« Marin Home Staging Tip: Furnish According to Original Function | Main | How to Stage your Home During the Holidays »
Cosmetic Fixers Benefit from Staging, Too
By Erin | November 25, 2008
$2,000 investment returns $28,000 - see video below and read on…
There are very few houses that are “immune” to the benefits of staging. Unless it’s a total tear-down, a house is going to show better and therefore sell more quickly, on average, than a house left unstaged.
This applies to cosmetic fixers, too - a category of homes often overlooked when it comes to staging (except by savvy Realtors and sellers). I can understand it. Sellers figure, Why should I stage when I’m pricing it as a fixer? Why should I make any improvements since the next guy will do what he wants?
The reason? Most buyers cannot see a home’s potential. They can’t see beyond blue linoleum, orange walls or the coldness of an empty room. This is a fact that should not be taken lightly! It can make the difference between a home selling quickly/for more money OR sitting on the market.
At the very least, a home’s interior should get a new coat of paint. It’s relatively cheap and makes a huge, positive impact. If there are old carpets, find out if there is hardwood underneath. If so, have the carpet ripped out to reveal the wood floors, which are highly desired by buyers. Even if you don’t refinish the hardwood, this can be better than old, ratty carpet.
Lightly staging a cosmetic fixer is a great way to bring warmth, color and context to the rooms. A simple chair, rug and picture grouping can be enough, for example, to show the scale of a living room. Fluffy, white towels and a plant in the bathroom dress up the space. These simple staging techiniques can make a difference, even in homes priced well for the market. Would you rather have one offer or multiple offers? Staging can bring the latter.
Here is a video I put together based on before and after pictures of a house I staged recently. It was a cosmetic fixer. If we had left the house as-is, the asking price would have been $399,000. But, we put in just shy of $2,000 worth of improvements. As a result, the Realtor listed the home for $425,000 and the house sold for over the asking price. STAGING WORKS!
Topics: Home Staging Ideas |
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.