Preparing Homes For Sale in Rockland and Bergen

Free monthly newsletter with advice for selling homeowners.

We can help you prepare your home for sale. To sell your house in weeks not months, start with an evaluation by a professional home stager.

Contact us for an in-home evaluation now.

Why Stage Your Home?

Staging Q & A's

Why stage?

Because selling your house isn't about your taste or your style, as fine as they may be. It's about seducing a buyer whose taste is different from yours into seeing your house as his Dream House.

What will it take to do that? You need to know what your buyer wants and make sure he sees it in your house. So first, you need to know who your target buyer is. How old is he (or she or they)? Is this their first house? Do they have school-age kids? Do they need a play yard? Bedrooms for each child? Or are they empty nesters -- perhaps professionals who will want a home office, guest room and places to entertain? Making sure your house appeals to your target will likely get you more money for your house and will get it faster.

So you stage to make your target buyer want your house.

How can I make someone I don't know want my house?

First, thoroughly prepare your home for sale. When you put it on the market -- whether listed with a broker or for sale by owner -- you will be competing for your buyer's attention against all the other houses for sale in your area, especially the top 10% that will sell. So make sure your house is in good repair, immaculate and uncluttered. If you want a quick sale, your house has to be in tiptop condition -- because your buyer doesn't want to work to get his dream house. He wants it looking perfect and ready for his family to live in. If yours isn't, he'll choose someone else's.

So after cleaning and decluttering comes staging. Is that moving the furniture around?

Staging is doing everything you need to do to make a buyer see your house as his dream house. It's highlighting the best architectural features of each room and removing all the distractions that interfere with that. Sometimes that's done by removing some furniture and rearranging what remains to highlight a focal point. Making sure you have put away your family photos and collections of teacups -- because they will take the buyer's attention away from the features of the house.

Buyers value space, so it's making every room look spacious -- maximizing space in rooms and closets so the buyer sees that he can fit his stuff. It may mean repainting to make a room lighter and brighter. It may mean updating lighting fixtures and cabinet hardware because your target buyer may be a generation younger than you are. Maybe it's replacing old switchplates. Stagers try to use your existing furniture, to keep costs to a minimum, but sometimes it's worth buying something new that you'll take to your new place: throw pillows, lamp, large print for a wall, a vase or plant.

Why do I need a professional stager -- can't I do it myself? Can't my real estate agent do it?

Professional home stagers are specially trained to help homeowners sell their houses by making them attractive to unknown buyers.

Some real estate agents have undergone this rigorous training, though most have not. Ask your agent about his or her training. Some agents think staging is just decluttering, missing that its goal is to foster a potential buyer's emotional connection to your house. If they misunderstand this concept, they may try to discourage you from hiring a professional home stager who can make a difference for you. Yet many agents -- particularly those who understand what motivates today's young home buyers -- recognize the value of home staging and recommend routinely to all their clients that they hire a professional staging advisor.

A problem that sellers often have in staging their own houses is that all the experiences that have gone into making their house a home can interfere with the objectivity needed for staging. Sellers are often emotionally attached to their homes, and this attachment will make it difficult for them to make the changes needed to seduce a buyer into seeing the house as his home. You may not want to remove a mirrored wall in the dining room or a wallpaper border that matches your favorite comforter. The result: houses that you are competing with get sold ahead of yours (or instead of yours).

What does it cost to hire a professional home stager?

Less than you might think. The Staging Prince will provide you with a two-hour initial home evaluation (a bit longer for a large house) during which we will walk through the house room by room, taking photos and making notes. Then, if you choose, we will give you a written report of recommendations to get a higher price and a quicker sale. What we recommend will depend on what we see in our walk-through. We encourage you to call us to discuss this.

The evaluation recommendations: What will you do with these? You may want them just for planning purposes, to understand what changes you should make to your home before you list it for sale. Or you may want to start immediately to make the changes and then list the home for sale. Either way, our evaluation and recommendations are essential for you to know and use in order to maximize your equity on sale, and since the costs of the evaluation and report are quite modest, there should be no reason why you would not engage us to provide them. No risk, modest cost, and likely a substantial benefit.

Upgrades and repairs: Let's say you want some or all of the recommended upgrades and repairs made. Who will make them? You may want to do some or all of them yourself. Or, we can advise you on hiring licensed contractors for repairs, lighting and kitchen upgrades, painting and landscaping. We will handle the bidding for you if you like, and we will coordinate the work to get it done without delay so you can get your home on the market quickly.

Decluttering and cleaning: We will advise you on what constitutes "clutter", then you or we can arrange for the decluttering and cleaning. (To eliminate clutter, we can help you pack, organize your closets, manage a garage sale, and/or give your unwanted things to a charity.) These steps are essential to the process of selling your home, and staging can't be done until the clutter has been eliminated. (You have to pack up your things for your move anyway. You can ease the process by packing and storing the things you can live without while your house is on the market. We have several solutions for where to store things.

