Sometimes people resist staging their home when they list it for sale.

Why should I *have to*?

It seems like a lot of work.

My house is fine.

We still live here – this isn’t a show home.

It’s a nice house as-is.

The market is good, I don’t have to do anything extra to sell.

It’s my real estate agent’s job to market it.

I will price it right.

so….

I don’t need to and I’m not going to.

Well, everything in that list might be factually correct.  The bottom line is that you do not have to stage your home.  No one can make you.  If you do not want to, then don’t. 

However, there are some very good reasons you should want to. 

Through what can be a stressful and overwhelming process, there are some very good reasons that staging helps you feel better and even if that was the only benefit (it’s not), then it’s likely worth the effort.

Listen to me:

Staging your own home is a gift to yourself.

Here’s why:

1.       Staged homes sell faster than unstaged homes

Let’s start with the most obvious one.  According to the Real Estate Staging Association, staged homes spend 73 per cent less time on the market than their unstaged counterparts.

I find these stats are hard to prove because there are just too many variables, but the exact numbers are irrelevant. 

The critical fact is that with all other things being equal, staged homes sell faster than homes that are not staged.  They just do.

Once you’ve decided that you want or need to sell, once you have a new home on the horizon, once you live through preparing for a showing or an open house, you know that a quick sale would ease so much of your stress.

2.       Staged homes sell for more money than their unstaged counterparts

This is another statistic that is thrown around quite a bit with varying percentages attached that is just impossible to verify the exact numbers, but in the end, this fact remains:  a home that is staged will normally sell for more money than an unstaged similar home in the same neighborhood at the same time. 

The National Association of Realtors says that a staged home will sell for 17% more on average than a non-staged home, and 95% of staged homes sell in 11 days or less. That is statistically 87% faster than non-staged homes. 

Another stat says that the money invested in staging will be far less than a first price reduction, so why not invest upfront so that you can sell faster and for more money in the end.   This is one stat that I don’t always like only because I know from experience that staging can often be done without spending a penny!   However, if your home needs some more work like painting or professional cleaning, or even just purchasing some décor, drapery or styling accessories, the idea is that even if you spend a bit of money upfront, you will still come out ahead if you can sell before having to consider reducing your asking price.

3.       Staged homes make impact in listing photos = online pausing = interest = inquiries & showings = offers = moving toward a sale

A home that is well-staged is going to make for attractive photos and those photos are the most important part of your online listing!  Appealing photos are going to cause buyers to pause their scrolling, take a good long look and start to consider your home.  This leads to more inquiries and showings, and the natural next step there is that there will be more offers.  All of these are necessary steps to getting offers and selling your home.

Competition is fierce and you have mere seconds to convey good & important things about your home through just a handful of curated photos.  Make them count by having the details styled and staged.

If people are not attracted to your home through their first point of contact (the listing photos!) they are never going to even come take a look, and without coming to see the house in person they are highly unlikely to ever make an offer. 

Well styled & staged photos matter!

4.       Staging reduces pre-showing stress

Once you have buyers interested in your home through your listing photos, the next goal is for them to come take a look by booking a showing with their realtor.  Getting a showing for your home is so exciting and such positive news, but it is also one of the most stressful points in the selling process.  These people are coming to look and they are going to be looking closely!

This is where the staging you did earlier comes back to you as a gift and a hug. 

The first phase of staging is all about reducing clutter, fixing small problems, starting to pack, and streamlining your home… all of these things help reduce the volume of things you need to deal with in the hour before a showing.  Staging takes so much ‘noise’ out of your home which just means you have so much less to maintain daily and so much less to tidy and style before a showing.    

Staging for the first main event (listing photos) also allows you to see your home as it should be for showings, which means that you have a reference point and you have all things you need already – you are not starting from the beginning before that first showing.  There is no thinking or decision making involved, you are just resetting each room back to how it looked in the listing photos.

Simplicity and a clear plan will reduce your stress so much – trust me, you will thank yourself for this!

5.       Staging = packing = simplified moving once you sell

‘They’ say staging a home removes or pre-packs about 30% of a home’s contents.  Incredible! (Though, again, difficult to prove the stat.)

Once your home is sold and it is time to start packing to move, this is yet another gift to yourself.  Having so much of your home packed and ready to go eases to burden of starting from the beginning during a time that normally has so much else going on at the same time.

Anyone who has ever packed a house to move knows what a big job it is, so doing this so far ahead of time is reason enough to stage.  If you could take 30% of the work off your shoulders, what a gift that would be.  This is one of those things that benefits only you and is such a good reason to stage!

Have I convinced you that this is a project worth tackling? If so, take a look at my new staging kit in the resource library! It’s a free PDF filled with a curated, strategic grouping of my checklists & tips for staging your own home. I created it to teach you exactly what you need to do and how to do it as simply as possible.