One thing I have learned over the years is that when it comes to showing homes, the old adage "There's no second chance to make a first impression" is very true.  I've taken buyers to homes where the outside is not pressure washed, or the grass is not cut, and they don't even want to go inside.  If we make it in front door and they see antiquated wallpaper, peeling paint, or dirty carpet, we may not even be able to move past the foyer.  I try to tell all my sellers how many buyers lack imagination.  It seems real estate investors are the only ones that can see the forest for the trees.

With that said, I came across a couple good articles on staging lately.  One I found on RisMedia regarding selling vacant homes.  No matter how beautiful an empty home is, buyers only see floors, walls, and ceilings, and without anything else to look at, they are more prone to see flaws.  Studies show that unstaged homes take longer to sell, and are vulnerable to lower offers, the average between 15-20% less than the asking price.  According to "Stage This Room" (REALTOR Magazine, July 2007, written by Christina Hoffman Spira), 2,000 stagers surveyed in 2003 found that their services increased a home's sales price by $2,500 on average.  Simple cleaning and decluttering raised the price anywhere from $2,093 to $2,378.  StagedHomes.com found that staged house sold for almost seven-percent more compared to non-staged homes (survey done in 2004-2005).  And from my mere observation, unstaged homes stay on the market significantly longer.

I've found that most of my seller's do not want the expense of staging.  It can range from a few hundred to a few thousand depending on who you use and how many rooms you want done, but to be honest, in my search for a good stager (and I've found a couple), some are ridiculously expensive.  And I won't use the people who want me to sign a multi-month agreement.  If their staging is so good, what if I get an offer on the first weekend?  I wouldn't want to pay for a whole three months if my house sells in a couple weeks, so why should I ask that of my sellers?

If you or your clients are trying to sell a home and don't want to hire a stager, this may help:

1. Less is more!  Simplify the living space and declutter.  One stager in the article tells her clients to "tuck away anything smaller than a football."  I've found that sellers with the feng shui/minimalist approach to decorating get their homes sold quicker.

2. Angle furniture to open up the space and draw buyer attention to appealing areas of the room, not just the walls.  Sometimes it helps to reorient the furniture to create a more flowing feel for the buyer.

3. Show the floor.  The rooms will look bigger.  Sometimes all it takes to create more floor space is moving the exercise equipment.

4. Add accents, like attractive lamps, color-complementing pillows and throws, and flowers always do wonders to brighten up a dark room or add color to a neutral room.

I try to remind my sellers that a vacant home can come across as cold and uninviting, the very antithesis of the warm fuzzy feelings buyers want when they step into "the one."  One stager compared selling a home to selling a car: "What's the first thing you do if you sell it? Detail it."  Makes sense to me.