Top 10 Reasons to Stage a House in a Seller's Market

Motivated and serious; ready, willing and able is what sellers and buyers each want in the other. Home sellers send this message by having a house that looks its best. Here are some of the reasons why anyone would bother staging a home in a sellers market early on:

1. Home staging is an essential and irreplaceable marketing tool for marketing a home on the internet. 42% of buyers used YouTube last year alone to look up houses for sale. Video and virtual tours are a popular means of marketing a home for sale and staged homes present themselves well online.

2. Every dollar a home seller doesn’t spend on preparing their home for sale usually leads to the buyer asking for 10x the amount to do the work themselves. If $1 becomes $10, think about how this could impact your seller when it becomes $100 or $1000. 

3. Staged homes maximize a home seller’s return on investment and preserve the equity of their home. Sellers who stage their home drastically reduce time on market.

4. Real estate professionals win with home staging because a higher sales price translates into a higher commission and more referral business for selling faster and for top dollar.

5. Staged homes gain buyer confidence by creatively merchandising a home to minimize weaknesses, creating dream homes that buyers fall in love with.

6. Staged homes sell 2 to 2.5 times quicker and for usually 17% more than the non-staged homes.

7. Home staging can help with appraisal perception and may also increase the appraisal value, allowing some buyers to qualify for a mortgage easier.

8. Agents and REALTORS® who pay for home staging consultations in an owner occupied home for sale, as part of their services, differentiate themselves from other Agents or REALTORS® who don’t offer home staging.

9. Sellers who stage their home will hold more cards, and put more money in their pockets, faster than other homes in the same price range that have not prepared their home for sale.

10. Home staging always costs less than the first price reduction.

Johanna Wells is a DMAR Affiliate member and a guest writer.