How to Stage Your Home For Sale: 10+ Home Staging Tips

When preparing to sell a home, knowing how to stage your home can help you sell quickly while maximizing profits. Decluttering, cleaning, and even improving curb appeal with landscaping can all fall under the home staging umbrella.

When you stage your home, you can create a lasting impression on buyers and make them feel connected to the property, which can make an offer more likely. By helping potential buyers feel an emotional connection to the home, you increase its perceived value, which can further help to maximize profits. Whether you're selling your first home or you're a home-selling veteran, staging your home can help it sell faster and for more money.

For informational purposes only. Ask your agent what staging tricks are working well in your area and how to best show your specific home.

Quick Home Staging Pointers

• A mix of natural and artificial lighting can make your home feel bigger and more inviting.
• Neutral colours are the safest choice to appeal to the widest range of buyers. This is especially important for walls, floors, and fixtures. Use accent colors strategically.
• Curb appeal is crucial for first impressions, so take the time to trim trees and bushes, keep the lawn tidy, power wash the driveway, and add fresh mulch and flowers to the landscaping.
• Don’t forget the three Ds: declutter, depersonalize, and deep-clean. Your goal is to get rid of any and all distractions so buyers can focus on the home’s best features.
• Create clearly defined spaces rather than rooms that try to do too much at once. It should be immediately obvious to buyers what each room is for.
• A subtle scent like citrus, vanilla, or lavender can freshen up your home, but don’t overdo it (or attempt to mask bad smells; buyers won’t be fooled).
• Find the right-sized furniture for each room, and try to establish intuitive, functional zones for any areas with a wide-open floor plan.
• Virtual staging is a cheaper alternative, but there are trade-offs. If you want to explore this route, be sure to work with a professional.

What Is Home Staging?

Home staging is the process of preparing your home to sell. It typically involves:

• Adding or rearranging furniture and decor
• Decluttering living spaces
• Making minor repairs or improvements so that the house looks its best

Additionally, staging may include painting the walls in neutral colours, adding light fixtures, setting up outdoor spaces like patios or decks, and using plants to make the front of the house look more inviting. It's essential to remember that there is no one-size-fits-all approach for staging your home to sell. Rather, by considering factors like location, target demographic, and price range, you can tailor your home staging for maximal effect.

Why Home Staging is Important

It's a common home-selling myth that staging isn't necessary. Or worse, a cost you don't get back.

Staging helps increase interest from potential buyers and can help you get a faster sale at a competitive price. Staging accentuates the features of your home and can be done by professional home stagers or by homeowners themselves using furniture, artwork, and decor items strategically placed around the house.

Properly staged homes tend to show better than those without any staging because they encourage viewers to focus on each room's overall look and feel rather than look for flaws. Additionally, adequately staged houses attract more buyers during open houses since they typically appear larger, brighter, cleaner, and well-maintained compared to non-staged homes. Investing time into creating an inviting atmosphere could mean the difference between selling quickly or having your listing sit on the market for months.

Tips for Staging Your Home Like a Pro

Staging your home is critical to your home-selling success. There are many different approaches to take, but by following some basic tips, you can ensure your efforts pay off.

Use Lighting to Your Advantage

Increasing light can make your home feel larger and more inviting. Natural lighting is always the best option, but artificial lighting can help in rooms with fewer windows or skylights.

Fixtures such as recessed lights, chandeliers, and wall sconces are great options, but might not be practical to install just for selling due to the electrical work involved. If a room has limited overhead lighting options, floor lamps and lamps on side tables can work well too.

Strategically placed mirrors can brighten the area by reflecting existing light sources throughout the room.

Curtains also play a role in your lighting. Thin, gauzy curtains help a room feel brighter and airier, even when they're pulled back. Thick, heavy curtains have more visual weight.

Choose Neutral Colours

A neutral colour palette is highly recommended when staging a house for sale, as this will help create an atmosphere that appeals to any buyer. Neutral paint colours such as beige, taupe, and light grey should be used throughout most of the house, with the possibility of accent walls and accents like throw pillows in other colours to provide visual interest.

Remember that home staging aims to provide potential buyers with a guided view of how they might live in the home. Neutral colours and accents can advise how a space could be used while still providing room for the viewer to imagine themselves in the space.

For the same reason, furniture you use for staging should usually also be in a neutral colour or in a cohesive colour palette. By creating a calm environment with muted tones and subtle accents, prospective buyers are more likely to feel at ease and imagine themselves living there, making them more likely to make an offer.

