Stage your vacant Tulsa home for sale – an investment with a return

Stage your vacant Tulsa home for sale – an investment with a return       

Yes, I do want you to stage your vacant Tulsa home for sale, and yes, it is an investment for which you can expect a return.

It’s easy to understand the return on investment for painting interior walls, refinishing hardwood floors and updating a kitchen. All of these improvements make your home more attractive and appealing. In the Buyer’s eye, your Tulsa home for sale is move-in ready and you have removed possible Buyer’s objections.

So, why staging, you ask?

First and foremost, the photographs that will be disseminated across the internet will be much, much more appealing.  Any professional photographer will tell you that the camera needs something on which to focus. Try this experiment: take a photo of an empty room, then take a photo of the same room furnished with a chair and side table. You will quickly be able to discern the difference in the sharpness and clarity of the photo.  And, we all know that if Buyers don’t like the photos they see on the internet, they will not consider viewing your property.

 
Staging also creates warmth and comfort – it creates EMOTIONS. The end result of a staged home is the Buyer feeling as if THIS could be their home and they would be happy living there.  It’s very hard to quantify this, but it is very real.  I have witnessed Buyers telling me “This is it! This is the house we want!” within the first fifteen seconds of entering a home.  I reply, “but, it doesn’t have the fireplace you said you must have!”  And the Buyer replies, “I don’t care – this home FEELS right!”

Staging also helps in disguising faults in a layout. I listed a home that had three bedrooms and a gameroom on the 2nd level. Two bedrooms shared a Pullman bathroom and the other bathroom was accessible only from the largest bedroom.  With this layout, anyone watching television in the gameroom would have to walk through a child’s bedroom to access a bathroom. We wound up staging the large bedroom as an exercise room and made that end of the upstairs appear to be a “community area.” The lack of access to the bathroom became a non-issue.

Staging is paramount to purposing rooms. If it’s an awkward space, SHOW the Buyers how it is used. Recently I staged a home where the living room was particularly long and there was vacant space by the far window. We put a tall bistro table there with a bird book and binoculars, which filled the space nicely and gave it purpose. Two weeks after the Buyers moved in, I dropped by to pick up my keybox and sign. Imagine my surprise (not) when I saw that the new homeowners had purchased an almost identical bistro table to put there, and that’s where they were enjoying their evening meal.

Don’t forget the impression Buyers form when they drive up to your home. If the landscaping looks shabby or the front door doesn’t close properly, they are already forming an impression that the house in general has not been maintained. They will begin viewing your home with a critical eye – not an open and excited attitude.

Cost of staging?

Stagers either rent furniture or use what they have in inventory. They also accessorize with lamps, pillows, bedding, books, vases and more – all of which has to be stored somewhere. All of this needs to be transported and arranged. And just as attorneys or accountants charge an hourly rate for their time, knowledge and expertise, stagers do also.

Stage your home to sell.

It’s best to spend that money up front versus facing multiple price reductions. It’s not that Buyers can’t figure out which is the kitchen and which is the master bedroom. It’s about all the reasons above. It is an investment in preparing your Tulsa home for sale and just as important as refinishing the hardwood floors.