It’s no secret that home staging is an effective sales strategy that homeowners and real estate agents employ to appeal to a wide range of potential buyers. According to a 2021 survey by the National Association of Realtors, staged homes get sold faster than homes that aren’t staged. Furthermore, the survey indicates that staged homes sell for top dollar. However, there are common home staging mistakes that homeowners and realtors make time and again. If you’re planning to list your home for sale, you want to avoid these home staging mistakes and make your home shine while it’s on the market.
Let’s look at those mistakes in greater detail.
- Overpersonalizing the Décor
We get it! Nearly every homeowner wants to use décor, designs, colors, and accessories that they resonate with. Unfortunately, this can work against you when selling your home. When you’re staging your home for sale, the goal is to appeal to as many buyers as possible. Overpersonalizing the décor narrows down your pool of potential buyers. For example, you may like your loud accent walls, but that doesn’t mean a potential buyer will. While you may not be able to appeal to every potential buyer, try as much as possible to depersonalize your home so you can appeal to more potential buyers. Some of the things you can do to depersonalize your space, include using neutral colors and removing family portraits and personal treasures.
- Pushing Furniture Against The Walls
Resist the urge to push the furniture against the walls, as it will make your rooms look smaller. It may seem counterintuitive, but pushing furniture up against the walls always backfires and makes rooms look smaller. Whether it be the living room or dining room, try to arrange your furniture inward toward the center of the room. It’s important for your rooms to appear spacious to prospective buyers.
- Using Non-Neutral Colors
The whole point of home staging is depersonalizing the property and allowing prospective buyers to imagine living in the home. By eliminating personal tastes and making the rooms neutral, you make it possible for buyers to imagine their own families moving. That’s why using non-neutral colors for walls, furniture, curtains, and other home accessories is a bad idea. Keep in mind that your goal is to attract as many potential buyers as possible. Going with bold color choices will only narrow down your market. For example, a hot pink or overly yellow living room will be a turn-off for buyers who do not like these colors. We strongly recommend you go for neutral colors like black, white, grey, neutral beige, and tans.
- Neglecting Simple Home Improvements
One of the common mistakes that homeowners and realtors make when selling a home is ignoring simple home improvements. Common property maintenance issues such as plumbing leaks, stained bathtubs, worn-out fixtures, and peeling paint can be a major turn-off for prospective buyers. Home buyers want to imagine themselves living in the home as they marvel at its best features. Unfortunately, no buyer wants to imagine living in a home with leaks, chipped paint, damaged faucets, and broken door knobs. That’s why it’s advisable to go the extra mile and undertake simple home improvements and facelifts such as plumbing repairs, painting, cabinet refacing, upgrading light fixtures, updating bathroom plumbing, and more. Simple and inexpensive home improvements take decades off the look of a home and add so much value to the property.
- Making Major Renovations
Although simple and inexpensive home improvements can provide a great return, major renovations such as whole-house floor replacement and roof replacement won’t pay off in the long run. Instead, it makes more sense to make smaller upgrades like repainting walls, adding new wallpaper, updating lighting fixtures, etc. Simple renovations will give your home an updated look without digging deep into your pockets.
- Cutting Corners To Save Money And Time
Most people get tempted to rush through things or cut corners to save money and time, but this ends up being costly. For instance, it’s easy to add furniture to your living room without caring about the layout or ignore dull-looking cabinets in the kitchen. Cutting corners will only create problems down the road that will work against you and keep you from selling your home.
Final Thoughts
Home staging has become an essential part of the home selling process, so you can’t afford to ignore it. By avoiding these mistakes, you can give yourself the best chance of selling your house faster and for top dollar. Be careful with every move you make in an attempt to make your home appealing to the widest range of potential buyers. Most importantly, work with a professional home staging company. Professional stagers will guide you through the process and ensure you get everything right.
