Richfield Housing Market: How to Stage Your Home to Sell

Professional stager Becky Dankowski with the home staging company Clear Dwelling, helps home sellers in Richfield and other cities create a look that will charm buyers. Fellow stager Lisa Atkinson, co-owner of Total Real Estate Success, works in some of the metro area’s affluent suburbs. Both experts often stage entire houses, but they are also available to give staging consultations to sellers who want to do-it-themselves while continuing to live in their homes. Both agree that there are a few general rules of staging that everyone should follow, whether selling a million dollar townhouse or a pleasant rambler.

Nationally, staged homes stay on the market 83 percent less than non-staged home, according to Realtor Magazine. Staging may take a little time and work, they said, but sellers don’t have to turn their homes into museums. There are a few simple rules that, if followed, can help sell a home faster and for more money, even in a tough real estate market.

“I tell my clients to stop thinking of it as their house and consider it a product on the market. In the current housing market, you’re competing with so may other homes,” said Dankowski.

The staging advice is simple; clean the home till it sparkles, repair what’s broken, and add curb appeal.

Clean, Declutter and Organize

Both staging experts say the most important thing a home seller can do before putting a home on the market is to clean everything, from top to bottom. If a home looks and smells clean, it’s a big plus. That means cleaning inside closets and cabinets, storage rooms, the laundry room–everywhere. If the home is even a little dirty–or if there are odors like stale tobacco or pet smells–that’s what buyers will remember.

“Buyers open the refrigerator and it it’s grotty, they notice. It doesn’t matter how cute the house is,” said Dankowski. “Clean every corner, behind and on top of appliances, even the ceiling fan. Remove and replace old and dirty shelf paper. And if you don’t do windows, hire someone to clean them, inside and out. Spending $300 on a professional window cleaner is a lot cheaper than lowering the price of your house. It makes a big difference. It lets the sun in and makes everything look bright.”

A big rule of thumb for sellers is to allow buyers to picture themselves and their own belongings in the home. Sellers should remove personal items such as family photos, religious items and the kids' refrigerator art.

“A lot of people will take out one or two things and think that’s it,” she added. “But you need to do more. If you have a big bookshelf filled with books, take out most of them. Have one big piece or art and that’s it.”

When it comes to furniture, the look should be cohesive, she added. Pieces of furniture shouldn’t overwhelm a room or block a buyer’s line of sight.

While you can’t change the location or the number of bedrooms, if you have a small kitchen with a large table, you can replace the table with one that fits the space, even if someone has to sit on a folding chair for a month while the home is on the market.

One new trend is the home office, said Dankowski. A smaller third bedroom can be staged with a desk and a computer to suggest an office space. Even a corner of a master bedroom can be staged to look like an office could work there.

“First-time buyers especially are more interested with that than a kitchen that opens up as a great room,” she said.

Repair, Refreshen and Update

Even the best maintained home can look passé, but there’s nothing like a coat of fresh paint to bring everything up-to-date. Both stagers recommend painting the home in neutral colors. But, "neutral" can be tricky, Dankowski warned.

“Neutral isn’t just white or tan. Sometimes, it’s hard to find a good neutral. You might decide to use tan and then find that there are 500 shades of tan.”

She recommends sellers do research before choosing a color by visiting paint stores and looking through home design magazines to avoid picking an out-of-date color. Colors like mauve and blue scream 1989 and pink-toned tans and browns can make a home seem out of date. Newer colors like chocolate browns and sage green look contemporary. The final goal is for buyers not to notice the color.

“Hot pink is fun to live with," Atkinson said. “But buyers can be turned off. And, it seems that a lot of men don’t like blue bedrooms, so avoid it. What we’re trying to avoid is for buyers to remember ‘that aqua bedroom.’ We don’t want them to remember the negatives.”

If a home seller is overwhelmed by color choices, for a small fee–usually less than $100–stagers can come to the home for a color consultation. It’s a small price to pay to avoid painting and then finding out afterward that the colors are dated.

Another easy inexpensive way to update a home is to replace small things like worn chrome faucets, outdated brass chandeliers and funky drawer pulls. Old brass door knobs are cheap and easy to replace with new and modern styles. The difference may seem small, but can be surprising.

“And, while sellers may not notice a dripping faucet, loose tiles, a broken screen door or a cracked window that they’ve lived with for months, repairing and replacing these are essential,” said Dankowski.

Curb Appeal

In midwinter, there’s not much staging that can be done on the outside of a home, except for keeping the sidewalks clear and putting a wreath on the door. But, during warmer weather, a little landscaping can go a long way. The front of the home is the first thing a buyer sees and if that looks shabby, that impression will carry though to the rest of home.

Sellers can put in some new shrubs or tear out dying ones. Atkinson said,“They can mow and weed, including between rocks or the sidewalk cracks. They can put down fresh mulch and flowers by the front door, in pots or planted in beds.”

A newly painted front door will also welcome buyers. Unless there’s a custom solid wood door, a quality paint job will go a long way to make the front door pop and draw the eye to the door, even from a distance. Choose a contrasting color that will complement the existing house color. Red or green are currently popular door colors, but sellers don’t need to be restricted to those and can choose something fun.

Some home sellers think that not much can be done to stage a typical Richfield rambler, Dankowski said, but she says that they are one of her favorite styles.

“They’re fun to do and ripe with possibilities ... I [staged] one in Richfield not long ago–a one story,” she added. “They’re modern looking with clean lines and not a lot of detail. With the big living room windows, they get a lot of light. With a house like that, paint the living room and dining room the same color so there’s flow and the house looks bigger. Put up a big mirror. Pick colors that warm up the rooms ... [and] Richfield homes lend themselves to showing well.”