All About Greenville SC Real Estate

That is a question that home sellers are often faced with prior to listing their home and showing it to potential buyers. Does the extra time, money and effort you spend on staging your home ultimately pay off? Let’s break it down.

Home Staging Stats

According to the National Association of REALTORS® 2015 Profile of Home Staging, 96% of REALTORS® representing buyers say that staging your home does have an effect; it just comes down to how much:

• 52% of buyers’ agents believe staged homes increase the value dollar buyers are willing to offer anywhere from 1 to 20%, while 71% of sellers’ agents believe this to be true

• 81% of buyers said that they could more easily visualize themselves in a home if it was staged and 46% were more willing to arrange a viewing for a staged home they had seen online

• The median amount of money spent on home staging was $675

What This Means for You & Your Home

If you've decided to stage your home, you can hire a professional home stager, or you can tackle the project yourself. Each option has its benefits, and you'll have to decide which makes the most sense for your situation.

Hiring A Professional

With the increased popularity of home staging over the last decade, business is booming, which means there’s no shortage of stagers and designers to choose from. You can base your decision on your budget, or how the stager’s aesthetics match up with the architectural style of your home. Depending on how much you’re willing to pay for the service (anywhere from $2000 to over $20,000!), it can include anything from packing away your personal items and adding a fresh coat of paint, to bringing in original artwork and producing online video tours of every inch of your home.

Going It Alone

You won't be completely alone, as your real estate agent will most likely have some general suggestions for you, but it's up to you how “big” you want to go. Keeping that in mind, agents agree that your priority should be on staging living spaces in the following order:

• Living room
• Kitchen
• Master bedroom
• Dining room
• Bathroom
• Children’s bedroom
• Guest bedroom

Our next blog post will cover the DIY route in more detail, but in the mean time, check out our Home Selling Checklist to get your house sale-ready.

So to Answer the Question...

It depends. While it seems that home staging will bring in a higher offer and potentially help sell your home faster, it’s difficult to say how much higher, and how much faster, as this is dependent on many different factors. In the end, it’s ultimately up to you, the seller, to decide if staging your home is worth the extra time, money and effort, and just how much of those three things you’re willing to put in.