I was browsing the internet today and found The Home Staging Cheat Sheet by US News & World Report that was an interview with one of my staging teacher, Barb Schwarz.

Barb listed out 6 points for sellers that can help them in a sluggish market:

1. Get them inside (curb appeal)
2. Pretend you are camping (clutter)
3. Balance hard & soft surfaces
4. Work in Ones or Threes
5. Decide from the doorway
6. Make your place Q-tip Clean

I want to especially highlight #1, 2, and 6. You only have ONE chance to make a great impression for your buyers, and Curb Appeal is very important. You want to give people a great impression that you have been taking care of your house. So if you see paint peeling off your exterior walls or unruly trees, it’s time to do something about it.

Do: Show a nicely maintained exterior. It gives people a great impression that you have been taking care of it and it’s nice to live in. (photo credit notnek)

Don’t: Show a haunted house (it’s only cool 1 day out of 365 days a year). A house that is ill-maintained on the outside gives people a bad feeling and impression when they first see the house. (photo credit mar52laine)

With #2, we are in the business of SELLING REAL ESTATE and that is your square footage. If the buyers cannot see it visually, they will automatically think the home is small. As a professional home stager, I have seen my share of clutter, and frankly there are just some incredibly cluttered homes that I don’t even know how to set foot into the room, let along visualize how I will transform the home through staging.

(photo credit sparkyleigh)

Don’t: Clutter up your space! (Don’t you just love that he is reading “1001 Timely Tips for Clutter Control???”)

Cleaning is also crucial, sometimes when you walk into the space and you feel the home is “old” or the paint is faded. Actually sometimes it’s really because the place is dirty. When I was doing property management, I powerwashed one of my client’s homes to get it ready for renting out, and realized that we didn’t need a new paint job at all! It was just dusty and full of cob webs. And know this, clutter & dirty usually go hand in hand. The house is cluttered because it hasn’t been cleaned for awhile, which results a lot of accumulation of dust and mites. Dust and mites are not really selling “features” of the home, if anything, they can trigger the allergies of the buyers and open house visitors.

The other 3 tips are more for the purpose if you want to stage your home yourself. My only advice with that is to Stay Objective. It can be tricky to decide if your staging is a result of your personal decor or appealing for the buyers.

My additional tip for you is Remember, everything you do in staging is about THE BUYERS. You want to stay on target and make sure you are creating a space that is appealing to your target home buyers and at the same time appeal to a general public as well. You never know who will end up buying your house! So don’t stage accordingly to who “you think” is going to buy but to target all buyers.

Cheers,

Cindy