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.
