Small Homes Need Staging, Too

Unfortunately, many homeowners and real estate agents have the idea that home staging is only for larger, more expensive homes.  The fact is, that small houses/condos NEED staging MORE.  Buyers want to be sure that the rooms are large enough for their furniture and may walk away from a property where they have doubts about the amount of space.  In vacant properties, proper staging can eliminate that worry by showing the buyer that furniture does fit, and give them ideas of how to best use the space.  In occupied paroperties, professional stagers can help homeowners eliminate clutter, edit furniture and accessories, and rearrange furnishings to make rooms feel more spacious.  If the existing furniture is too large for the space, smaller scale furniture can be brought in which could make a tremendous difference in the perception of space and the amount of time the property sits on the market.

In this small master bedroom, we eliminated a headboard, used smaller scale furniture and lamps and kept the bedding simple.  staging this space made it "feel" larger than it did when it was empty, added charm to create emotional appeal, and showed potential buyers that this was, in fact, a functional space.

For those who think that the cost of staging a small space is hard to jestify, consider this.  Staging a small house costs less.  i recently staged a couple of small vacant houses (less than 1500 square feet) and the cost was less than $5000 for all the staging work and 2 months rental of furniture and accessories.  If those houses hadn't been staged and didn't sell within the first couple of months, the logical suggestion would be to lower the asking price - probably more than $5000.  Regardless of the size of the property, staged homes sell faster and for more money and the cost of staging is always less than that first price reduction.  So in the case of home staging - size doesn't matter.