Common Mistakes when Staging a Home

This article is written by Patrick Young who has been a regular contributor to our blog.  Patrick is an advocate for those with disabilities and writes important information pertaining to those with disabilities. This article focuses on preparing your home to sell and some common mistakes to avoid. 

Avoid These Common Mistakes to Stage Your Open House Like a Pro

It’s a shame when people with nice homes, who have spent countless hours and significant money on renovations, drop the ball at the end — during the open house. When your home is finally ready, on a structural level, to show to the public, there are still some cosmetics touches that must be done in order to make it as attractive as possible to potential buyers. Here are some all-too-common staging mistakes and how to avoid them to ensure your home is irresistible.

Being too cheap to hire some professional cleaners

First things first: your home needs to be spotless. Not Sunday-cleaning spotless—all-time clean level. Staging for an open house is not the time to count pennies. You want to make the best impression you can, and shelling out a few hundred bucks for an essential service is nothing compared to the feeling of getting a quick, high-end offer on your home.  As HomeAdvisor notes, most homeowners spend between $116 - $235 on cleaning services. It’s a small price to pay to make a good impression.

A drab entrance

A potential buyer’s walk up to your front door is perhaps one of the most crucial moments in showing a home. How your front yard, walkways, and front door look can influence how a person feels about the rest of your home. Don’t neglect your home’s curb appeal.

One of the easiest last-minute ways to make a big splash is to give your front door a fresh coat of paint. Check here for some color ideas. Another simple move is to add potted plants around the entrance. HGTV suggests large tropical varieties to really show off. If your front walkway is covered by vegetation or fallen leaves, be sure to clean that up. It just looks sloppy and doesn’t make a great first impression.

Leaving your home too homey

Nobody wants to see a house in a surgically sterile environment, but it’s better to err on that side than on the flip side. You do not want your home to look so homey. Potential home buyers need to be able to envision themselves in the home, so it needs to feel like a blank slate. Houzz suggests removing kids’ drawings and magnets from the fridge, as well as storing away family photos at the very least. You should also make sure that kids’ toys and anything relating to your pets (bowls, toys, beds, blankets) are put away and out of view.

Forgetting about the power of a sign

If you have a realtor that is working to promote your open house, that is great. If you’re using online resources to promote your open house yourself, that’s also great. But just because we live in a technological age, it doesn’t mean that there is no power in a classic yard sign. Realtors actually suggest using 20-40 physical signs, placed around your home and surrounding neighborhoods and intersections, to help lure potential buyers to your open house. The simple fact is that you will get way more “walk-in” shoppers from these signs than almost any other form of advertising.

In the end, it’s the little things that make all the difference. Take a step back and think about the obvious. Would you want to buy a home that is full of clutter? How about one that smelled bad? You want your home to look as clean and neutral as possible. Sure, it’s your home, but it’s also someone else’s potential hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars investment. You rarely get a chance to make a second impression when it comes to home shoppers.

Photo by Eduard Militaru on Unsplash

Patrick created AbleUSA to offer resources to people with disabilities and offer advice about navigating various aspects of life. For more information and resources, you can contact Patrick at AbleUSA.   

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