We have published numerous posts in the past talking about how and why we stage a home prior to selling. This post takes a bit of a different approach. Rather than talking about how and why, we want to discuss looking beyond staging. As long as you are staging your home in preparation for a sale, consider what you can do to prepare yourself for your eventual move.
The whole point of staging is to present your house as a space in which prospective buyers can imagine themselves living. If a buyer is looking at a house full of clutter, it’s nearly impossible for that person’s imagination to run wild – at least in a good way. The same is true for a house that’s dirty, disorganized, and lacking in function. You stage in order to correct those deficiencies and increase the likelihood of a sale.
As long as you are staging your home, think about the following:
1. Your Volume of Stuff
A big part of the staging process is getting rid of all that excess stuff that gets in the way of a sale. This stuff is not necessarily bad in and of itself, but there is so much of it that it gets in the way of buyers seeing the home for what it really is. So you clean out and put that stuff in storage.
As long as you are doing that, step back and evaluate the volume of stuff you own. Maybe you do have too much. Maybe there is room for donating, selling, and throwing things in the trash. Lighten your load and you might find moving a lot easier. You might also find you feel less encumbered by possessions that were previously holding you back.
2. Your Organizational Skills
We have had more than one client come to the realization that staging was necessary because of their own lack of organizational skills. Their homes were disorganized to the extent that selling was more difficult than it had to be. So they hired us to stage their homes, which essentially meant organizing them.
As long as you are staging, take some time to honestly assess your own organizational skills. If there’s room for improvement, work to that end. If you are already doing the best you can, then maybe there is a place in your life for regular concierge services. We would be happy to come over and organize your space on a regular schedule.
3. Your Use of Space
Finally, a good staging makes the best use of space. It presents a house in such a way that people see it as providing ample space for their needs. We accomplish this by properly positioning furniture, making sure there is plenty of natural light, and limiting decorations and accents that could make a room feel smaller than it really is.
As long as you are staging for this purpose, you might just as well step back and look at your own use of space. Maybe you have used the space in your current home poorly. And if so, maybe that’s why you’ve decided to move. If you don’t use space well, do not repeat the mistake in your new home. Bring in a professional who can help you make the best use of your new space right from the start.
As you can clearly see, the point of this post is to help you understand that staging can teach you a lot about yourself as a homeowner. What you learn is not necessarily good or bad. It just is. By better understanding yourself, you can make that new home you are eventually moving to a happier and more productive place.