A graphic of a large family home with a for sale sign at the front
Episode 79 – Home staging for a house sale

In this podcast, we discuss preparing your home to sell, otherwise known as home staging. Home staging is the industry term for the things you do to prepare your home for sale. We discuss what you can do on a small budget.
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Transcript of this podcast episode
Intro  0:07  
Welcome to today's episode of The declutter hub podcast, your channel for super easy, no nonsense advice on how to declutter and organise your home. Please welcome your host professional organisers, Ingrid Jansen, and Lesley Spellman.

Ingrid  0:30  
Hello, and welcome listeners to Episode 79 of the Declutter Hub Podcast. I'm Ingrid. 

Lesley  0:36  
And I'm Lesley.

Ingrid  0:37  
If you have clutter and want to sort it out, this is the show for you. Now, as you probably have gathered as our listeners that have been listening for a long time, we plan and record our podcasts weeks in advance. But of course, with the Coronavirus going on, we've had to change tack a little bit, hadn't we, Lesley?

Lesley  0:56  
We have we have and so we've had to Lot, we've had to do a few changes. And we've had to look at the ones that we've got scheduled to see whether they're still relevant. So we did chat long and hard about this one, didn't we Ingrid. And we actually think that it is relevant because even though we are all or many of us are in lockdown at the moment, life will go on after this and people will move house again. And so we thought it was really relevant and actually more so than any time. Because if you have got a little bit more time on your hands now is the perfect time to do some home staging or to prepare your home for sale.

Ingrid  1:30  
Yes, I know Lesley, we, we were chatting about it and going. We've got this really great podcast about home staging, but now nobody can sell their home at the moment. But then we said to each other, but all the tips and all the advice in this podcast is really, really helpful for people. But now they've got the time to spend on their home. So let's put it out anyway.

Lesley  1:50  
And even if you're not moving house, just a quick reminder that our eight week boot camp is now live. So if you want to declutter week by week, room by room, come and join us all the details are at Declutter. hub.com, we would love to see you people are signing up, people are already doing it. So come and join us for our eight week boot camp.

Ingrid  2:06  
Yes, we'd love to see you there. So have a look on declutter hub.com for all the details. So let's see, are we ready to go in today's podcast now?

Lesley  2:14  
We absolutely are. Let's do this.

Ingrid  2:17  
Now in today's episode, we are talking about preparing your home to sell. Now let's say this is something that you do quite a lot in your day to day work. So I would love to learn a little bit more. I mean, I know some stuff. But I know you're an even more of an expert than I am on this. So I can't wait to do this podcast with you. So preparing your home to sell. Okay, just take the microphone, Lesley.

Lesley  2:45  
Yeah, so there's some things that lots of people will know about. And there are some things that people might not know about. And so in the industry, as it were, it's called home staging, which is the fancy terminology for preparing your home to sell or to rent. And home staging is probably it's fair to say it's probably a bigger business in the States than it is in the UK. In the States, people tend to spend bigger budgets on things. Now homestand, you can range from costing nothing at all apart from time all the way up to several 1000 pounds depending on how far you want to go. But the idea of it is that by putting time, effort and energy and thought into the way you present your home, it's going to make you more money in the long run. So it's almost speculate to accumulate if you will. So what that means is you present your home at its best, so that people who come to your house to do a viewing can imagine themselves in your home. And if there's too much of you in that home, sometimes it's tricky. So what we're going to talk about today, because we can't talk about all aspects of Home Staging, because we could be here for 10 hours, what we're going to talk about is if you want to stay at your home or prepare your home for sale, and you've got a tight budget.

Ingrid  3:52  
Okay, so I've because you've been educating me a little bit already in preparation for this podcast. I know you want to talk about five different things that you as a home owner can do to actually maximise the sale of your house, right?

Lesley  4:12  
Yeah, there's a lot more I mean, I was trained by Ann Marie's the house doctor, some of you are older, older listeners will remember the house Doctor show that came on the TV around 2000, I think and so I was trained by House doctor about 10 years ago in home staging. And there are several components to in is a very, very sort of formulaic, but I'm gonna just want to talk about a few of those because we're not going to delve into actually doing things like decorating changing carpets and curtains and stuff like that, which would be a bigger budget. So it's much more about little things that you can do to make a real impact. I

Ingrid  4:46  
don't really home stage as a professional organiser, but I did help a client declutter her house and her house sold for 10,000 pounds more, so I can definitely see the benefit of doing this port. cast. And I think the first thing is decluttering. Isn't it literally the first step on doing it on a budget? Yes, exactly.