Pay Attention To Curb Appeal

Staging a house doesn't just apply to the inside of a home but the outside, as well. Before buyers schedule a formal showing, they often do an informal drive-by to check out the house and get a general feel for the neighbourhood. Your goal is to get them through the door. If your home's landscaping looks old and tired, then potential buyers may conclude that the interior is just as lackluster. That said, you don't need to hire a professional landscaper or spend a fortune to dress up the exterior.

For a minimal investment, here are a few different home staging ideas:

• Update the entryway with a fresh coat of paint on the door, paint the mailbox, and replace the house numbers.
• Power wash problem areas such as concrete and driveways to remove built-up grime.
• Add fresh mulch and colourful, seasonal flowers to landscaped areas.
• Trim dead or overgrown bushes and trees.
• Cut the grass on a regular schedule to keep it show-ready.
• Remove garbage and get rid of any junk that may be lying around the property.

Make The Space Appear Larger

Several techniques can be used to maximize visual space, such as removing excess furniture, decluttering rooms, or eliminating nonessential items to create an uncluttered look. Surfaces that reflect light also help make a room feel more open. Mirrors, metal furnishings, or glass accessories help brighten up dull or dark areas and make spaces appear larger than they are.

Keeping floors free of clutter allows buyers to better appreciate their size and shape. Area rugs can also help create different living areas within a room, making it feel like there is more defined space. With these strategies, it is possible to make any home appear more spacious without necessarily having to remodel or change its existing layout.

Clean Your Home

Every time you get a potential buyer through the front door, you want your home to be in showcase condition. Taking these steps before your first showing will make subsequent showings easier and more successful:

1. Declutter. To start with, declutter your home by removing as many unnecessary items as possible. Not just into the garage, or attic, or the back of the closet; off the property entirely. Buyers will poke around everywhere to see how much storage space your home has, and those spaces always show better when they're mostly empty.

Getting ready to move is an excellent opportunity to donate unneeded items to charity and lighten the load for when you do move. For items you simply can't part with but don't need in the next month or so, rent a storage unit or borrow some space in a friend's or neighbour's garage. Tackle those forgotten junk drawers and storage closets as well. When a buyer enters your home, they should feel free to explore all areas of the home and see its true potential.

2. Depersonalize. Take a second sweep through your belongings and remove any personal or potentially controversial items remaining. Family photos, hobby items, and personalized decor help a buyer envision how you live in the space. It doesn't help them envision their own lives in the home, which is your ultimate goal with staging. Anything religious, political, or otherwise divisive should be packed away as well.

3. Deep-Clean. Once your home is decluttered, dirt and grime are really on display. It's time to tackle those long-neglected corners, windowsills, and draperies. If you don't have time to clean every nook and cranny of your home, investing in a one-time professional home cleaning may be well worth the expense.

4. Organize. Everything remaining in your home has been moved or put aside for the deep cleaning. Now that it's time to put those things back, take a long hard look at what's going into your cabinets, closets, and drawers. How can you make these spaces look organized and sleek?

The rule of thumb for closets is that they should only be about 50–70% full for showings. For shelves, some empty space makes them look more spacious. On the other hand, you may need to store more things than you're used to; countertops and other flat surfaces should be mostly clear.

These cleaning tips are even more essential for homeowners with children and/or pets. It’s natural to have a lot of stuff, but for staging, you’ll want to make sure the toys, games, litter boxes, food and water bowls, and other day-to-day items are neatly packed up out of sight before showings. And if you’re a dog owner, don’t forget to tidy up the yard as well.

If you're showing a home while living in it, there will be some necessary clutter that nevertheless doesn't show well, like pet bowls and shower toiletries. A good strategy for these is to have a large hamper or basket you can dump everything into and take with you in the car when you leave for the showing.

Create Well-Defined Spaces

One goal of home staging is to create well-defined spaces for each room. Buyers appreciate flexible spaces, but they cause confusion during showings. Is that a dining room or a home office? Is that an actual legal bedroom? What's that small empty room off the entryway supposed to be?

Reorganize your home so that each space has a single purpose: dining, family, bedroom, etc. For spaces that have multiple purposes for your family, limit the chaos by redefining the space until the home is sold.

It's fine to stage your child's bedroom as a child's bedroom rather than making it a blank slate or guest bedroom. But if you've repurposed a room into something else, consider staging it according to its original purpose.

Decorate for Success

If your decorating style is a little out of date or too personalized, consider purchasing some inexpensive, neutral art pieces that will liven up a room while making a positive impression on the buyer. Sleek, modern pieces make a big impression without being overpowering. Remove decorative items that seem outdated or too personal. When it comes to decorating choices, keep things fresh and simple.

