Home Staging Mistakes to Avoid

Staging your home is a crucial aspect to consider when selling your home. Homes that are staged properly sell disproportionately more than homes that are not staged. That being said, a poorly staged home can have an equally negative effect on home buyers. While most home stagings are completed by home staging professionals like the elka Interiors & Construction experts, many homeowners and realtors take on the task themselves. While anyone with an eye for interior design can successfully stage a home, there are a lot of common home staging mistakes to avoid.

Keeping Things Too Personal

Before you begin staging your home, it is important to deep clean and declutter your home.

Part of the reason that staging is so effective is that it allows potential buyers to envision themselves living in your home. That is really only possible if your home isn’t full of items that are overly personal to you. For example, you may love having a collage of photos and event tickets hanging on your bedroom wall, but a buyer may look at that and have difficulty picturing a decoration like that in their home.

Additionally, if a room in your home is decorated from top to bottom in your favorite color, it may turn buyers off, especially if your favorite color is far from neutral! The experts recommend giving your home a fresh coat of paint in a neutral color that makes your home appeal to buyers.

Not Including Enough Contrast

A common pitfall of the aforementioned point is that sometimes a home lacks contrast and seems too boring. While having your entire house painted white, tan, or gray can’t hurt your chances of selling the home, it certainly makes your home hard to remember.

In order to mix it up a bit, you should tastefully add contrast and accent colors to painted neutral rooms. An easy way to do this is by adding throw pillows to any couch or bed that looks too plain.

Using the Wrong Sized Furniture

One of the most common home staging mistakes to avoid happens when a home uses the wrong-sized furniture. Using furniture that is too big can make a room feel cluttered. If a room feels too cluttered, remove extra chairs and seats that don’t fit the room perfectly. This will help open up some walking rooms.

On the other hand, if a room looks too large, you can rent furniture to fill it. Most home staging companies have their own inventory of furniture that they use to stage homes. A good rule of thumb is that you want the furniture to be about ⅔ of the room. That means that couches, beds, and tables should be about ⅔ of the length of the nearest wall.

Not Knowing Your Audience

Finally, keep in mind that the right audience is the one that purchases your home. Failing to recognize who the ideal homebuyer is can keep your home on the market longer than you’d like. You can gauge who your ideal audience is by assessing what demographics are primarily buying homes in your neighborhood and the surrounding area. If you live in a community with many young first-time buyers, your decor should be different than in a community popular with retired couples.