Lesley  5:06  
And you have Staged homes because you're a declutter, and people will have got you into their homes to declutter knowing that they're moving. So by far, the biggest part of staging a home for sale is removing the clutter out of it. Now, this can take on slightly different forms really, because decluttering for yourself and decluttering for house sale might be two completely different things. So interestingly, this is one of the only times that we say, potentially, you might want to invest in a storage unit for a very short period of time that was declutter, as you will have heard us talking about the fact that we are not big fans of storage units off site storage, because we truly believe that you should have those things in your house that are making you tick and that you want around you. So we don't believe unless we're very specific circumstances in storing your stuff off site, because it's just costing you money. And it's unnecessary, and you need to declutter your belongings and have them at home unless a specific reason. And sometimes there is a one of those reasons is when you're selling your home, because you can take things out that you might need in the next house.

Ingrid  6:11  
Yeah, and that's what my sister did, she was selling her house. And she actually, she was lucky enough that my mum has got quite a lot of space in her loft. So my sister actually stored I think, 10 or 20 boxes at my mom's house and actually couldn't remember any of it that she put in there, when she opened the box is back up. So I think she declutter even more than she thought when she was in her new house. But that's exactly what she did. She did a lot of lots of stuff and stored it in boxes away while the house was being sold.

Lesley  6:42  
Absolutely. And there's good reason for that. Because people falling, if people are going to fall in love with your house, they're going to fall in love with that house as soon as they walk through the door. And so what they don't need is they don't need any of your clutter, distracting them from imagining their selves in your house. And that's the whole idea of home staging is that you almost create a blank canvas for someone so that they can imagine their own things in your house. I know it's sometimes it's more difficult than others. But if you can have that at the back of your mind, that's going to help you along the way when you're preparing your home for sale, talking about that storage unit and the use for it. One of the other things that we need to do when we're home staging is we need to create the illusion of space, we've all seen those estate agent photographs, where it looks so much bigger than it actually is in real life, when we're trying to create the same idea when we're staging our homes ourselves. And we do that with furniture, if you need to remove items of furniture to make your rooms look bigger, and that is the effect that it will have, then do that as well. So if you've got a three seater sofa, and a two seater sofa and a chair for yourself, but if you can remove one of those chairs or two seater sofas, it's just going to create the illusion of space and space is lighter, it's air in and it's much more appealing for people. So just bear that in mind, you can temporarily take out furniture, particularly if you've got things around that just in there because you want to use them. So people might have things like pianos and things like that, that sometimes we do have to kind of stuff them in a little bit. And they don't necessarily enhance what our room looks like. So there might be certain things that we need to take out. Just for the purpose of preparing that home for sale,

Ingrid  8:22  
the first thing that pops into my head is maybe like an exercise bike or something or a rowing machine or any because unless you really got a space for it, it's always kind of a bit in the way isn't it unless you've got a basement room or an exercise room or, but normally if an exercise bike lives in the master bedroom, it can become very unsightly. So maybe for and house sale, and home staging, it needs to be temporarily put in a storage area, if you decide you want to keep it in your new house. What that

Lesley  8:52  
says to your potential buyer is there's no space anywhere else for an exercise bike. So this house is lacking in space. And so you need to take that doubt out of their minds by doing clever things with furniture. And it's something that not a lot of people think about, but it really is a huge deal.

