A Handy Seller’s Guide To Staging a House While Living In It
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- Jacob Bourne, Contributing AuthorCloseJacob Bourne Contributing Author
Jacob Bourne is a journalist based in California’s Bay Area. He’s covered real estate news for Bisnow, The Registry, and local Bay Area newspapers.
- Richard Haddad, Executive EditorCloseRichard Haddad Executive Editor
Richard Haddad is the executive editor of HomeLight.com. He works with an experienced content team that oversees the company’s blog featuring in-depth articles about the home buying and selling process, homeownership news, home care and design tips, and related real estate trends. Previously, he served as an editor and content producer for World Company, Gannett, and Western News & Info, where he also served as news director and director of internet operations.
- Sam Dadofalza, Associate Refresh EditorCloseSam Dadofalza Associate Refresh Editor
Sam Dadofalza is an associate refresh editor at HomeLight, where she crafts insightful stories to guide homebuyers and sellers through the intricacies of real estate transactions. She has previously contributed to digital marketing firms and online business publications, honing her skills in creating engaging and informative content.
According to transaction reports from the National Association of Realtors, 53% of repeat buyers use the proceeds from the sale of their primary residence in order to purchase their next home. Living in the house until it’s sold is a very common scenario for sellers. This presents a huge dilemma for those wanting a quick sale or excellent offers: staging a house while living in it.
How can you help buyers visualize themselves living in your space when you haven’t vacated it yet? Proper home staging is key so that it appears that you’ve already moved out and the cleaning fairies have moved in.
If you’re unable to use transitional housing — or are just short on cleaning fairies — read on for our definitive guide to keep your home looking professionally staged, all while eating, sleeping, and living there.
What is staging?
Staging is like a home-selling theater. It involves choosing or modifying the decor and furnishings to evoke a feeling of newness, freshness, and appeal for buyers. It’s especially important for listing photos, showings, and open houses to convey what the house looks like at its best in a way that doesn’t make it seem like it’s someone else’s home. In other words, great staging will help buyers imagine what the house would be like if they lived in it.
As a marketing tool in the seller’s toolkit, staging can be either DIY or professionally done. Either way, the point is to entice buyers with staging that gives your home a glossy furniture catalog feel.
Move out (physically & mentally)
Staging your home while still living there is an achievable feat, but you’ll have to make some lifestyle changes. Start by changing your mindset. Your time there is very temporary so begin going through some of the motions of moving out. Be willing to give up your settled existence. These steps will help:
- Declutter visible areas
- Empty drawers and cabinets
- Place any belongings not used on a daily basis in storage
- Deep clean areas as you go through the decluttering steps
- Keep any personal items like family portraits, holiday cards and your kids’ drawings from the fridge out of view
- Place your things in storage
Aside from tidying up the space, slowly embrace the fact that you’ll leave your home soon. This will help you gradually detach from it and see that it’s not yours anymore and it will be someone else’s in the next few weeks or months. While this may be an emotionally charged exercise, it will make you see the staging task as an actual project and give you the push you need to make the house homey and neat, looking like those in home improvement shows.
Clean it and then keep it clean
Now for the hard part. Spending a weekend decluttering, deep cleaning, and putting items in storage is a great start, but maintaining the perfect staged look is another matter. After all, you — and, more importantly, your family — are still living there. The good news is that with a little daily planning, keeping the charade going in time for the next showing shouldn’t be too heavy a lift.
- Identify the areas of your home that get dirty or messy on a daily basis and target these over the places that just need occasional sprucing.
- Get the rest of your family on board with a daily or weekly schedule to tackle frequently messy areas to divide and conquer.
- Clean as you go — if you’re cooking, start loading the dishes and wiping down the counter while the pasta boils. Don’t forget to deep clean the dishwasher.
- Or bypass having to clean the stovetop altogether and just cook in the oven or a pressure cooker (Instant Pot is your friend).
- Use placemats during mealtimes and have young children use bibs.
