Ready to sell? Is your home ready?
We asked Dione Irwin, owner of Plush Home Staging (see her story on page 62 of the Spring 2024 issue), to dispel a few myths about prepping your home to attract buyers.
#1 “I can just lightly stage this room and it will work.”
Light staging — or, as we call it, “the placing of random objects in a room,” like a chair and a rug in a bedroom, or only putting items on the mantel — does not help sell houses. It will actually slow the process down. Staging is only meant to do three things:
- Show the room’s purpose;
- Show the room’s scale; and
- Add light to the room.
Random objects in a room serve only to draw attention away from the house and make it feel awkward, empty and distressed. Either stage the room completely, or don’t stage it at all!
#2 “We should pull out the staging as soon as the house goes pending.”
Uh-oh! You pulled out your staging before the inspection period ended because you got too excited. Now your sale has failed because the buyer didn’t like the condition of the water heater. Always leave it in through the conditional period until it’s firm-sold.
#3 “We want to keep the heat turned as low as possible because we aren’t living in it.”
I get it. You don’t want to turn on every light in the house and leave the HVAC blasting when no one is there. But it will greatly benefit your sale to keep the house warm and bright for showings!
When it is dark and cold, it’s essential that lights are turned on, window blinds and curtains are open, and the temperature is at a comfortable level. Buyers don’t like walking into dark spaces and will react much more positively when the home is light and bright. If the home is too cold, buyers will tend to run through it quickly and not want to stay, which is not what you want from a showing.
Dione Irwin, owner of Plush Home Staging