Ingrid  9:09  
I remember from the time when I actually was working for a lettings agency. I mean, we're talking and 90s like donkey's years ago, but I remember that they want to sell our houses as a four bedroom house and rent it out. But in the fourth bedroom, there wasn't a bed. And it's because it was quite a small room. It looked like a bed would fit in there. So in the end, I actually said you might as well get a small single bed or maybe a cot bed or borrow a bed of somebody. So people can actually see that this is a four bedroom house and not a three bedroom house with an office or a laundry room. A temporary storage room. So I think that's also important as well so people can see the measurements of the room goes into proportion. It because

Lesley  9:57  
again you're creating this illusion you're creating Send an idea that this is what this is, it's a four bedroom house. And so even if you have had your house a certain way, like you've had an home office, and to be fair, a home office can be something that's very desirable as well. So you need to very much know your market, you need to know who you're marketing to, if you're marketing to marketing to a young, professional couple, or are you marketing to a family, you know, it's going to be very different in terms of how you present the space. So you need to think about that. And it's all about compromise. It's about compromising for the time that that house is on the market to make sure it sells. And some people are not prepared to do that. And that's when they're struggling, that's when the House sits on the market for a long time. So yeah, so decluttering is huge, get rid of all the clutter, obvious, but it's, it's the biggest part of it. Think about the furniture that you've got on whether that is enhancing and creating the space and the idea of what that home can be, or what it can become to your potential buyer to really, really critical things. Third one, obviously about compromises well, you will have to do without for that period that your home is on sale, you will have to continually tidy up while your home is on sale. That's the bit that that's the things that we have to do that some people really struggle with getting the head around.

Ingrid  11:13  
Can I just say one more thing, mostly about the clutter. This is really the time to declutter, and not just shove everything that's out away in a cupboard, because your viewers are going to definitely look inside your cupboards because they want to get a feel for the space. And if they open every cupboard, and it's absolutely Packed to the Rafters, they're gonna go, Okay, there's there's no room to put anything, so they have to shove everything in cupboards. So this is very important when you are decluttering to not just put everything out of sight, it's always out of mind, but actually really tackle those cupboards.

Lesley  11:48  
Definitely, definitely, because it's important you move in, aren't you. And so you definitely need to do that, regardless of whether you're preparing your home for sale, because you've also got the impending move as well. There's nothing really like a house move that mobilises people into action. It's it's a big, it's a big deal. And it's stressful, and you need to take the stress out of it a little bit. And if you can sell your house more quickly, or for more money, it's a win win, isn't it?

Ingrid  12:12  
Right, so we've talked about collateral, we've talked about furniture? What's the next one? Let's see that you want to talk about?

Lesley  12:19  
Well, I really want to talk about depersonalised in the space. I've already alluded to that before, when I talked about the fact that people need to imagine themselves in your house. So this is where quirky doesn't necessarily mean, great. It's one person. And if you can de personalise a space in any way, that's going to be a benefit. So this is where the gland walls and things like that come in more. Because again, people can imagine their own furniture, sitting in that room, if it's, you know, a neutral term rather than a bright pink floral wallpaper and things like that. Some people might love that, if you've done it, well, that's absolutely fine. Not saying rip it all out. But you've got to really think about whether your style is going to necessarily translate into someone else's style. The other thing that's important to think about them with depersonalization is if you've got loads and loads of family pictures around of yourself and your own family, that can be quite distracting to a potential viewer, because all they can see as your personality stamped on that house and of not making that mental leap forwards. So it's really, really important to kind of take down those family pictures, maybe not all of them. But but if you've got those really big ones, though, that are sitting above your fireplace, which are obviously beautiful things for home, but they're not necessarily great things to have around when you're selling. So a lot of people will think oh, you know, this is really lovely, because it's obviously created as a family home and stuff like that. But again, it can be quite distracting if it's somebody else's family. So think about taking those down, and replacing them with a mirror or with a piece of artwork that's just much more neutral.

Ingrid  13:55  
Good advice, Lesley. And I think that doesn't only go for the living room wide, it goes for hallways, it goes for photo walls that people have maybe fridges that are full of notices where the kids have to go, it can all look very overwhelming to the people who want to actually buy your house and they're almost kind of stepping into your life or what you wanted to do is that they see themselves living in your house.

Lesley  14:23  
It is really hard. It's really hard because this is a home that you love, that you're you've there's almost an interim step where you kind of mentally have to move out before you've moved out if that makes sense. And so we was working with a lady yesterday and we did a lot of decluttering ready for a house move for her. As she's moving abroad or having to go a little bit harder. She just I just feel like the personality has been completely stripped out of my house, which is hard for me to see that. But we've got no choice and this is the thing we've got no choice because this is what we've got to do to prepare for the sale. So it is hard and it is going to involve as I say that mental leap that kind of interim mode. You're right, let me think that I've said goodbye to my house already, and made that step into my new property and think about that going forward. So yeah, depersonalization is a really a really huge deal as well.

