Key Takeaways:

• Staging showcases a home’s best assets, and helps sell it for top dollar.
• You’ll be at an advantage if you take the extra step of staging your property.
• This is a great time to plan for the future of your home, so contact us today!

First impressions matter, so when you finally put your house on the market, you’ll want to pay special attention to how you stage your property.

Staging is a real estate term that means how a house looks, and good staging helps buyers imagine themselves in the home. It shows off the property’s good features, hides its flaws, turns unconventional spaces into usable spaces, creates a mood, and makes the house look significantly better in photos.

So, let’s look at why staging is necessary and some of the easiest and most recommended staging steps to ensure you get top dollar for your home!

Why staging your home matters

Potential buyers aren’t just looking for a structure to inhabit – they’re also looking for a way to fulfill their dreams and improve their quality of life. If done well, staging allows buyers to imagine themselves already living in the property and can create a more emotional sale for the buyer, generating more money for the seller.

Potential buyers don’t want to see too much work they will have to do upon moving into the home. For every problem they see, they will want to deduct its cost from the offering price. If too many issues get noticed, they may even pass on buying the home entirely.

Before they step foot into a home, prospective buyers spend countless hours looking at pictures of their potential new homes on the internet.

How your home looks, inside and out, is arguably the most crucial feature of your home because if it doesn’t look good, potential buyers will continue their search and keep clicking. Proper staging gets them to stop and envision how the house might look once they move into it, making it look more move-in ready.

Essential home staging according to the experts

According to the 2021 Profile of Home Staging, a National Association of Realtors (NAR) report, 82% of buyer’s agents said that staging makes it easier for buyers to visualize a property as their future home, which can help the home get top dollar and sell faster. The report also found that staging the living room was very important to 46% of buyers, followed by the primary bedroom at 43% and the kitchen at 35%.

Before you give in to the temptation to think that staging your home will cost you thousands of dollars, let’s take a quick look at a few of the most cost-effective and simplest staging steps to help your home sell for top dollar more quickly.

1. Keep it clean

A clean home shows potential buyers that you’ve taken good care of the property. Ideally, you should clean every part of the house, from the floors to the ceilings and everything in between.

If you don’t have new appliances in the kitchen, there’s no need to worry. Just make sure the existing ones are spotless. Likewise, ensure your bathrooms sparkle, from the corners of the tub to the sink drain to that spot behind the toilet you don’t think anyone can see. Your goal should be to make everything look new and hospital clean.

2. Take care of your clutter

Buyers need to be able to envision themselves in your home, so remove all the family photos, keepsakes, and refrigerator art. Yes, the velvet paintings must come down. Likewise, keep clothes hidden away as much as possible, and make sure the bathroom counters are empty (except for hand soap, of course). Similarly, put away all the toys and anything else that is highly personal to the home’s current inhabitants.

3. Plants and paint go a long way

A few potted plants can do wonders to make your home feel fresh and inviting to potential buyers. But conversely, if you’ve got a lot of indoor plants, this could create a cluttered feeling, so you’ll want to remove some of them. Additionally, a new coat of paint is a relatively inexpensive and quick home staging step you can take that will pay big returns on closing day.

Work With the Best

If you’re ready to move, work with your local team that knows the micro-housing market trends in your area. Our real estate agents have decades of experience and understand how to help you best navigate today’s market. So don’t hesitate to reach out and say Hello! to figure out your best options for buying or selling your next home!

Key Takeaways:

• Knowing your property’s real-time value is more important than ever
• Build a relationship with your local real estate team to maximize your money
• This is a great time to plan for the future of your home, so contact us today!

From volatile national market trends impacting local housing markets to unforeseen structural problems, a property’s value fluctuation can be tricky to gauge accurately. However, the good news for current and would-be homeowners curious about a property’s actual value in today’s market is that information is more accessible than ever. So let’s look at some of the easiest, most straightforward options for knowing a property’s actual value and why it’s so important!

Know the accurate value of your property

People usually want to know how much a home is worth to take comfort in knowing they’re making a good investment. Buying or selling a home is one of the most significant financial investments people will ever make. So naturally, when sellers want as much profit as possible and buyers want to pay as little as possible, achieving the right balance between these two when the closing time rolls around can be tricky. Staying informed about your home’s value and the trend of home prices in your local area allows you to make better financial decisions overall. It all boils down to knowing how much a home is realistically worth. 

Suppose you’re a current homeowner about to place your property on the market who’s considering a renovation to increase your payout at closing; knowing your home’s current value will help determine if doing so is even necessary, potentially saving you thousands of dollars. Or perhaps you’re a buyer eager to make an offer; knowing a property’s real-time, comparative value in the market could help you avoid overpaying. 

And this is where getting to know your local real estate professionals becomes one of the most important decisions you will make.

Build a relationship with your local real estate agent

Regardless of what is happening within the broader national housing market, buying or selling a home is always a local matter. While real estate is an industry heavily influenced by environmental, political, social, and broader economic forces that affect property value and pricing, what is valid for buyers and sellers in San Francisco differs from what is reasonable for buyers and sellers in Sioux Falls, SD. 

This is where knowing who your local real estate experts are is invaluable. Top-earning real estate agents have one thing in common: they know their local real estate markets. Ask them any question about the area, and they can answer it, or at least they know where to go and who to ask to find the answer. 

So, when you’re ready to put your house on the market or make an offer, the first and easiest step you can and should take is to contact your local real estate professionals. They are experts in their field who understand market etiquette and know how to make a great offer that achieves the difficult balance of satisfying both buyer and seller. The right real estate agent knows how to negotiate the complex web of forms best, and they can foresee issues you might not.

Discover Your Real Estate Partnership

If you’re ready to move, don’t get caught up in the frenzy of negative news. Instead, work with your local team that knows the micro-housing market in your area. Our real estate agents have decades of experience and understand how to help you best navigate today’s market. So don’t hesitate to reach out and say Hello! to figure out your best options for buying or selling your home!