Staging FAQs: Why Rent, When I Already Own Furniture?

FAQs are usually a one-shot topic: a quick answer to a single question, but renting furniture for preparing a Westchester County property for sale has several facets, so in this first (of three) we will address WHY consider renting, even if you already have furniture.

Two truisms about Home Staging: Preparing a property for sale is like sending it out on it's first date. You do what you can to put it's best foot forward, so buyers are first attracted, then engaged, so they notice, and see the value of all it's best attributes. Also, how you live in your HOME is different from how you will get your HOUSE sold.

For many reasons, what you already own might not be the best for the house: the purple sofa, Nanna's mahoghany china cabinet-complete with all 24 place settings, the dresser you had as a teenager and never got around to replacing as an adult, and ohyes...that bachelor pad recliner.

-The purple sofa could be a real statement piece...in perfect condition, it'll be the centerpiece of your new living room. But if it's such a standout, it's distracting, it's what buyers will remember about your house. And which will put more money in your pocket-a house with a great sofa, or a house with wonderful light, tall ceilings and lots of closets?

-Most buyers favor a particular style of house. Sentiment might make an uber-traditional china cabinet work for you in your contemporary home, but it doesn't reinforce what brings buyers to see your house in the first place.

It's generous proportions might be a terrific function for you-all the better to display Nanna's 24 place settings!-but very few people have the spatial skills to evaluate a space beyond how it appears. SO-if it crowds the Dining Room, it diminishes the main purpose-how big a table will fit; and the buyers' takeaway is that there is not enough storage.

-Buying a house is someone getting a step closer to fulfilling their dreams, so the rooms need to be all they can be. Your childhood furniture may be perfectly suitable for you and your needs, but Barbie-sized furniture is neither inspiring or representative of value or worth. Major rooms should have expected furniture pieces of the proper scale.

OK< we don't really need to discuss that recliner, do we?

NEXT: Re-Thinking 'De-Personalize'