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Home Staging Tips in Palm Beach County - Buyers Need to SEE Your Garage Holds 2 Cars!

By
Home Stager

Home Staging Tips in Palm Beach County- tell them all you want..., a Buyer needs to  SEE that your garage holds 2 cars!
garage 

I provided a Home Staging Consultation last week and the home was in very good condition.  Very few deferred maintenance projects, if any.  However, as with most of us, my client has just too much stuff.  Stuff not only in the house but also in the garageAnd she wanted to know why it mattered.

This is a question I get asked by my Sellers all of the time. Your garage IS important.  As part of the price of the house, it is expensive real estate!

                                                                                 WHY Your Garage Matters:

1. Clutter- just as inside the house, clutter distracts and detracts from the Buyers being able to SEE the garage.  It interrupts the viewing process.
         

2. Boxes, tools, and everything else may be hiding the great storage or shelves that you DO have.

3.  A cluttered garage sends out a signal of Not Enough Storage to the Buyer- we all know that there's never enough storage in any house but do you really want to announce it to the Buyer?

4. People still want to frog what they're buying.  Is it just barely a two-car garage?  Will it hold my SUV? It's hard to tell!

 

garage

What to do:
     Trash it, Donate it or Pack it.
CLEAN IT
Make it Neat!

Don't let a messy, overstuffed garage send away your Buyers. 
 

Posted by

Kathy Streib
Retired Home Stager
and Interior Redesign

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for Houston & Harris Counties
and
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Comments (17)

Patsy Overton
Patsy Overton Interiors, Atlanta, Georgia - Duluth, GA

Messy garages?  Ugh.  You are right on with your advice.  It's sort of the same thing as the homeowners cleaning out the bedroom only to stuff all the junk into the closet.  Will they ever realize that one of the primary goals of staging is to create space?  I guess we'll have to keep on preaching.

Jan 10, 2011 05:27 AM
Kathy Streib
Cypress, TX
Home Stager/Redesign

David- thank! and loved your most recent post!  I've just spent the last 15 minutes reading all of the links.

Patsy- preachers we are!  I realize it's hard for our sellers because they can't figure out what to do with all of their stuff once they decide to clean up.

Jan 10, 2011 06:12 AM
Janice Ankrett
Burlington, ON
Staging Professional

Kathy, I see this ALLL the time! It sends a clear message that there is not enough storage. Does the seller really want to do that? NO!

Jan 10, 2011 07:19 AM
Kathy Streib
Cypress, TX
Home Stager/Redesign

Janice- I've only seen a handfull of really clean and neat garages.  It's amazing how all of us forget about how important the garage is.

Jan 10, 2011 07:47 AM
Barbara Heil-Sonneck
Design2Sell - Atlanta, GA
Home Staging Atlanta

Hi Kathy, very important point and the picture speaks more than thousand words...

Jan 10, 2011 10:02 AM
Silvia Dukes PA, Broker Associate, CRS, CIPS, SRES
Tropic Shores Realty - Ich spreche Deutsch! - Spring Hill, FL
Florida Waterfront and Country Club Living

Kathy, that's really an excellent point and observation that many people overlook. Some "two" car garages don't even seem big enough when empty so cleaning them up is double important.  Of course, here in Florida we store everything in garages since we don't have basements! 

Jan 10, 2011 12:07 PM
Janet Jones
Just Your Style Interiors, LLC - Kihei, HI
Home Staging, Interior Redesign Kihei, Maui, Hawaii

Kathy--this is so true.  I often have sellers think they can store things in the garage that I have suggested be removed from the house.  Somehow they don't think buyers look at the garage????  The photo of that garage would scare many people away from a beautiful home. 

Jan 10, 2011 12:08 PM
Roger D. Mucci
Shaken...with a Twist 216.633.2092 - Euclid, OH
Lets shake things up at your home today!

It amazes me that they even have to ask why it matters..............people just don't get it do they Kathy...............grrrrrrrrrrr.

Jan 10, 2011 12:27 PM
Kathy Streib
Cypress, TX
Home Stager/Redesign

Barbara- and that's a very real picture.  Just as it was prior to staging.

Silvia- You're right... I've seen some 2 car garages that I had to scratch my hear and wonder if they really could hold 2 cars.

Janet- I've been in garages that I couldn't even walk in.  Every inch of the floor was covered.

Roger- It is funny how they look at me as if I were asking them to give up their beloved grandmother's quilt. 

Jan 10, 2011 12:37 PM
Toni Weidman
Sailwinds Realty - Trinity, FL
20+ Years Selling Homes in New Port Richey, FL

Uh Oh, we would be in trouble; we moved from a much bigger home so one side of the garage is storage. We only put one car in it. But we're not moving.

Jan 11, 2011 03:03 AM
Kathy Streib
Cypress, TX
Home Stager/Redesign

Toni- good point.  You're not moving.  We have 7 kayaks and a lot of Staging inventory in mine!

Jan 11, 2011 03:18 AM
Virginia Tatseos
Stage-Show-Sell - Bloomfield Township, MI

Very clever post.  

yes the buyers need to see the garage.

I used to say Women buy the house  Men buy the garage and the basement.  Most men can't see beyond the clutter.

Jan 11, 2011 07:19 AM
Virginia Tatseos
Stage-Show-Sell - Bloomfield Township, MI

Love the QR Code

Jan 11, 2011 07:19 AM
Rebecca Gaujot, Realtor®
Lewisburg, WV
Lewisburg WV, the go to agent for all real estate

Kathy, good post about the garage...and agree people want to SEE the garage.

Jan 11, 2011 09:20 AM
Beverly Carlson
Carlson Properties 325-721-2429 - Abilene, TX
Abilene's Staging Realtor

The competition in my area is new construction.  People can't see through boxes.  Get a portable storage unit and store the stuff.  The stuff has to be moved before closing anyway.  Let the buyer not  have a reason to offer less money in the offer because they think the garage is little. 

Jan 12, 2011 05:10 AM
Kathy Streib
Cypress, TX
Home Stager/Redesign

Virginia-  very true, we women tend to focus on the kitchen, master bedroom area, but more and more with storage at a premium, the garage is becoming very important.

Rebecca- yes, it's not enough to say it's a two or three car garage; they have to SEE it.

Beverly- Good point,  we want to take away as many objections to buying a house as possible.

Jan 12, 2011 06:27 AM