Staging tips: what little things made you fall in love with your home?

[Anonymous]

About to sell a home. What are all the little things you saw during viewings that made you fall in love with your home?

Would love all your best staging tips.

[Anonymous]

I ignore staging completely because I know it won't be there later. I pay attention to how clean the house is (on a very deep level), how new the appliances are, the water pressure, how much replacing I'll have to do (linoleum floors, loose bannisters, wobbly toilet, vanity not flush against the wall, etc.

I don't care if you baked cookies to make the house smell good, or put up peaceful landscapes.

[Anonymous]

Hire a decorator or stager to stage

[Anonymous]

Fresh paint makes it look so nice.

Beyond that though, I'm not sure the little things make much of a difference. We bought our house because of the location and the floorplan, things you can't change on a whim.

[Anonymous]

Like PP, I notice the condition of the house more than the decor.

Although one pet peeve I have of staging is when a room such as the main family room is staged with just a couple chairs and no tv. Or a bedroom with no nightstand or dresser. It makes me feel like the room is too small for its intended purpose.

[Anonymous]

The house I bought was anti-staged. I bought at the top of the 2006 bubble, though. There were blankets on the windows, so we didn't know how light filled it was. The bones were what sold us.

[Anonymous]

TV above the fireplace

[Anonymous]

I would do a deep clean. Like get the baseboards wiped, steam-clean the carpets, get the windows washed, that sort of clean. The dirt there are things you as the homeowner don’t “see” when you live there.

Declutter as much as possible. Get a storage unit if you have to. The benefit of staging is that it shows the scale of the rooms and what is possible. If you have any oversized furniture, move it out temporarily as it makes the rooms look small.

[Anonymous]

I don’t know if this made a difference but our realtor had us get the windows washed and paint the front door. I thought they both made things much nicer. And like other said, deep clean and declutter relentlessly

[Anonymous]

OP, I don’t think you’ll get good answers on this forum. The responses here are self-selected to people who spend a lot of time thinking about and looking at real estate, and are experienced enough to look past staging. But reality is that many home shoppers ARE affected by staging, even if they can’t articulate it. Good staging affects your mood the second you walk in the door.

Think about houses that make you feel good. Furniture is filled enough to look lived-in and reduce echoes, but not cluttered. Dining table is right-sized for the room. Decor matches the tone of the house and has a consistent theme.

These things may not affect every buyer - and are probably less likely to affect the kinds of buyers who spend their free time on a real estate forum - but they will affect enough people to matter.

[Anonymous]

I think staging makes the house look cheap. Seriously, it detracts from the home.

The things that made me love my home were:
Windows, lots of windows on all sides with a window in every bathroom, plenty of windows and a door on laundry room, all wood floors, solid wood cabinetry, plenty of mature trees on the property, and plenty of storage.
I don’t know how you can stage that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TV above the fireplace

This would turn me off, I’d purposely offer less money or make them fix the wall where tv damaged

[Anonymous]

I don't know if I can pinpoint one thing, but I just want to be able to picture myself living there - with the life we actually have, not some fantasy life where we never watch tv but have wine parties every night.

I want the house to feel warm - not sterile. I've seen too many houses with that weird bright LED light that makes me feel like I'm at the DMV. I want warm lighting. I want warm touches.

That said our house, when we bought it, had the owner's furniture and stuff still in it and it was all so weird. It's a midcentury ranch house they'd filled with furniture I'd describe as coming from the Medieval Times collection - loads of heavy wood, weird metal, that sort of thing. The walls were painted TERRIBLE colors - and I love a bright wall! - but these were like deep purples and browns. Awful. Not for nothing, the house sat on the market for a year before we bought it.

Anway - good luck with your sale!

[Anonymous]

The first house we bought wasn’t staged, but the owner, an architect, had great taste. It was not generic— he had vintage furniture from different eras, discussion pieces like an old Ms Pac-Man arcade console. The rooms were not white but artful shades. The giant master bedroom was espresso brown, a family room was a golden mustard. It was a rowhouse but the sunlight streamed in through large windows. The house was immaculate, but it had character. It was 2005. When we put it up for sale, we kept some accent walls in bright, or nonneutral shades but mostly had it freshly painted white bc that’s what the realtor told us we had to do. Many buyers said it needed work, which shocked us because it didn’t. But I think they were expecting the all white, built in 2023 condo look. Finally we put it up for rent, and several parties fell in love with it. The couple renting it now has called it perfect. We’ve encouraged them to make it their own with paint or peel off wallpaper, and they seem to be doing that. All to say, if your house has character and unique style, it may be hard to find a seller. If you do hold out, you might find people who live it and meet you at your price. (We’re happy to rent— the house was our first love!)

[Anonymous]

The owner’s little cat followed us around during our showing and it made me feel cozy and at home. It just seemed like a happy home.