Here are 5 reasons why you should stage a home

5:  Attracts a broader range of buyers as Staged Homes are more appealing and are recognized as the BEST properties to see.  Home Appraisers as view that as well and therefore, appraise it higher in value than a non-staged home.

4:  Great Listing tool.  Your house is listed on the Staged Homes website - it gets over 6 MILLION hits per month. (This is HUGE considering that 80% of homes are looked at on the internet before people even bother looking at the house live with the realtor.)

3:  There's a great saying - "CLUTTER EATS UP EQUITY ...AND ENERGY."  It is so true.  I staged a home that was very cluttered. The whole time I was there telling them the benefits of staging, the wife was sold but the husband wasn't.  He was very skeptical.  They had signed on anyways, and after the staging, the husband said, "I can't believe how stress-free I feel...I've been living in clutter all my life, I didn't even think it was that bad. Now I know what it feels like to live in an uncluttered home, I realize how stressed I was at home. " I am scheduled to stage their new house, staging to live, in Raleigh, NC.  Point is, once staging takes place, the hard work will be mostly done upfront, enabling you to show the house without much effort, but more importantly, you will live in a wonderful, stress-free environment after staging is done.

2:  Your home will sell in half the time than a non-staged home!

1:  Your listings will sell for more money - 7% more according to last year's StagedHomes report.  A recent US Dept. of Urban Housing and Development (HUD) recently conducted a staging study that showed staged homes netted 17% more profit than unstaged homes!  (Thanks Jessica Hughes for that report  http://www.realtown.com/articles/sellers/staging-20-take-your-business-to-the-next-level  Money invested in preparing a home for sale will be paid back with a premium.  People tell me "I can't afford to stage" and I tell them, "You can't afford to NOT stage...the investment in staging is less than your first price reduction."

I don't know why people think nothing of reducing their home by 5%, but spending a couple thousand upfront to either get them more money and have it sit less time on the market, is incomprehensible to them.  For example, if you have a $500,000 home, and it sits on the market for 3 months, the realtor will probably advise a reduction.  Let's say it was a 5% reduction (in a slow market).  That is a loss of $25,000!  If you had invested a couple of thousand (average staging is anywhere from $1,500-3,000 upward to $10,000 for higher end million dollar homes), you would have sold your home in half the time of a non-staged house, meaning you wouldn't have had to reduce your price to begin with.