The Low-Down On Staging

A recent article in the Chronicle’s real estate section looked at the pros and cons of staging a house before putting it on the market, a subject that continues to fascinate me as staging is still rare in Europe and therefore a novelty to me.

After… and before

Although the piece concedes that staging is not always necessary, it concludes that there are distinct advantages — in spite of the cost involved. (This house would certainly have benefited.)

Perhaps the most revealing point in the article, though, was the fact that, according to the National Association of Realtors, 80% of buyers shop online before seeing a home.

Apart from the obvious benefits of decluttering and freshening up a home, here, in brief are the advantages of staging:

* It can depersonalize a home and help buyers to “move in mentally”
* It can define the purpose of rooms
* It can give you a competitive advantage if other homes for sale in your neighborhood are not staged
* It can slow down buyers as they tour a home
* Staged homes photograph better – both for brochures and websites (significant when you take into account that 80% figure above)
* It can offer solutions to potential problems with the home, eg, how a space should be used

The trick, apparently, is not to “over-improve for the price point”. How one figures that out that crucial ratio I would like to know.