Part 1: Basic Home Staging Advice
Before we start, let’s revisit three basic home staging tips first:1. Stick to neutral colors
Shell white, homburg gray, and sashay sand are still big. You don’t want large areas of bright colors to get in the way of potential buyers’ imaginations. Pair these with their complements and add some pops of color in items like throw pillows, artwork, or even accent walls. But here too, stick to cooler colors like constellation blue or lush meadow green and avoid pinks and reds.
2. Match the property’s value
Prime real estate or high-end property performs best with luxury furniture while small, suburban houses go well with cozier and simpler furniture. Choose pieces that match your potential buyers’ personas and purchasing powers.
3. Experiment with the rule of three
Group items in threes. Arrange triangular layouts. Choose a three-color palette. Research shows that triads are a lot more visually appealing in home staging design than pairs or quartets. But this is just a guide. You’re welcome to experiment and try other combinations.
Part 2: Expert Home Staging Tips
It’s always good to remember the basics before trying something new. But now, let’s dig into the more expert, profit-raising, home-staging tips:1. Hook Attention with Outdoor Staging
First impressions don’t happen when potential buyers enter the house.
No. Instead, there’s that moment when they drive up to the curb and see the house for the first time as they get out of their car. These three seconds are key to putting them in an impressed, happy, ‘welcome home’ mood. You might know this concept as ‘curb appeal.’
Here are two tips on maximizing curb appeal when home staging:
- Invest in some quality outdoor furniture, plants, and lights. Don’t neglect the front porch. Make sure you maximize its warm, inviting feel.
- If the house has large windows, make use of them by adding some wonderful warm lighting inside, especially if you’re home staging in the winter. Create the image of a snug and cozy home in the middle of a frosty landscape.
So how does curb appeal help you make more money?
With an amazing looking house front, your client will get more calls for showings from people who drive by and notice a beautiful home. The increased demand will drive up the offers.
Plus, you’ll increase your value as a home stager. Any real estate agent would want to call you the next time he or she has a house to sell and you can charge what you deserve.
2. Build Professional Partnerships
In the home staging game, you’re likely to face the problem of clutter, odors, too many personal items, and a dire need for maintenance. Creaky floors, leaky faucets, and personal clutter could make potential buyers politely smile, turn around, and never return.
You’ll need people to paint the walls, caulk the tubs, and pack the clutter, among the many other different tasks around the house.
But professional cleaning, maintenance, and packers could cost a lot each time you hire them. Instead, build and nurture mutually beneficial partnerships with these people or businesses.
In a partnership, you can rehire the business each time you have a house to stage in exchange for some kind of discount that will help you cut back on costs. CasaOne, for example, is a furniture partner for many home stagers.
3. Learn DIY Cleaning and Repairs
Save additional costs by doing some of the maintenance work yourself. It’s easy to learn a few skills that make up most of the issues you face in the home staging business. For example:- Placing ice cubes on the dents in the carpet or rugs (that are visible after you’ve moved heavy furniture) for a few hours can help puff it up a bit. There’s no need to spring for a new one.
- Learning to paint can help you touch up the doors, fences, mailbox, railings, and hide chips and stains left by the elements or previous occupants, without having to hire professional painting services.
- Caulk areas around the sinks, bathtubs and windows to avoid that damaged, stained look. A tube of caulk can be purchased at any hardware store and applying it is easy. This will save you a ton of money in the long run.
4. Embrace Home Staging Trends
New generations of home buyers respond better to newer interior styles. To get them to shell out top dollar, embrace today’s home staging trends to leave clients smiling. Some trends include:- Using eco-inspired furniture like green potted plants, upcycled décor, and earth-friendly materials.
- Opting for smoother, rounder designs instead of sharp corners.
- Grouping different variants of the same objects such as end tables or pillows to create a whole new look.
5. Rent Staging Furniture
This one is our favorite. When you rent home furniture instead of buying, you open yourself to a whole new avenue of staging. You also save so much more money.
Here are just a few benefits of renting furniture for staging:
- It allows you to keep up with trends when staging a house. You’re not limited to the inventory you or the sellers own. You have total creative freedom.
- You won’t have to worry about hauling your inventory to different locations.
- You won’t need to rent a storage unit to organize your items. Nor will you have to worry about maintenance.
- You can get more furniture when you need it. Having your own inventory can become a problem when you have too many houses to stage at once, or if some houses are taking too long to sell. You’d have to keep buying more furniture each time you get a new client, or turn down clients. But not if you rent.
- Most furniture rental companies take care of all the delivery, assembly, and pick-up details so you can focus on the designing and planning.
