Do Staged Homes Really Sell For More?
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Currently the market has tipped to favor buyers. There are more options for them to buy (110 homes in Gig Harbor and 62 on the Key Peninsula as of January 3rd) and the most compelling home will win the hearts and money of the buyers. This means excellent preparation—cleaning, staging, landscaping, and all those maintenance items that you may have put off—are mandatory to get top dollar when you sell.
Now more than ever your agent should obsess over every detail to make your home shine online. Your photographer should look at every angle to see how it will show on-screen, because that’s where we need to sell the buyer first. The first impression of your home will likely be on a computer or small iPhone screen, and we all know that first impressions matter.
Why staging matters
Dominic Wilkerson of Dom Does Media shoots for many of the top agents in the Gig Harbor market. He says, “I love to photograph a home when it is staged. It helps tell the story of what the home feels like. An empty room can also be confusing in photographs without something to anchor it and convey the size and layout.”
Ninety-eight percent of buyers start their journey online to purchase a home, and in the hot markets of 2020, 2021, and 2022, we’ve seen the numbers skyrocket of buyers purchasing homes sight unseen, reminding us that what your home looks like online matters.
According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), “Eighty-two percent of buyers’ agents said staging a home made it easier for a buyer to visualize the property as a future home.” In addition, NAR reports, “Ninety-seven percent of agents recommend decluttering your home before going to market.”
“The other 3% are misinformed,” says Paige Schulte, founder of Neighborhood Experts Real Estate and recently voted Gig Harbor’s Finest Realtor for 2022.
The NAR also states that only 31% of listing agents stage all homes before listing them for sale. But Schulte says, “At Neighborhood Experts Real Estate we believe in it so much that we pay for it for our clients, as do most of the top agents in the local market. Even if you still live in the house, and even if your favorite designer picked out all your current furniture, staging is strongly advised.”
Emily Pleau, founder of Clementine Design, agrees. “Staging helps present a house in its best light. With a home that is being lived in during the sale process staging often involves decluttering and depersonalizing. In a vacant home staging involves bringing in furniture, art, and decor to make a house feel like a home. Staging gives meaning and purpose to a space and allows the buyer to imagine themselves living there.”
When you edit, pack, purge, and stage, you can play up the gorgeous style you already have and highlight the best features of your home to attract the most buyers.
“Ideally, staging elevates your home to where buyers think, ‘Wow, I can get all of this for just “X” price,’” says Falynn Auston, real estate agent at Neighborhood Experts Real Estate.
Got Stage Fright?
As the seller, don’t sweat—you don’t have to be a designer. The top stagers thrive on bringing personality to your home and drawing the buyer into its story without being distracting. And the more that buyers fall in love, the bigger the check they’ll write.
“When a home has been thoughtfully edited, staged, and professionally photographed it will stand out amongst the others. Statistics show that homes that are staged not only sell faster but also receive higher offers,” says Pleau.
When it comes to staging, there are a few different options: occupied styling, partial stage (i.e. you’ve emptied a few rooms), or full vacant stage. A professional stager will walk through and give their recommendation to your agent and they’ll arrange to work with you, the seller, to prepare it for market. When it shows well, both the online and in-person experience is elevated.
Real estate agents should love the numbers, know the comparable sales, have a pricing strategy, and be a confident negotiator. But unless they have a real background in interior design, they should leave the staging and design aspects to the professionals.
Bringing in a stager, even if just for a consultation, allows them to get their eyes on your home and give you some guidance on how to prepare for them to dress it up. Then they head to their warehouse to load up the moving van with modern-day trends that will make buyers swoon.
Stagers and professional real estate agents should go into production mode to amplify your home’s best qualities and bring it to life online. Highlighting features that make it stand out and neutralizing the decor helps so that as many buyers as possible can see themselves living in those spaces.
“Staging is what brings a home alive,” says Christina Fitzer of Coldwell Banker Danforth, another top-producing agent in Gig Harbor who also believes in staging every home she lists. “People walk in and envision their life when a home is presented well. Staging takes an ‘okay’ home to a ‘Restoration Hardware dream home.’”
Top professional stagers have a deep inventory of furniture, accessories, and designer touches to make sure they don’t just plop a tepee and a teddy bear in the corner of a room. They also use current trends and colors—no bistro tables and awkwardly angled red rugs in the middle of a living room.
Pleau explains, “When I source items to use for staging I look for pieces that can work in a variety of homes. Some of my favorite pieces in my inventory are things I’ve bought secondhand and refinished, unique decor from estate sales and art prints purchased on Etsy. Bringing neutral and natural materials into houses helps enhance what is already there while adding texture and detail. Fresh florals and greenery at a dining table or next to the kitchen sink can add a special touch. I love supporting local florists and putting their bouquets in my stagings.”
A Better Return On Investment
The listing preparation from a top agent’s team most often includes designer input, recommendations for repairs to your home, staging, cleaning, and a high-end media package. This will help the firm’s bloggers, marketers, and agents tell the story of your home online to get buyers’ attention. This also helps the buyer envision their future life as they walk through it in person.
Great staging leads to great digital and print marketing, which in turn helps the buyers’ agent and the buyers feel confident to pay full price (or more).
A full media package often includes elements that make your home more attractive and memorable to buyers: drone footage, 3D tours, professional photos, lifestyle videos, social media reels, YouTube shorts and videos, and full websites so all the media is located in one place for buyers to look through. Including videos about the community can help sell the buyer not just on your home but on the broader area as well.
Staged homes see an average of 15% more money than homes that aren’t staged. Staged homes also sell 87% faster than their “naked” competition. There are agents that cover the cost of staging at no extra charge, so not only do you get more value when you hire them, but you often receive more for your home.
One careful distinction: there’s a time and place for virtual staging, and most agents who use it are cheap. In the 350+ homes we’ve sold, we’ve used it only four times, and all for very specific reasons when traditional staging wasn’t an option. (Remember when COVID rules said no to stagers? That called for some creative alternatives.) If an agent offers to virtually stage your vacant listing with no real reason, politely decline—it’s a cheap way to get out of investing in your home. The experience from online to in person is a bummer and leaves the buyer disappointed. We know—we’ve been on tour with them when they can no longer see the vision of those big empty spaces.
Regardless of the price of your home, you should get the same incredible value with your agent and their team: full all-encompassing service, staging included.
Best of luck to all the sellers prepping a house for market. Remember if it’s not compelling it’s not selling, so look at your home through the eyes of a buyer seeing it online and in person.
In 2020 Paige Schulte was recognized by the Wall Street Journal for her use of virtual tours and digital media for buyers during the height of the Coronavirus pandemic. She was named the 2022 Finest Realtor in Gig Harbor by Gig Harbor Living Local and is the number one real estate agent in Gig Harbor and the founder of Neighborhood Experts Real Estate. She also sits on the board of her Chelsea Paige Foundation that donates funds back to non-profit organizations in the greater Gig Harbor area.