Photo by Francesca Tosolini, acquired via Unsplash.com

Staging Wars?

Posted September 17th, 2020 under smart selling, money matters.

In the past, I’ve said many times that home staging wasn’t necessary for most homes. As long as you decluttered your home, gave it a fresh coat of paint where needed, made any necessary repairs, and had fairly new appliances, furnace, air conditioning, and shingles, you would attract a good price.

Not so in today’s market.

The difference is the bidding wars. It used to be that multiple offers and bidding wars were rare, occurring in as little as 1 in 50 sales. There wasn’t much you could do to try to attract multiple offers; they were more of a fluke (or the result of underpricing).

Over the past few years, this has changed drastically, to the point that more than half of sales involve multiple offers.

But what does this have to do with home staging?

In a normal sale, buyer and seller would privately assess the market value of a property, and would negotiate around that value. In a bidding war, the urgency and competitive atmosphere push the price much higher, by thousands or even tends of thousands of dollars.

With bidding wars now commonplace, the chance of attracting a second offer is much higher. Anything you can do to move your sale from the single-offer category to the multiple-offer category is very valuable—remember we’re talking thousands of dollars here. Suddenly, home staging makes much more economic sense.

So, if you have the time and money to spend on home staging in today’s market, go for it. I have no doubt you’ll get back what you spend, if not significantly more.

If home staging is out of your reach financially, my advice is that you are competing with properties that have a bigger and bigger “wow factor”. The cleanup and repairs that have always been an important part of selling are even more important now, so put as much effort into them as you can.

Want to know more about showing your home? Just ask me, I'll be happy to help.