Property Staging for Real Estate Agents — 10 Tips to Make Your Listings Stand Out

First impressions count! The look of a house, inside and out, can make or break a sale. Sellers might feel their décor as-is illustrates the best part of the home, but a prospective buyer might not, and subsequently have a difficult time seeing themselves living there. After cleaning, de-cluttering and air-freshening, the next step is to showcase the home — big, bright, warm and inviting — so that buyers can see its full potential.

Here are 10 tips for property staging that will make your listings stand out.

1. Justified or not, buyers might have already formed an opinion about the home by the time they've pulled into the driveway. In addition to a manicured lawn, trimmed hedges, fresh exterior paint, tidy walkway and dent-free garage door, you can further boost the home’s curb appeal by staging the porch or veranda with size-appropriate plant containers, attractive seating and a new welcome mat.
2. Often overlooked in staging, the foyer is a second chance to make an initial impression on buyers, setting their expectations for what the rest of the house might be like. No matter its size, make the foyer a welcoming space with a bench, decorative lamp, wall-mounted shelf, fresh flowers or framed art such as a landscape or an abstract subject.
3. When you tell the story of a home, make each room inside it a chapter. Group furniture to create user-friendly spaces and illustrate the traffic flow: Pull sofas and chairs away from the walls and arrange them into conversational areas. Place a cozy armchair and a small side table in a bedroom corner to create a reading nook. Position a console table under a window and add an accessory to create a focal point that draws buyers to the view from that spot.
4. While sellers may think they've artfully arranged their extensive collection of themed accessories, the effect can be overwhelming to buyers. Curate the knickknacks into small, relevant groupings. Be ruthless: You want buyers to see the space, not the stuff.
5. Colors immediately strike a chord; when buyers see them used throughout a home for sale, the effect can be hit or miss. Use color to the home’s best advantage. Larger spaces such as living rooms should be painted in neutral colors, like warm tans and honeys. Limit the use of bright colors to accent walls, a well-placed accessory, or a fresh fruit or flower arrangement. It’s okay to experiment with dark paint in a dining room or bathroom to make those spaces striking but cozy.
6. At one time or another, most rooms in a home are multipurpose spaces, so make sure you stage ambient, task and accent lighting in each one. That means appropriate placement and wattage of overhead lighting, pendant or reading lighting, and table and wall lighting.
7. When buyers arrive to see a three bedroom home, they don’t want to see two bedrooms and a junk pile. Restore misused spaces to their original purpose. If there are just plain awkward areas — for example, attics under a slanted ceiling or partially finished basements — turn them into assets by repurposing them as offices or game rooms.
8. One of the fastest, easiest and least expensive ways to update a home is to replace dated hardware with contemporary pieces. New doorknobs, drawer handles or cabinet pulls can immediately update the look of a room. But don’t go crazy: You don’t want buyers to be calculating how much it will take to redo a space.
9. Many inside living areas are moving outside, so remember to stage the backyard and deck. Incorporating fire features, arranging seating and dining areas, and highlighting water elements can turn a ho-hum patio into an inviting outdoor retreat.
10. Property staging is all about getting buyers to feel warm and fuzzy about living there, but if you’re staging during the holidays, it’s a thin line between just right and too far. Don’t go overboard with the merry-making décor. A simple evergreen wreath on the door is an adequate yet elegant touch. A few candles inside the home create a warm welcome as do a crackling fire. A simple plate of cookies and mugs of cider or cocoa also invite buyers to stay a while longer and explore the home.

Property staging is as much a marketing tool as your website or real estate blog, and you should consider it an integral part of selling a home. The longer a home is on the market, the higher the risk of having to reduce the price while sellers continue to pay the mortgage. Property staging increases the chance of creating an emotional attachment between buyers and a home: Done right, it can be your key to closing more business, doing it faster and for top dollar.