stand out from other houses to secure a high value for their home. Once the degree of need there is to stage your home is established, now we look briefly at how much to stage.

 Most homes typically just need most personal items packed and each room simplified. Remember, you are not having buyers walk through to buy your possessions; they are walking through to buy your home. Pack pictures and personalized decorations for your move. Staging rooms with basic furniture with generic, yet tasteful decorations is all that is needed. Before staging every room, consider what rooms are most important - typically the largest room in the home for gatherings (great room or living room), the kitchen, the master bedroom, and the master bathroom. From there, depending on the size of the home and the degree of need to stage that was established previously, move on to other rooms as needed. Your home is now ready to go for pictures!

Staging a home can be a bit tricky, but with the right approach, you can make your house shine compared to the competition. Staging your home is an excellent way to maximize demand for your home and thus maximize the value you will get from offers that come in. With Realty Team Peterson, we know the market your home is in. We help sellers (and buyers) navigate the process of selling their home with ease. Our purpose is to take on the burden - the stressful things and the boring things - of moving so you can focus on establishing your new home and putting down new roots quickly. Staging your home to sparkle in the market is one of the many helps we provide included with our service. Contact us today with any questions and what it will take to get you the best price for your home!