What is Home Staging?

Before we dive into home staging tips for a quick sale, we first need to define what exactly staging is — just so we are on the same page.

Definition: Home staging is the act of preparing a home (and the contents of the home) for sale, with a special emphasis on presentation and appearance.

It’s important to realize that preparing a home for sale and staging a home is not always the same thing. For example, as part of your pre-sale preparations, you might go through the home to make small repairs where needed. This is an essential step in preparing your home for the market, but it’s not the same as home staging.

Staging a home for sale normally involves things of an aesthetic nature, such as design, organization and overall appearance (as opposed to mechanical or functional improvements).

The goal of home staging then is to improve the home’s appearance in the eyes of potential buyers, with the ultimate goal of selling the home more quickly and for the highest possible price.

If you are selling a home, then you’ve obviously been on the other side of the process as a home buyer. Think back to your home buying experience. Try to recall the difference between the homes you thought were “just okay” and the homes that made you say “wow!” Professional home staging can help you turn your “okay” house into a “wow” house.

So to sum up our introduction: You can think of home staging as presenting your house in a way that appeals to the largest possible audience, in order to ensure a quick sale for the best possible price. It bears repeating. The key to this whole thing is appealing to the largest audience — that’s what it’s all about.