When it comes time for the prepping of your home for potential buyers, you have probably already heard of the basics: declutter, depersonalize, and deep clean. Add to the hundreds of home staging tips gleaned from both real estate shows and social media, and you might feel like you know all you need to about getting your home ready to hit the market. However, there are some missteps that staging pros see well-meaning homeowners make time and again that keep listings from selling quickly and for top dollar.
Continue to read to find out how to avoid the pitfalls with 8 common home staging mistakes to avoid, so you can have home buyers vying to make your home sweet home their own.
Mistake #1: Not Thinking of How Your Home Will Be Photographed
It is a given that house hunters will start their search by looking at homes online, and amazing pictures can determine whether they scroll past your listing or add it to their must-see list. It can be tempting to only focus on how your home is presented in person, but you should consider how it comes across in photos. A window or fireplace, for example, will usually be a focal point in any photograph, so make sure to stage your furniture around that. If the view of a window is blocked, potential buyers can't get the right idea of scale from the listing photos.
Mistake #2: Furniture Arranged at an Angle
Make sure to resist the urge to situate a sofa or desk on the diagonal when prepping your home for sale. Angling will essentially skew the perspective of the space, and instead of making the room look bigger, it only makes it feel off. The only exception to this rule is if the room itself features some odd angles you might have no choice but to position your furniture accordingly.
Mistake #3: Taking Area Rugs out of Open Concept Layouts
Open floor plans can be tricky to decorate, and a bare expanse of the floor with nothing to warm it up or delineate specific spaces is a blunder that professional home stagers see. It is important to have area rugs to define different areas, as without them, furniture looks like it is floating. Consider adding area rugs if you don't have them, or swapping out your current rugs if you have lived with them for a long period.
Mistake #4: Out-of-Scale Art on the Walls
A fabulous piece of art can make a stylish statement in the right proportion, and can even help a buyer connect with your home. However, when the scale isn't right, even the prettiest piece can throw off the feel of the room, hurting the buyer's impression of the space. If there is a huge wall with art that isn't large enough, it will make the wall look smaller. We suggest you aim for artwork that takes up two-thirds to three-quarters of the wall space.
Mistake #5: Using Too Many Little Things
A common mistake homeowners make both when decorating for themselves and staging their home for sale, is erring on the side of too many small items in your home. Common culprits include large sofas with an array of too-petite throw pillows, bookshelves or built-ins with too many frames and tchotchkes, and coffee tables crowded with small-scale objects. It appears better to use larger things with a mix of a few smaller items. For example, on a coffee table, two large vases and some greenery create a more sophisticated look than an array of small items.
Mistake #6: Skimping Out on Lighting
Potential buyers are sure to be drawn to bright and airy, so making sure there is lots of lighting in a home is key. Considering the lighting in your home is especially important in older homes that don't have canned lighting. Think floor and table lamps, which will create different layers of lighting. Maximize a room's natural light with window treatments that let in plenty of it. A great method of boosting light is to pay attention to curtain placement. Placing the curtains just above the window trim makes the windows appear larger and the room taller—both pretty big positives when selling a home.
Mistake #7: Not Considering Your Potential Buyers
Are your potential buyers a young family? Will the buyer be a single professional? Empty nesters? You want buyers to see your place as somewhere that fits their lifestyle, so give thought to who may be most interested in your location and type of dwelling. Resist the urge to go overboard with super-specific decor for each room you are decorating, as you will want your home to appeal to as many people as possible in all stages of life.
Mistake #8: Going Too Bland
When trying to appeal to a wide variety of tastes, it is easy to go too far and end up with a boring space. The goal is to make the design feel neutral but with a touch of personality. Keeping things like wall color and couches low-key but adding interest through art and textiles like colorful throw pillows.
Interested in other staging mistakes to avoid? Use this guide to help make all the right decisions when designing your Palm Desert home when you are trying to sell it to optimize the best chances of getting your home off the market quickly and efficiently.