Ingrid  15:12  
What's the next one? Lesley?

Lesley  15:14  
I think you know, finally, really what I wanted to talk about was those things that are going to enhance relief. So first things first, let's talk about curb appeal. It's so important, most people will drive around and look at a house from outside before they even come in. So you need to make sure that the outside of your house looks absolutely amazing. So if that means that you're going to have to buy some new planters, get your windows cleaned, make sure that any outside repairs are done that are unsightly, that kind of thing absolutely needs to be done, it's absolutely critical, because you need to make sure people are actually going to come into your house. I mean, I think nowadays that a lot of the work that we used to have to do is already been done by 360 degree tours. And you can get photographs from all different angles and things like that. But ultimately people want to see where is this house What's Next Door what's around in the neighbourhood. So that that kind of drive by will absolutely happen so you need to make sure that curb appeal is done right you know I mean buy curb appeal don't even get

Ingrid  16:15  
oh yeah, I mean I'm also thinking you know, exactly the have all your bins to one side had don't have weeds growing out of your patio. Even if you've got gutters if they're full of kind of leaves in you can see there's a possible problem there. You need to have your gutters cleaned, because people really pick up on that and if they're going to go it looks a bit unkept. I'm wonder what else they haven't done. But of course, you need to make sure that your whole house inside and out is looking at its best. But that first impression, you know, that is so important. I mean

Lesley  16:51  
of all things that we can do with painting. If it's obviously really bad, then you might need to invest some money in painting some new carpets. Don't go crazy with that you can do a lot of things. Don't really want to say on the cheap, but you can do sometimes it's useful just to sell it to paint the walls in a neutral tone to put a new carpet down if it's been completely ravaged by your dog, that kind of thing. I little bit no brainers really, but do that in a cost effective way. Don't go all out and pay for a really expensive carpet because it might not stay after you've moved out. But for the most part, work with what you've got declutter depersonalise Think about your furniture, whether it's in the right place and then put all the kind of niceties on at the end, the things that people will talk about. Put some fresh coffee on so it smells beautiful when you go in. If you've got diffusers, put them on if you've got scented candles, use them. Ingrid hates scented candles, by the way, but nobody else does. She was talking about that was the first thing you declutter wasn't any 40 days 40 Isis was a scented candle, if you need to send them to anybody who's selling their home because they can use them, put some fresh flowers out. So these are aspirational things that create an aspirational feeling about your home. That means that people are going to want to move into them. So it's really important to get those kinds of things right as well. Prepare for viewing sometimes is a stage like I wanted to have you in at four o'clock if that if that's not convenient for you. You know that your house was a complete tip when you left it that morning. So no, four o'clock is not convenient. Can you hold back to 630 go in, do your tidy up. Make sure everything is the speakers bam, put your candles on and make sure you're ready for them.

Ingrid  18:30  
Yeah, and that was also thinking, you know, maybe if you know that your bathroom is really an asset. You know, it looks great, everything's fine. But your towels are a bit tatty. Maybe this is the time to bet to buy a nice set of towels just for the viewings. And of course, you can take them with you. And maybe use the old towels for when you have to do cleaning jobs in and around the house. If you know that maybe your bins are overflow you forgot to enter you empty your recycling before open a window or a door to get some fresh air in. Maybe if you have a lot of fumes in a very short space of time and you've got a dog or several cats and it's really difficult to keep the house tidy. Maybe if you know you want you're going to have 10 or 20 viewings in one week can maybe your your pet was stay at somebody else's house for a couple of days. So just so you don't get behind on all the jobs that need doing all the time. So that might be really helpful as well have your dishes put away your dishwasher. You see these photos from estate agents and you're like wow, that you know they haven't even made the beds. Those are things that don't cost anything but really can help you get a better sale for that house and this is also me speaking with my lettings agent that had on for many many years ago. The state that some people have their rooms and you think okay, you want to rent out this house but you haven't done anything to make it look Good.

