If you are planning to sell your house, you may be wondering
whether to go to the expense of staging it first or just go ahead and list it without staging. After all,
you can always stage it later if it doesn’t sell, right?
Well, right…as long as you don’t mind taking longer to sell
and making less money when you do. Here’s why:
1. Your home will see the most action in the first two weeks
after it’s listed. That’s when it gets the most buzz among the Realtors and
when you typically get the most showings. That’s also when you are likely to
get your highest offer. Don’t waste this golden opportunity by not putting your
home’s best foot forward.
2. If you stage your home before you list it AND take great
photos of your staged home, your agent will be able to attract more people to
tour your house. 84% of people now pre-shop on the internet before physically
visiting homes for sale. Make sure you don’t turn them off with lousy pictures.
And don’t think you can get away with a single picture of the front of the
house or a couple of pictures of the more presentable rooms. Too few pictures will
send a red flag to potential buyers, who will think, “There must be something
wrong with this house if they’re not showing us all of the rooms. Let’s skip
it”
3. That old saying is true: “You never get a second chance
to make a great first impression.” If a buyer tours your house and finds it
cramped, cluttered or dated looking, they will never come back, even if you subsequently
clean it up, stage it or even remodel it. They have moved on to the houses that
were show-ready to begin with.
4. Time is NOT on your side. The longer your house sits on
the market, the lower the selling price. If you don’t get an offer in the first
month or so, your agent will pressure you to reduce your price. So you want to
improve your odds of getting an offer right out of the gate by staging your
home.
5. Staging before you list will force you to deal with your
clutter and cast-offs sooner rather than later and make the whole process of
moving more organized and less stressful.
Remember, when selling your house, you are playing the
numbers game. The more people you can get through your front door, the more
likely you will get an offer. So the objective is to attract as many potential
buyers as possible and then wow them when they get there. That’s what staging
does.