How Staging Leads to a Faster Sale of your Portland Home

In many parts of the country (including Portland) home staging has become an established real estate marketing tool.  Why?  Because staged homes look better than vacant homes (or messy occupied ones), and “visual appeal” is important to buyers.

Think about it … when you’re at your farmer’s market selecting fruits and vegetables, you choose the ones that look the best, the freshest … because our eyes naturally prefer the ones without obvious flaws.  If you buy a used car, it had better be clean inside and out, and smell great too — besides be in good running condition.  The same goes for a home on the market.  Clean it …. dress it up a bit …. stage it to sell. The inspection will take care of determining the home’s condition, but the first thing a seller must do is get buyers in the door.

Great photos for the online listing help draw buyers to your home, which is the seller’s first goal. It’s hard to get great photos unless the house has well-placed furniture arrangements and no excess “stuff” to distract buyers’ attention. Get them in, and make sure the house appeals to all the senses.

Each room needs to show buyers the function of the space, so there’s no confusion.  This newly-staged Portland home with multiple levels had a number of spaces that, if left vacant, might have made buyers say “what’s this room for?”  Don’t let them wonder … SHOW them how they could live there, using simple staging techniques.

Buyers love kitchens, and this newly-remodeled kitchen offers both dining & conversation areas

On the lowest level of this home, a large unfinished concrete basement was remodeled and then staged to show buyers a family room with plenty of room for entertaining, games, TV watching, etc.

Another level of this home had a former storage space that was converted to a media room; we used simple staging to show buyers the purpose of this room, helping them to imagine living here 

Before you put your home on the market, remember to stage it to sell using these tips:

• Make sure it’s *sparkling* clean inside and out