"When we decided to list our home we figured we could simply arrange the furniture, take out a few personal items, clean really well and it would be enough to appeal to a buyer. We don't have a huge, fancy house or luxury property by any means but we were surprised that our first initial marketing ploy got little to no buyers through the door. Even though we decided to use a professional real estate agent, the listing was on the market, we advertise it on social media, but still just didn't get the attraction we were hoping for.
We decided to pull it off of the market after about three months. It's at that time that we decided to switch agencies and made the decision to go with a professional stager. We didn't have a lot of money but we knew that we wanted to set up our home in a way that made pictures really stand out, really made a great first impression and buyers really wanted to stay in the home and eventually place an offer on the home.
When we first spoke to our home interior stager they mentioned that each home is unique and that we were trying to target a specific buyer demographic. We look through their portfolio of work, their attention to detail and quality and even though the used a lot of our own items, they brought in different touches and materials that accentuated our existing furniture and decorations. This might've been an extra face, unique books, changing out throw pillows on the couches and chairs, adding different decorations to the walls and even offering tips and suggestions for when we had a quick showing. They would tell us how to stage the home on a regular basis even though we had kids, so that we could clean up in about 30 minutes and things would all go back to the way it was previously staged.
Mind you, we still lived in this home and it was not vacant so even though we were still living around all of these extra items it really felt like we were living in a fancy hotel room. It was a great mix of our own items plus a few extra staging items that really accented each room carefully. The stager worked with the bedrooms, bathrooms, living room, kitchen, dining room, family room and office. They made sure each room was set up as it originally was intended. They took the toys out of the living room, moves a lot of furniture away from the walls and the windows and de-cluttered a lot of our home.
The home stagers told us the taking great photos are the bait that attracts nearly 95% of buyers to the home. So wasn't just that we had to make the house look amazing, we have to take great photographs and this is where fantastic agent came into play. He hired professional photographers that took outstanding photos. Once everything was completed, we were ready to list again, we put the home on the market for 5% higher than when we previously listed and got an offer within two weeks.
If we ever have to sell again there's no question that we would hire professional home interior stager."
Image by Real Estaging