Remember, this process is called "staging" for a reason. It may seem like a great deal of effort initially, but in the end, your goal is to create a stage in which a potential buyer can imagine their life unfolding.

Find the Right Scent

Beyond the physical belongings and flow of a room, don’t overlook another key aspect of home staging: scent. Get it right, and buyers’ first impressions should be golden. Get it wrong, and they’ll have a hard time shaking the feeling that something is off.

It’s best to focus on one primary scent—say, citrus, vanilla, or lavender—and don’t overdo it. Your goal is to subtly liven up your home, not give would-be buyers the impression that you’re hiding something musty with overpowering fragrances. To that end, a well-placed candle or diffuser can make all the difference.

Another great route is to forgo scents altogether. Air out your home before the showing, maybe leave the windows open if it's a nice day. If your home smells of nothing at all, there's nothing to distract potential buyers.

How Tactical Furniture Placement Can Improve a Home's Staging

Counterintuitive, but true: an empty room looks smaller than a room with furniture in it. Having furniture in a room gives buyers something to mentally measure against and makes it easier for them to envision their own stuff in its place. Buyers can tell at a glance that, say, your dining room can accomodate an eight-seat table, or your living room is wide enough for a sectional.

Unfurnished rooms that have uncertain purpose are best furnished with pieces that show their purpose (or at least, a purpose). This turns the room back into a usable living space in the mind of the buyer. Extra rooms can be made into guest rooms, home offices or a hobby room. Whatever the purpose, it's important for the buyer to be able to visualize the room as functional and comfortable.

This is also useful for outdoor staging. Put a few good-quality chairs and a table on the back patio, and suddenly it feels like there's an extra living space.

Have an open floor plan? Arranging furniture by zones helps establish a flow and turns a potentially overwhelming space into a clear set of functional areas. Area rugs are great for this.

Furniture can also be placed to establish focal points, which are important for aesthetic purposes. For example, arranging several chairs around the a fireplace you want to show off can help draw attention to it.

Arranging furniture symmetrically can make a space seem formal, while arranging it asymmetrically makes it seem less formal. Homeowners should pick the symmetry of the arrangement based on the room's intended function and style.

All that said, you need to choose the right furniture. Older furniture that's worn out or in poor shape will negatively impact buyer impressions, even though logically they're not staying with the house. Oversized furniture pieces can make rooms seem cramped.

Some furniture arrangements don't work well and should be avoided. Shoving all the furniture in the room up against the walls, for example, seems like it should make a room feel more spacious, but really it does the opposite. You gennerally want to pull things like sofas a few inches away from the wall if possible. In addition, make sure there's clear walking space that flows naturally from room to room. Forcing awkward movement and detours gives a negative impression of your house's layout.

What About Virtual Staging?

While physical home staging is almost always preferable to virtual staging, physical staging can get expensive if you're using professional services and renting furniture. As an alternative, some sellers opt to stage rooms with virtual furniture and other decorative details, especially if the home is sitting vacant.

The same staging guidelines apply—you want to help a buyer imagine their new life in your home on a room-by-room basis—but instead of renting pieces to place throughout your house, you’ll pay a professional to alter photographs with virtual furniture. This is often done on a flat rate per image (say, $30), but some virtual stagers offer cost-saving packages.

Benefits of virtual staging:

• It's cheaper than physical staging (especially for empty homes)
• You can show buyers the same room staged multiple ways
• Saves logistical headaches for tenant-occupied, remotely managed, or otherwise complicated properties
• Enhances online listings, where buyers usually look first

Downsides of virtual staging:

• Does not assist in-person viewings, where most buyers make final decisions
• Poorly done, inaccurate, and/or not-to-scale virtual staging can actively deter buyers and create false expectations
• Requires high-quality photos as a starting point

Good virtual staging looks naturally lit, with correct proportions, and generally feels true-to-life. Bad virtual staging is sloppily thrown together and feels too artificial or unbelievable. It’s important to stay as true to life as possible and indicate that photos are virtually staged, too—you don’t want buyers to feel like there’s been a bait-and-switch once they show up to tour your home in person.

For informational purposes only. Ask your agent what staging tricks are working well in your area and how to best show your specific home.

Stage to Sell

Home staging is an important part of marketing your home and painting your home in its best light. It's critical when you want to sell faster and for more money. Homeowners should highlight each room's best features by choosing the right furniture, adding more light, using neutral colours, and eliminating clutter. By using these tips to stage your home like a pro, you can be sure to sell your home quickly and for top dollar.

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