DO YOU NEED TO STAGE YOUR HOME IN ORDER TO SELL IT?
To stage or not to stage? When selling your home, home staging can help but it may not always be necessary. Realtor® Karen McKnight of Kirkland, WA says that staging a property can help it sell, but that a seller shouldn’t spend money staging if they need to make a choice between a price reduction or paying for staging:
The biggest issue in selling your home is being priced well for the market. If your house is clean and meticulously maintained, you may not need to spend the extra money on staging. I have been in the business since a friend of mine started the concept of staging, which was originally a lot simpler than what has evolved through the 2000s. We are still in a buyer’s market with more short sales and foreclosures coming on the market this quarter than we have seen in two years. What this means for you is that you (under the guidance of your agent) need to be watching the activity very carefully and making decisions based on your number of showings and whether or not buyers are coming back twice. If you have been at your price 30 days with no offer you are probably still too high. Short Sales and foreclosures sell at a 10% to 20% discount so that has the effect of lowering prices. You want to stay ahead of your competition. Make sure you are the best active listing on the market in the area, and that includes competition in nearby neighborhoods, because buyers usually look within a number of neighborhoods based on their commuting and pricing criteria.