There’s a lot of buzz about “staging” your home for sale these days. It’s become a must for anybody who wants to get the best price for their house. We spend much time discussing such options with our seller clients. Every house is different, so staging can mean different things, from decluttering, depersonalizing or rearranging some furniture to painting or exchanging artwork. Sometimes, the tweaks are small, and sometimes, we think it better to bring in a professional stager (or team). But what when the house is vacant?
Actually, when the house or condo is vacant, a staging job can be even more important. In trying to explain this to a seller today, I came across this little video in which a crew from Red House Staging explains and demonstrates how they’re making a rather small condo look inviting, big and functional to potential buyers. Have a look, it’s no too long:
When I bought my first house in DC in the 1990s, most of the places our Realtor showed us were vacant. And it wasn’t just that they were empty, they were often also in sad shape, or at least it didn’t look like the sellers had put any effort at all in making them look appealing to us. Yes, most of them sold in the end, even without that effort. But before they did, most of them also spent 6 or 9 months or even more than a year on the market.
(P.S. We love Jaye and Sam and Red House, but they’re not the only stagers we’ve worked with. Depending on your unique needs and situation, there might be other designers, organizers or companies we would recommend.)