3 Home Staging Tips For House Flippers

Staging can be a very effective tool when flipping a house. Make sure you learn the important Home Staging Tips before you begin.

A common technique many people use when flipping real estate is what’s called a home staging. When you stage a home, you essentially furnish, organize and decorate a property so that it is ready to be showcased in an open house. It is a process that can be done yourself, or by hiring a professional. If you do decide to embark on this strategy alone, it is important to know a few important home staging tips.

The key to staging is to make the house feel like a home. A bare bones house with nothing in it will feel more like a prison than a place where the people can live.

When attending an open house, the prospective buyers usually have already narrowed their choices down to a few houses that fit their price range and are located in the general area where they want to leave. This means that their final choice might be led by emotion. A warm house that is full of life and energy might be what they need to make that final decision.

Remember, when the perceived value of a house increases, the faster it sells. The faster the house sells, the less money in money you will spend in maintenance and upkeep. Home Staging may be just what you need to sell your house fast.

Should I Stage My Home?

Generally speaking, the rule of thumb is that cheaper homes should not be staged. However, if you are flipping real estate that is more expensive and in a nicer neighborhood, you may want to consider home staging.

Home Staging Tips: #1. Highlight Strengths And Camouflage Weaknesses

One of the most important home staging tips has to do with appearance. No house is perfect, but most houses to have some promising features that make them more attractive. When home staging, your job is to try to hide the bad and accentuate the good.

Maybe your property has a good-sized window that faces the sunset. Don’t hide this feature by covering it with drapes. Instead highlight it by arranging the furniture and making it the center of the room. There are dozens of ways to punctuate these selling points but below are some of the most popular.

Get New Faces For The Kitchen

The average cost of a new kitchen remodel is around $20,000. However, a clever trick when staging a home is to simply get new faces for the different pieces of the kitchen.

The new cabinets, as well as many kitchen appliances like dishwashers, can be refaced, creating a clean, crisp appearance for the buyer to see. You will save hundreds if not thousands of dollars by using this trick.

Stage Outside Areas

If the property you’re selling has an outside area, like a patio, a deck or garden area, it is a smart idea to utilize it. Setting up a nice set of chairs and a table can really help the buyers visualize the potential for the space. You want to help them paint a picture of lighting up the grill, listening to music in a lawn chair, or lying on their backs while they look up at stars.

Home Staging Tips: #2. Arrange The Furniture

One key aspect that many people buying a new home consider, whether consciously or subconsciously, is space. Since furniture takes up the largest amount of space, you should consider arranging it before showing your house. The placement of furniture can either suffocate a space, or open it up.

Consider moving the furniture into cornered conversational arrangements. By doing this, you will show the potential buyers how they can utilize the room with their family or guests.

With smaller rooms, you should push the furniture up against the walls creating a larger space in the middle. However, if you are setting up a larger room, you can pull the furniture in, leaving space between it and the walls. By doing this, you emphasize just how much space there is, while also making a cozy area for people to talk.

When arranging the furniture, you must always make it obvious which way the traffic is supposed to move. A nice fluid walking space is always better than a treacherous maze. You don’t want prospective buyers to have to maneuver around large sofas or trip over ill-placed end tables. Never make the room feel congested. If you follow this home staging tip, you might be more successful in selling your property.

Home Staging Tips: #3. Accessorize

A good way to give a room that extra sense of comfort is by adding accessories. Items like flowers on the kitchen table, a chessboard on the patio, or even a fruit bowl on the coffee table can help to make the room livelier.

Give each room in your property a purpose by adding telling items. You can make a room into a study with a relaxing chair, some books, a globe, a desk-light and a notepad. Trigger the imaginations of the prospective buyers and give them ideas of what kind of activities they could do in each room. An empty space to store their boxes full of possessions does not appeal to most people.

These inexpensive items can give a house the character it needs to be sold. For the profit you will be ultimately making, these accessories will often pay for themselves and then some.