Staying in a staged house can be possible, but it largely depends on the arrangement with the seller and the terms of the sale. In a city like Auckland, where the housing market can be competitive, sellers may be more inclined to accommodate such requests, especially if they haven't yet vacated the property. However, if the house is already vacant and staged for showings, it's less common for the buyers to stay during the staging period. In any case, it's crucial to have clear agreements in place and to respect the property, including any features like fences in Auckland, to ensure a smooth transition for all parties involved.
Living in an organized home can be much easier than most people think. It's much easier to maintain because there are fewer belongings to navigate. And when you start with a deep clean, maintenance is a breeze. Statistics show that a pre-designed house will sell faster and for more money than its unassembled counterpart.
The report also found that 82% of buyer agents say staging makes it easier for buyers to view a property as their future home, which can help the home sell faster. According to the report, the staging of the living room was found to be very important for 46% of buyers, followed by the master bedroom, with 43%, and the kitchen, with 35%. According to the NAR report, the most common rooms that are organized are the living room (93%), the kitchen (84%), the owner's bedroom (78%) and the dining room (72%). A clean home shows potential buyers that you have taken good care of the property.
Ideally, you should clean every part of the house, from floors to ceilings and everything in between. Essential oils (mix a cup of water with eight to 10 drops of oil in a spray bottle and spray toward the center of each room), herbs and flowers, beeswax candles, and air purifiers are chemical-free ways to freshen the air in your home. Take advantage of the natural light in your home. Open all the curtains and blinds when you show your home.
Add fixtures where needed and turn on all display lights (including those in cabinets). This makes your home look brighter and more welcoming, and saves buyers from having to look for light switches. If you think your current accessories are OK, make sure to dust them off and clean up dirt. Otherwise, outdated and broken lamps are easy and cheap to replace.
Make sure the sidewalk leading to the house is clear and clean, and buy new door mats for the front and rear doors. If you have a pool, show it by making sure it's crystal clear. Creating some type of outdoor living space in the backyard, such as a deck or patio with outdoor furniture, is another way to use the outside of your home to its greatest advantage. Nothing does more to improve your home than a coat of paint.
Spending a weekend, tidying, deep cleaning and storing items is a good start, but keeping the perfect look on stage is another matter. If figuring out how to stage a house for sale while living in it is daunting, you can hire a professional assembly company to do the work for you. Buyers are going through the listings and the same staged aesthetic: the beige sofa, the cream rug can start to look very tired. Salvatore recently organized a pre-war three-bedroom cooperative at 975 Park Avenue for a property sale listed by colleague Dorothy Schrager, an associate broker in Warburg.
Jennifer McLaughlin, 41, of Piermont and Lilli Weisz, 38, of Upper Nyack, did everything they could to stage their homes, said Donna Cox. Whether you decide to hire a stager or not, you'll definitely want to make some degree of investment in the assembly. You don't have to pay a lot of money to change your existing furniture and you can even rent furniture to organize your home. In short, staging means setting up the house for a potential buyer or “setting the stage”, if you like.
For example, I wouldn't stage a renovated loft in Tribeca, the same as a pre-war loft on the Upper East Side. If you've ever walked through an open house or a house for sale and saw a perfectly designed interior, with everything placed like that, you might have witnessed a staged house. It can take days for the in-house setter to bring everything needed to stage the house, and even more time to organize it properly. Richard Mishkin said many homeowners can't see their homes objectively because of their emotional attachment to their homes, and that's why professional stage designers are helpful.
A professional manager will review your property and offer verbal suggestions including cleanliness and clutter, as well as recommendations on things like new paint colors and furniture to make the home attractive to many people. Melinda Massie, owner of a housing planning company in Fort Worth, says a good staging allows buyers to imagine themselves in the house, show off their good features and hide their flaws, turns strange spaces into usable spaces, creates an atmosphere (viewers call it “putting on emotional scene”) and makes the house look significantly better in photos.
