staging – Cooper Realty Associates

Three Options For Staging Your Home

If you’re looking to sell your home, staging is an option that I recommend and have talked about several times before. If you like the idea, but can’t do a full staging, here are some options for you to consider:

1. Have a consultation. A one time consultation with a professional stager or designer is an investment that can be worth it! They will give you advice and options about what needs to be done and feedback about how to best prepare for sale. They can even recommend paint colors, carpet types, design suggestions and more. And many designers charge by the hour, so you can get a lot of advice for just a small investment.

2. Partial staging. This is when a stager or designers comes in and stages just a few key rooms to show off their best features. For example, if you’ve been using one of your home’s bedrooms as an office, a stager can help you show it as a bedroom or an office. Or if your furniture is old and outdated a stager can bring in a few key pieces to bring life to an otherwise dull living room, bedroom, or den.

3. Fluff staging. Fluff staging involves rearranging furniture, choosing pieces to move into storage, and rethinking pieces in rooms to give your home a cohesive and uncluttered feel. This is a great option for many people because you use all of your own pieces and just rearrange them in a way to suit the house for being on the market.

Thinking of buying or selling a home in Sussex County? Give us a call at Cooper Realty Associates and put us to work for you – 302-856-6434.

Stage Your Home To Sell

Staging your home is one of the best ways to help it sell. Staging is about creating a mood giving the illusion that your home is brighter, warmer, and sometimes even larger than it might otherwise seem. Done correctly, staging helps create an environment that makes potential buyers want to bite the bullet. Staging is the final stage in prepping your home for sale. It should follow de-cluttering, cleaning, painting, and making any necessary repairs. To dress a room you can use a variety of items. Some popular ones are mirrors, lamps, flowers and plants, area rugs, pillows, throw blankets, baskets, etc. Most stager recommend using sparse furniture and accenting to make the room’s purpose apparent. For example, in your kitchen you can rub orange oil into dry cabinets to revive them and make them shine and put out large bowls of bright, polished fruit such as apples and oranges. It helps your bathroom to add spa baskets with towels tied with ribbon, scented soaps and lotions, etc. Stagers also recommend that you stage your yard too. Add plants and flowers as necessary, and remember that potted plants work too. You can also dress any patio furniture that you have with a fun tablecloth or other bright solution.

Thinking of buying or selling a home in Sussex County? Give us a call at Cooper Realty Associates and put us to work for you – 302-644-2266.

All About Staging

Thinking of buying or selling a home in Sussex County? Give us a call at Cooper Realty Associates and put us to work for you – 302-644-2266.

5 More Staging Tips

Yesterday I looked at three tips for do-it-yourself staging. Here are five more expert staging tips!

1. Group furniture. It isn’t necessarily true that rooms will feel bigger if all the furniture is pushed against the walls. Positioning pieces in conversational groups is cozy and creates an obvious pattern of traffic flow. Creating more user-friendly spaces actually opens the room up, thus creating an illusion and making the room seem larger.

2. Move things around. Consider everything you have in your home. Remember, furniture doesn’t have to stay in the room where it currently resides. You can move things from the living room into the bedroom or vice versa. It may be possible to create a whole new environment with a little creative rearranging!

3. Use good lighting. Many staging experts recommend 100 watts for every 50 square feet of living space. For the best lighting each room should utilize overhead and task lighting along with accent lamps on tables or walls.

4. Trick with paint. If you have several small, boxy rooms, they will feel bigger if you create a seamless transition by painting them all the same (warm, neutral but not boring!) shade.

5. Finish projects. If you have any missing floorboards, cracked tiles, holes in the wall, cracks in the sidewalk, etc. fix them! It will cost you much less to fix these relatively minor problems than potential buyers might deduct from the price before making an offer, so it’s worth it in the end.

Thinking of buying or selling a home in Sussex County? Give us a call at Cooper Realty Associates and put us to work for you – 302-644-2266.

Three Suggestions For Staging Your Home Yourself

If you’re thinking of selling your home, or if your home has been on the market for awhile and is not selling you might want to consider staging it. Staging a home is not just about cleaning. It’s arranging furniture and accessories in a way that offers the illusion that your house is larger, cleaner, warmer, and more inviting that it might be. A lot of people think that it isn’t worth their time or effort to stage their home, but trust me, it really is. Recently, a friend of mine moved half-way across the country. Their home was for sale for months with plenty of interest but no offers. It was on the market for so long that my friend’s husband had to move without her and their kids to start his new job. Finally, they had a professional come in to stage their home. The very next person to see the home bought it… within a week they were under contract!

Staging your home can help it sell faster and for a higher price than if it sits on the market for months, causing you to lower the price in order to sell. However, if you’re still not willing to budget for a professional to stage your home, consider these three do-it-yourself tips:

1. Clear it out. Most homes are stuffed to the brim with furniture. Take one larger piece out of each room and rearrange remaining furniture to open up floor space. If you need to rent a storage unit, do it.

2. Pack Up. Box up valuables, personal photos, and extra clutter. Remove all personal objects so that potential buyers can imagine their own things in the space. Remove all small appliances, etc. from kitchen counter tops and box them up. Clean out your cabinets and closets. Leave only what is absolutely necessary to live with and box up all other serving sets, clothes, cleaning products, etc. Take half of the books off of all bookshelves. Remove any personal collections from your walls. You don’t need to clear out completely (after all, you still need to live there!) but clearing out everything that is not absolutely necessary will give the all-important impression of more space. And again, take the boxes to storage.

3. Spruce it up. Paint, replace worn carpeting, etc. If you don’t have time to do these relatively quick, inexpensive things, lower the price to make the imperfections of your home seem less important.

Remember, just because you love your home doesn’t mean everyone will. In order to stage your home well, you need to avoid looking at everything through your own personal lense and use an objective eye.

Thinking of buying or selling a home in Sussex County? Give us a call at Cooper Realty Associates and put us to work for you – 302-644-2266.

Thursday Three: 3 Staging Suggestions

They key to successful staging is a clean & clutter free space that prospective buyers can imagine themselves living in. If it is done well, nobody will be able to tell you’ve done anything at all!

Bathroom: Remove personal items such as toothbrushes, make-up, hair products, etc. from counter space. Be sure the entire room is clean, and invest in a new shower curtain and some hand towels. (Do NOT stack towels, tie them with a ribbon, fold the toilet paper into a pocket and put flowers in it, or in any other way make your home bathroom look like a maid from a luxury hotel cleaned it.)

Kitchen/Dining Room: Be sure the table and chairs and clean and clutter free place a simple centerpiece on the table – a vase of fresh flowers is always a nice touch! Be sure that kitchen counters are clear and clutter free (put any large appliances away in cabinets or closets) – a simple bowl or basket of fruit gives a clean, open look – go for multiple colors! (Do NOT set the table with a full place setting!)

Bedroom: Invest in nice bedding and be sure there are night tables on each side of the bed. For the master bedroom include a dresser and chest of drawers. If the room seems crowded, use a double bed and put your larger bed in storage for the time being. (Do NOT drape a throw, stack multiple books on the end table, or place any kind of tray on the bed or otherwise stage in a way that in no way reflects the way you live!)

Thinking of buying or selling a home in Sussex County? Give us a call at Cooper Realty and put us to work for you – 302-644-2266.