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STAGING A HOME FOR SALE....WORTH IT's WEIGHT IN GOLD

By
Real Estate Agent with Coldwell Banker

Staging a home for sale is all about making it inviting to the largest number of potential buyers. If a home is vacant, a stager will haul in furniture and décor so buyers can imagine themselves living there. If it's occupied, the stager will declutter, neutralize and decorate for the masses.

Staging won't make a home sell for more than it's worth. But it can set your home apart and boost the selling price to the top of the range for comparable homes. It can also cut the time on the market. Because nearly 90% of home buyers start their search on the Internet, staging is a good way to make sure online photos pop.

Home sellers spend an average of $1,800 to stage a home, but costs can range from a couple of hundred dollars to $5,000 or more. Here are six ways to stage your home for less than $1,000.

Virtually stage your vacant property. Virtual staging is aimed at online shoppers who may quickly lose interest in a slide show full of floors, ceilings and bare walls. Sellers or their real estate agents send pictures of the empty rooms - a 2- or 3-megapixel camera is all you need - to a virtual stager, who sends back images of the same rooms, tastefully furnished, for use online and in marketing materials.

Pay for a plan, do the labor yourself. Many stagers work as consultants, touring your house and offering suggestions on how best to present it. When working with a consultant, you do the cleaning, the decluttering and the trips to the dump, or rental of storage space. Load up an 8-by-8-by-12-foot or 8-by-8-by-16-foot portable storage unit from PODs, which will deliver the unit to your driveway for $75, transport it to a secure storage facility for another $75 and charge you a monthly storage fee of around $150, depending on where you live, the time of year and other factors.

Among the accoutrements of home you'll need to stow: family photos, magazines, toys, cosmetics and other grooming supplies in the bathroom, and countertop appliances and cutting boards in the kitchen. "Pretend you're camping," leave only necessities, and store them in cabinets.

Paint rooms in light, neutral colors, which are widely appealing and make your rooms look bigger. "Different-colored bedrooms are like Ginsu knives that chop up space," says Schwarz. Put a touch of greenery in every room.

Negotiate a vignette. A staged home calls for scenery-for example, a ficus tree, a beautiful chair and a side table with accessories. If you don't need furniture brought into an otherwise empty space, you may be able to negotiate for décor only - call it a pizazz package.

Focus on just a few rooms. Spend your budget on the entryway, main living area, kitchen and master bedroom. Many stagers charge an hourly rate -- $75 to $125 is typical. Ignoring secondary rooms, or doing them yourself once you've seen how the pro works, can save hundreds of dollars.

Do tackle particularly challenging areas - say, an attic bedroom with odd angles and crannies or a pink-tiled bathroom in an older home. You needn't go overboard. A soft, creamy paint color, such as a pale gold, on the attic walls and ceiling will downplay angles and make the ceiling seem higher. Tone down a Pepto-Bismol look in the bathroom with white and black - tie a white shower curtain on the rod with black-and-white ribbons, and hang black bath towels.

Shop at home. Scour the house, yard, garden shed and garage to carry out your home's transformation. In the main living areas, though, themes are best avoided the whole idea is to appeal to as many buyers as possible. "Themes can be distracting." Think flexibly as you rearrange furniture: a nightstand can be an end table, a bureau can be a buffet, and a hutch can double as a bookcase. Cardboard moving boxes can stand in for a bed in an unfurnished bedroom. Cover with a gorgeous spread and pillows and no one will know. Still missing something? Shop Craigslist.org, or ask family and friends for a loan.

Step outside. Clean up debris and pull dead plants or shrubs. Trim remaining greenery, especially anything blocking a window. Banish planters, barbecue grills and toys from the deck. You can't paint your home's entire exterior for less than a grand, but you can refresh the front and garage doors with a coat or two; ditto for the shutters and trim, especially window ledges, and the mailbox. Clean up rust spots or streaks on downspouts while you're at it, and repaint or restain the fence.

Posted by

Penny Toombs ABR, AHS, e-Pro

Coldwell Banker

1 South Finley Avenue

Basking Ridge, NJ  07920

908-625-6949

908-766-8344

Comments (1)

Jeff Craig
Hang Me Up Photos - Jamestown, NC
Greensboro Area Real Estate Photography

I agree Penny.  I'm in the process of staging my own home.  What a job though!

Oct 27, 2009 01:54 AM