How Not To Stage A Home
Whoever said “first impressions never count,” obviously never staged a home or went on a blind date. After you find your perfect property and rehab it to the nines, the whole process can come tumbling down faster than the Berlin wall if you don’t stage your home correctly. To stage a home is to set it up with good lighting and some sparse furniture and accessories to give a pleasing appearance. Another extremely vital part of staging is photographing your home and placing the best pics online to entice buyers. Believe it or not, there’s a bit of an art to this which eludes many unfortunate sellers. We don’t want this to happen to you, so we’re posting some of the most horrendous staging pics so you will know EXACTLY what to avoid.
We’ve heard of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, but this is crazy. When you stage your house, make sure you clear it out of all personal items to give the potential buyers an opportunity to envision the home as their own. This includes putting away all creepy doll and mask collectibles into storage, at least until after you take the picture.
When it comes to staging a room, this one is practically perfect…except for one thing. When you take your pictures to post on the MLS, make sure all individuals are clear of the shot. This includes your looming stone-faced uncle.
This picture could have been a nice one to put up on the MLS… just get rid of the garden hose, the bag of trash and…oh yeah…the dog attempting to leave a nice gift on the lawn.
See, how it works is you get the rehab work done first… and then you take pictures for the MLS. Whoever took this picture expecting the home to sell must have either hoped to appeal to artistic types or those who can “see the potential” of a home. Remember, it’s your job to see the potential of a home and bring it to life through a well-executed rehab.
What a lovely kitchen… cute cabinets, adorable tile back splash… awww, and it even comes with its own little ghost that fits so conveniently under the counter.
Remember when you’re staging your home that you’re trying to make it appeal to the masses…not specifically targeting the taxidermy demographic. Now is not the time for you to show off your hunting trophies…mounted so nicely on the sofa.
We all love the amazing altering tools available on Photoshop… but if you have to “fix” the photo so much that it looks like your fixtures belong in three different dimensions, you might want to just re-take the photo.
Whoever thought capturing mold, moss and coordinating lawn chairs on film as a major selling point has splinters in the windmills of their mind. This goes along with Scene 4 – you’ll want to finish the rehab work FIRST, before you start photographing the potentially harmful essence of the house.
Though there’s no hiding any criminal activity which occurred in the neighborhood, you might want to at least sweep up before you take the picture. Unless, of course, it happened as innocently as running through an invisible sliding glass door because you thought you heard the ice cream truck.
Typically, a pool that takes up the entire room…the entire laundry room…and is inflatable…isn’t a selling point. Deflate that sucker, clear out all of the wall hangings and paint over the stars on the ceiling and you could have a decently staged room on your hands.
There’s nothing like including livestock in a picture to really sell a home. It gives new meaning to the phrase, “This place is a pig sty!”
This bedroom sports an extremely out-of-date carpet, PLUS the convenience of never having to walk down the hall to the bathroom ever again. Just walk across the room! Add a mini fridge and you’ll never have to go anywhere ever again.
No room in the staging budget for kitchen furniture? No worries! The outdoor patio table and chairs will do quite nicely. Plus, the umbrella cover will shade occupants from harmful UV rays emitting from the overhead kitchen light.
No one ever likes to see a room right after a wild, drywall crushing party – especially when you’re staging a home. Make sure every room is spotless and tidy, both in pictures and reality. Less is more, and there’s nothing like clutter which will send your prospective buyers fleeing like vampires before garlic.
Here’s an excellent staging tip: if a potential buyer walks into a room and immediately has a headache, you might want to invest in blank walls and a simple bedspread.
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