Home Staging Increases Perceived Value

If you’ve ever talked with a professional home stager, you’ve heard the phrase, “Home Staging sells homes faster, and for more money.”, or something similar. It’s become such a cliche, that it’s as if no one ever thinks about how this is true. Sadly, most home stagers don’t take the time to educate potential customers on exactly what we do, leaving many with the impression that we simply “make houses look pretty”. Making a house look good, is more of a by-product of our work.

What we really do is market to potential buyers in a way that increases the perceived value of a property.

Let’s take a look at a home Rave Home Staging worked on earlier this week. We tend to stage a lot in the Riverside / Avondale area. The bungalow style homes are adorable and the area is highly desirable. Many of these homes are dated, although it’s a big area for flippers who are changing the interior landscape, house by house.

2897 Forbes St, located in New Riverside Area

This home had been on the market for close to 30 days prior to our staging this week. There had been many showings, but the right buyer just hadn’t come along yet. (or had they, but they just didn’t have the vision) The seller, Anne Rain, with Coldwell Banker Vanguard Realty, knew that this was the perfect home for staging. The home was reasonably priced for the market and there had been a lot of showings, so clearly potential buyers just weren’t seeing the untapped beauty of the home, and connecting to it.

With no additional work required, we scheduled the showing and set to work. Here are the before photos I took, on my initial tour of the property.

The before photos were taken with my iphone, not a professional grade HDR Camera. The angles are not as wide as the professionals and the angles are not necessarily the same. I still think you’ll be able to get the point, however.

What this cute New Riverside Bungalow looks like after home staging

For the simple cost of 1% of list price, this adorable bungalow got a whole new look (and probably a whole new buyer pool).

Home staging creates the feel of lifestyle in an otherwise bland home. All of the miscellaneous oddities, suddenly fall away. Buyers can see themselves living in the home.

So the real question is whether you would pay more for house in the “after” photos than for the house in the “before” photos. Most people would. How much more? On a home, like this one, listed at $225,000, the answer is typically $10,000 or more. This is a 400% return on investment for the seller.

UPDATE: SOLD! 

On 6/1/17, this house closed on MLS. The final purchase price was full list, at $225,000 with no listed concessions. 

Did staging work? A question to ask is whether the house would likely have received a full price offer, with no buyer concessions, after already being on the market for 30 days, without staging?