Professional home staging: After your home is decluttered and cleaned, we'll professionally stage the rooms to highlight your home's best features. (This may entail professional furniture placement, supplying accessories and artwork, even furniture rental if your house is vacant, all based on your budget.) As we have suggested above, if you want the benefits of professional staging (including selling your house fast), you will want to hire a professional stager.

To answer the original question, what it will cost depends on what you want us to do. We can suggest inexpensive updates that will breathe excitement into a dated interior while staying within a constraining budget. A home stager can often find a creative solution to any problem. Rearranging furniture properly to highlight your home's architectural features may take a day to accomplish, but the payback is generally well worthwhile through a faster sale: savings in mortgage payments, property taxes and living expenses, and a shorter time being inconvenienced while your home is on the market.

The costs of our initial evaluation, making the changes we recommend, and then decluttering, cleaning and staging, are more investments than expense, since The Staging Prince's objective is to get you more money for your house and to sell it faster than if you did not engage us. If we are hired, we will work for and with you as your advisor to help you sell your house quickly and for more money. Please call The Staging Prince to discuss your needs or to ask questions about our services. We are here to help you.

Finally, you may wonder whether the services of a professional staging advisor like The Staging Prince are necessary. You should compare the investment in making your home ready to show to the costs of a house languishing on the market: the extra mortgage payments, property tax cost, living expenses, frustration and inconvenience -- and an eventual price cut.

Why should I hire a professional staging advisor before I list?

You want your house to be 100% ready when you list because more potential buyers will see it in the first 3 weeks than any other time.

You won't get another chance to make a great impression on so many potential buyers in so short a time. Take time to prepare your house properly by hiring a professional to review and stage it before you put it on the market. Then price it right, and you will sell it quickly because it will compare favorably to competing houses that are not staged. If you have followed our recommendations for upgrades and repairs, decluttering, cleaning and professional home staging, you will get a good return on your investment and the most for your house that a free market of Internet-active buyers will pay. You should select your real estate agent based on his or her skills at getting buyers to visit, not because he or she suggests an unrealistically high price. We can advise you on finding savvy agents.

My home is already on the market. Is it too late to hire a professional home stager?

If your home is already on the market and is priced comparably to other houses in the area but isn't drawing buyers to make offers, you should consider seeking a professional home evaluation from The Staging Prince as soon as possible.

While many agents will be candid with you about problems that may become obstacles to selling, there may be some things about your house that an agent may be reluctant to mention because he or she doesn't want to offend you. When faced with a house that doesn't compare well, many agents will simply suggest cutting the price. But maybe the issues can be solved with a bit of effort. A professional staging advisor from The Staging Prince doesn't want to offend you either, of course, but he will be up-front with you. He will not be critical of your taste or your style. He will tell you tactfully about problems that can and should be fixed so your house doesn't sit on the market waiting for the agent's recommendation that you cut the price by 10 percent.

Incidentally, a 10% price cut on a $500,000 house will take $50,000 off your asking price and make agents and buyers wary to boot. They will wonder what was wrong with the house that it didn't sell. Putting a fraction of that into painting, repairs, small upgrades and home staging services, and pricing your home appropriately can make a large price cut unnecessary and can save you a lot of money through a faster sale.

If your house has been on the market for several months and on evaluation we recommend that you make some changes to eliminate obstacles to a sale, you might consider withdrawing your house from the market for a week or so during which you make the changes we recommend, then putting the house back on the market as a new listing and holding another open house. Whatever that might cost you will be substantially less than a 10% price cut, and you can expect to reap the benefits of marketing a staged home.

Can you summarize the benefits of home staging?

Buyers Weed Out Houses on the Web
Before they even drive by your house, buyers will view your home on the web. If they like what they see, they will arrange to see it in person. As part of our home staging service, we will take photos of each room after staging. We can supply these photos to you or to your real estate agent to put on the web.
Home Staging Encourages Agents to Bring Buyers to Your House
Real estate agents know that a staged house shows well, so they will bring buyers to your house. With more buyers coming to your house, you can expect offers sooner and have the best chance of a bidding war.
Staged Homes Sell Faster
Many surveys have compared time to contract (days on market) for staged and unstaged houses. The benefit has been found to be as much as 80% less time on the market for professionally staged homes. This can save you a substantial amount in mortgage payments, property taxes and other expenses.
Staged Homes Sell for More Money
It is not unusual for several potential buyers to make offers for a staged house after seeing it at an open house. This can lead to a bidding war and a selling price above the listing price. While there are no guarantees in life, many surveys have compared sales price to listing price for staged and unstaged houses. The benefit is typically 5 to 10% for staged homes. It's your money. Why risk leaving it on the table?

How can The Staging Prince help?

We will work with you to help you sell your house quickly and for more money, even if it's already on the market.

We will advise you on changes you should make to present your house in the best light, arrange to hire contractors if necessary, and declutter, clean, stage and photograph your house so that a buyer will see it as his dream house.