This article was published online by Kristie Barnett, The Decorologist.  Here are her “Three Things to Know About Staging.”

 

1) Home staging requires you to understand what buyers want, but also what sellers feel

 

You need to know how to stage the property to represent an idealized lifestyle, yes, but you also need to understand the emotions of the home seller. Selling a home is one of the top five stressors people experience – right behind death and divorce!

 

If you don’t connect with the sellers, they will never take your advice or allow you to do what you need to do in order to get their home sold for the most money in the least amount of time. In my Psychological Staging course, I focus on how to cultivate a positive, trusting relationship with home sellers in a short amount of time. This is a critical yet often overlooked goal for anyone in the real estate profession.

 

When sellers realize you are on their side, they will be much more willing to put their house in your hands, so to speak. After all, home staging is a service for home sellers and it requires a relationship of trust between stager and sellers.

After Staging

After Staging- room appears larger

 

2) Home staging requires quick decision-making about what you can realistically accomplish

 

In home staging, you never know what challenges you may walk into! If you are an artist or a creative person, you may be able to walk into a room and come up with lots of amazing ideas of how you can improve it. But home staging is more about solving problems within a tight budget of both money and time. You have to be resourceful, but you also have to be realistic. A successful home stager has to focus on the BIG PICTURE e.g., does the furniture arrangement make the room appear larger and draw you in?  Most lay people get hung up on things they can’t realistically change, e.g., the dining room is too small for entertaining.

Furniture Layout after Staging

Re-positioned Furniture

 

3) Home Staging is all about how to use what you’ve got and take it up a notch or two

 

Unless you are staging a vacant property that requires rental furniture and accessories, a home stager is generally limited to the furnishings and decor of the home seller.  You’ll need to creatively use what the seller already has in the house.

Guest Bedroom

Re-purposed accessories

In all home staging events, the goal is to make both the seller and prospective home buyer feel good about the home they are about to sell or about to buy.  Call Premiere Home Stagers at 608-345-9396.