Fact Sheet – Homestaging & Preparing Homes for Sale
Making the most of your biggest asset when it’s time to sell.
By Anthea Baker–Shreeve, an expert in Interior Designer and Home Staging. Anthea is a Director of homebase; she writes and speaks regularly on preparing homes for sale and the latest design trends. www.homebase.co.nz
Would you sell a car without washing it?
Preparing a property for sale is the final act when selling a house. It’s no different to washing, or detailing your car before you sell it - you do it because you know it makes a difference. We all know that a clean and shiny car will make the buyer believe that the car has been well looked after – it’s no different with a house!
It’s that final 5% of effort and those extra few dollars that can reap the big rewards and make all the difference between an OK sale price, where you crack open a beer to celebrate, or a record breaking sale price where its free flowing champagne for the rest of the year!
Potential buyers decide within the first 30 seconds whether they like a house. Overseas research shows that properties that have been professionally prepared for sale, will sell for 10-15 per cent more money and up to twice as fast as houses that haven’t had the same professional treatment.
There are many home preparation options and services available to you, regardless of your situation and your budget. Don’t think that home preparation is only for ‘flash’ homes - great results can be achieved across all market segments and in any location.
Selling your Home While you are Living There
Most people are living in their homes while selling, so you won’t need to hire a complete house load of designer furniture for your house, unless of course you chose to move out. Some sellers find keeping their homes clean and tidy and ‘open home ready’ for weeks at a time is very stressful, and they chose to move out and stay with friends, relations, or move to a rental property and have the house fully staged.
If you decide not to move out then you can still apply the home staging principles and create the wow factor in your house.
You can achieve this by firstly de-cluttering, depersonalizing and putting excess belongings into storage. Then get the experts in, to either give you advice on what to do next, to present the home, or use a Part Homestaging service from a professional and well established company to achieve a high level of presentation.
Part Homestaging
Part staging works by replacing any items of your furniture that are letting the show down, with something a little more contemporary together with art, accessories and cushions to really achieve a polished look – you simply hire these items for a few weeks.
Homebase has a part staging service called pick ‘n’ mix they can part stage complete rooms or just provide the bits and pieces that you need. The smallest changes can make the biggest difference
Quotes and consultations are free.
Home Preparation Advice
When you have been living in a property for a few years, it’s hard to stand back and be objective about the property, and see it through potential buyer’s eyes – very simply we lose the ability to see ‘the wood for the trees’ We don’t see all the clutter and the chipped paint and the stains on the carpet because we have got used to them, as we see them every day, whereas these are the first things a buyer will notice coming into your house for the first time
Many designers will be able to offer you this objectivity, as will good real estate agents, there is no coincidence in the fact that the top selling agents make sure they talk to their clients about the need for a high level of property presentation.
Homebase offers a service called fresh eyes where one of our homestaging consultants will walk though the property, inside and out. They will identify all the areas that are letting your property down, from a presentation perspective, these are also what a potential buyer is going to spot straight away. They will also let you know what products and services to use, should you need to do a little work around the place to modernize things, and they can chose some paint colours too if you need to freshen things up a bit by painting.
Selling your Home when it’s empty
When you are selling a vacant house, whether it’s your family home you have moved out of, a newly built property or an ex-rental, then you can use homestaging to help achieve a higher sale price in a shorter time.
Homestaging will fill your empty house with well-chosen furniture, art and accessories designed to give buyers a peek at the life they could have if they bought your house! Research shows that Potential buyers will stay three times longer at the open home when viewing a house that has been homestaged. They also they find it easier to remember a homestaged property, at the end of the day, after visiting up to eight open homes in a single day. We have to remember that most people will buy on emotion and Homestaging really does turn what can be a soulless, lifeless empty shell of a house, into a warm and welcoming inspirational home.
Homebase provides fully inclusive packages and again quotes are free
Selling an Investment Property
If you are committed to selling, then ensure the tenants move out - you are selling their home so they are hardly likely to help you!
Most tenants won’t go to the same extent that you would to ensure that the house is presented well, every day, during the marketing period
If you are worried about losing out on rent, then sleep easy, knowing that with the house staged it will sell quicker and for more money than with the tenant there.
Top 5 tips to preparing a property for sale.
Anyone regardless of their budget can use these tips to make the property more appealing to buyers.
1. Tidy up and de clutter
Put any unnecessary furniture, personal accessories and clutter into storage. This will make your home appear more spacious.
2. Clean!
When preparing your home for sale the best money that can be spent is on cleaning. If your home is well cleaned it will immediately give the potential buyer the impression that the house is well looked after.
3. Remove Bad Smells
Smells are a strong trigger, either negatively or positively, so make sure any potential buyer is left with the right feelings towards your property. Ventilate well to remove cooking and pet smells particularly. Enhance the feeling in the house by burning essential oils; lavender, citrus and vanilla are good ones to use.
4. Lighten
More light gives the impression of space and brightness which is more appealing to the potential buyer.
Dark rooms can be made to feel larger and more roomy by using additional lighting, for bedrooms use bed side lamps and for other rooms use side lamps or standard lamps. As a final touch for your open homes don’t forget to turn the lights on.
5. Exterior of the house
Don’t put people off before they even get to the front door, stand on the opposite side of the road and look with a critical eye at your house - what do you see that could be improved?. Get the outside of your home professionally washed, or hire a water blaster and do it yourself. Consider touching up any peeling paint, and if you have a garden, give it a good once over by weeding, water blasting paths and driveways and putting fresh bark around the flower beds.
For more details and to talk to Anthea call freephone 0800 STAGE IT (0800 782 434)
Or go to www.homebase.co.nz