And don’t skip these finer cleaning details. Buyers will notice if you do:
- Get rid of water stains
- Scrub away shower scum
- Invest in new linens for beds (cartoon bedspreads out, neutral-colored blankets in)
- Put the bulk of toys in storage, keeping just a few favorite books and toys out for use
- Store the vacuum, duster, and Lysol wipes within easy reach
- Open windows daily to reduce odors while maximizing natural light in kitchens and key rooms
- Round-up pet toys, both indoors and outside, and keep them in a designated bin when not in use
Don’t stage your home alone
Depending on your budget, getting professional help could help boost your home’s appeal beyond your own efforts.
When asked her opinion about hiring professional stagers, top real estate agent Maribel Sotuyo of Houston, Texas, says, “If there’s something I would personally invest in when selling my house, this would be that thing.” While staging might appear to be an unnecessary extra expense, it’s actually often included in packages offered by Realtors®.
You’ll reap the benefits of staging both when buyers visit in-person and when they view photos online. Prior to the photoshoot, modify the staging in any way that will produce optimum images. For example, move bulky furniture out of small spaces or rooms and away from doorways, Sotuyo advises. Make sure all counters and surfaces are tidy and that everything looks bright and fresh.
In some cases, staging can even distract buyers from noticing a home’s shortcomings.
Whether you decide to hire a stager or not, you definitely want to make some degree of staging investment. A recent survey by the National Association of Realtors revealed these notable benefits of home staging:
- 81% of buyers’ agents believe that “staging a home made it easier for a buyer to visualize the property as a future home”
- 48% of sellers’ agents said staging “decreased a property’s time on the market”
- 20% of both buyers’ and sellers’ agents said staging “increased the dollar value offered by between 1% and 5% compared to similar homes on the market not staged
How much faster can a staged home sell? In a recent HomeLight Top Agent Insights report, agents reported that staged homes sell 13% more than unstaged homes.
Moreover, a well-staged property can sell for as much as $52,000 more, HomeLight agents said, considering a median home price of $400,000. In contrast, skipping staging will likely make you lose five figures in the sale because you lose multiple offers, as Ashley Lay, a top agent in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, noted.
Get out of the house
Prepare yourself and your family to be out of the house during showings and open houses. It’s an inconvenient part of the process, yet the upside is that the less time you spend there, the cleaner everything will remain!
Plan ahead for more activities outside of the home and try to have all items necessary for the excursions packed and ready ahead of time. The last thing you want to do is keep buyers waiting when they want to stop by for a showing; otherwise, they may move on to the next property.
Plan day trips, outdoor picnics for lunch, and make restaurant reservations for dinner. If your budget doesn’t agree with the latter, accept any dinner invites from relatives and friends. Eating outside the home is especially helpful for reducing kitchen and dining area odors and cleaning chores.
Here are some other tips for making your household scarce:
- Use the laundromat so your laundry room stays neat and tidy
- Take your dog to a self-serve wash like iClean rather than use the tub
- Cook those fish burgers outside on the grill rather than in the kitchen
- Skip the DIY haircuts for the kids and go to your local barber shop
- Arrange playdates for your kids at the neighbors or take trips to the local park if the weather is nice
- Go camping
Make a last-minute list
Showings could be scheduled with little notice and you don’t want to be scrambling to check all the nooks and crannies to make sure they’re clean. Instead, make a list of any areas that need a once-over before leaving the house.
Here are a few that could slip through the cracks:
- Make all the beds
- Wipe down kitchen countertops
- Clean and disinfect bathroom surfaces (for that just-cleaned smell)
- Use a lint roller on the furniture and pet areas
- Close closet doors
- Lower toilet seats and shut medicine cabinet doors
- Tidy up the kid’s playroom, spray Febreze
- Wipe handprints off the front door glass or windows
- Empty and rinse the sink.
- Shut the dishwasher
- Organize shoe areas and make sure mud rooms or entrance way floors are clean
- Secure personal items like checkbooks, IDs, credit cards, medications, etc. out of view
By following these tips, you’ll be on your way to a smooth sale by showing buyers your home in its best light. Ensure you’ll get the highest return on your investment by using HomeLight’s Agent Match tool to get connected with a top-performing real estate agent in your market to guide you through the process.
Header Image Source: (Clay Banks / Unsplash)