Have you ever toured a vacant home, one without a stick of furniture or artwork on the walls?  While I know that you and I are visionaries when it comes to imagining the potential of a home {wink wink}, let’s face it – the average home buyer just sees a sad, empty house.

I’m sure by now you’ve heard that staging sells houses – and never is that more true than in the case of a vacant home.  Staging is a quick and easy way to help the home buyer imagine the house full of life and potential – and it’s not as expensive or hard to do as you might think.

I know what you’re probably thinking – “Um, I live in my home – this post has nothing to do with me because I’ll never be selling a vacant house.”  That may be true, but there are a number of scenarios that could leave you with a vacant home to sell – you were relocated, you’re selling the home from your parents’ estate, you bought a new home before you sold this one, etc.  So, if you’re ever caught in that situation here are some tips to help your home fly off the market {and you can also use a few of these hints to help you sell a home that you’re still living in}.

1.  Just stage the first room(s) that you see when you walk in the door. With real estate, it’s all about first impressions.  If a buyer walks into your home and feels warm and cozy, your chances of actually selling the home go through the roof.  See the pictures of “unstaged v. staged” above?  Those are pictures from a house that we recently sold.  Before we came along, the homeowners had the house on the market, sitting vacant and looking sad, and they didn’t get any offers.  Once we were hired, we suggested that they stage the room that greets potential buyers – with their open floor plan, that meant staging the living room and the adjoining dining room.  They took our advice and had 3 offers on their home within 2 weeks, including a full price offer.  You can see for yourself the difference that staging can make!  {FYI – in addition to the staging, we suggested a small price drop.  That combo did the trick!}

Yes, it would be nice to stage the entire house – but in the real world that gets really expensive, really fast.  Staging just the first room works for a few reasons: (1) buyers get that warm and fuzzy feeling right off the bat, and it will follow them through the rest of the house, (2) the first room is typically the living room where it can be tricky to visualize furniture arrangement, and (3) living rooms are where families spend most of their time so if they can envision themselves in this important space then they can envision themselves in the house as a whole.  Basically, it gives you the biggest bang for your buck – make sense?

Of course, if you can afford to do more than one room then do it.  When prioritizing between rooms, choose to stage the ones that are the trickiest – choose living rooms, family rooms and awkward spaces over rooms that are pretty straightforward like bedrooms and traditional dining spaces.  In an open floor plan, it can be particularly important to delineate between different areas.

2. Keep it neutral. I know, people get tired of hearing this, but it’s true!  Neutral carpet and neutral walls are something that every home buyer on the planet can work with – you don’t want them thinking about climbing ladders to paint trim, dripping paint on the floor, and spending their weekends rolling paint over brightly colored walls.  People don’t like to spend money to take on chores and they can easily be overwhelmed by color.

I’m not saying that your home should be devoid of color – to the contrary, in fact.  Color is essential in making a home feel inviting, but you’d be best-served to try to limit bold colors to accent pillows, curtains, accessories and other things that you can take with you.  Try to keep the big pieces of furniture in neutral, solid colors as well.  Apartment Therapy said it well – “With bursts of color dotting the interior landscape, it’s nice to have a neutral backdrop to keep the whole room from shouting.”

Here are a few excellent neutral paint choices from Benjamin Moore:

And of course there’s always Pittsburgh Paint’s Toasted Almond, which we used in our home and in the flip.

3.  Decide whether to rent, buy or use what you have on hand. Chances are that you’ll have a few pieces of furniture already on hand that you can use to partially furnish that front room.  If the pieces work together, go ahead and use them to save yourself some money.  Once you’ve laid out everything that you already own, make a list of pieces that you need and then decide on your budget for filling in the bare spots.  Then hit up garage sales, Ikea, Target, Rent-A-Center, and friends’ basements to complete the room.  Remember to keep things simple and minimize the amount of furniture – you’re not going to be living there, so do you really need to add a La-Z-Boy recliner?  Just add enough furniture to show how the room should be laid out and then call it a day – a minimal room shows off square footage while a cluttered room feels smaller and makes some buyers feel uncomfortable.

4.  Accessorize. Just like when you’re living in a home, a vacant home will come to life with accessories.  Keep decoration minimal, but be sure to have a piece of art above the sofa, a few accent pillows and maybe a vase or two.  And of course, the artwork doesn’t have to be anything fancy – framed fabric or an inexpensive print will be just perfect.  But please – no personal photos!  Your house is on the market so that someone else can move in and make memories – your personal snapshots will only distract the buyer and remind them that it’s really someone else’s home.

Did I cover it all?  Feel free to ask questions in the comments if you think I missed anything, and throw in some of your own tips as well!

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