Lesley  20:00  
So you think about show home, you know, if you want to, if you want a great comparison, look at a show home and the way that that's presented. Most things are very neutral in there. They have very minimal amounts of furniture, so they'll have normally built in furniture. The reality of a new build is often that there's not anywhere near as much storage as you actually need to survive on when you get in there. But you're not getting it anybody that stayed in a show home that's putting tonnes and tonnes of furniture in, they don't look at the practicalities of things. They look at staging it for sale. So you can think, oh, this room is quite nice and big. This is a lovely size, master bedroom and things like that. So really think about the way that show homes are presented and try and create that in your own home. As Ingrid said, make sure all those jobs are done. Make sure you're presenting your house in its absolute best. The interesting thing is when I do work with people staging their homes, they're kind of almost fall back in love with their homes again, once all the clutter and the furniture. And once they've started to really show it as if they love the home because sometimes we fall out of love with our homes don't way we really do. And clutter is a big contributor to that. There's so many clients I've got where I go into home, and I can see the true potential in that home like I hate is too small, and light, you just need to fall back in love with your home. And once you fall back in love with your home, you actually start to think Well, I do want to keep it tidy. I do want you know because you love it so much. And if you fall out of love with it, that's when the clutter starts to build. A couple of other really obvious things as well make sure you've got lights on in rooms that are generally dark. So keep an eye on the time of day as you're viewing. If you've got a time of day that your home looks amazing because the sun streaming in, try and get your viewings at that time, if you can you call the shots here, if you want us at a certain time of day, you can try and get that from your agents and talk to them about that don't try and keep this information away, you can push people to come in in the afternoon rather than in the morning, that's when my house is going to look best. And it's in the interest of the agent as well. So if there are any rooms that are naturally dark, put the light on before people go in. If there are any rooms that are naturally cold, make sure you strip out of them, you know try and put the heater in before they go in. But if you've got an extra heater in there, because it's generally a cold room, take that heater away, because what's that's going to say to someone is this house is cold. If you've got tonnes and tonnes of extension cables around, because there's not enough electricity and plugs don't have them on view because people will automatically jump to well, there's not enough electricity here and I need to get the house rewired. The thing about this is these are things that you won't see anymore, you won't see because you're living with this every day. So try and get somebody to come in with a fresh pair of eyes, maybe one of your friends and say right, if you were selling this house, how would you present it? What would you take out what jumps out at you straightaway? Because you really do stop seeing things?

Ingrid  22:48  
Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And I think as well, for the rooms that are quite dark, make sure you've got your curtains opened. And I'm not talking you know, if it's a viewing at eight o'clock at night, you don't have to have all your witness open. But more effective viewing throughout the day. If you're not used to opening your curtains before you leave, to go to work or go to the school run. And there's a viewing that day and your estate agent has to open all the curtains, then it might a room is already looking dark before you've even started. And so all of this

Lesley  23:19  
staging stuff, and this is this is a really, really tight budget. This is like right, I can do these jobs without spending any money really, apart from maybe some of the maintenance jobs that need doing. But chances are some of those maintenance maintenance jobs are going to come up when you when the survey is done anyway. So you may as well just get on with it and do them just present your house at its absolute best. Because you need to make more money for it. I just went through a house sale with a client a couple of months ago. And we got something like 30,000 over asking because it was presented well. And so it's really really important to do that I can't stress enough present your house at its best and then you'll get the best price for it. You know, it's important if you've got a little bit of money, and you can invest a few 100 or a couple of 1000 pounds into it, chances are you might get you might get an extra five or 10,000 pounds return or it might sell really quickly. Either of those things are fantastic when you want to sell a house. So really look into home staging as an option. Yeah,

Ingrid  24:18  
I agree with you, Lesley. I mean, a couple of 100 pounds we'll go set you know a new duvet set some new towels, some flowers, maybe getting a jet washer, because you realise that your patio is is not looking great at the front you want to just wash it, that's not going to cost the world but that will definitely pay back dividends when you sell that house and that will give you the edge over other houses so it doesn't have to cost a lot. It's just probably time and energy and a bit of motivation and that you need but it's going to pay back so much probably money for the selling price so well really well worth investing into.

Lesley  24:58  
So I think the last thing I want to says Be honest and realistic with yourself in conjunction with your estate agent about who your target market is. Some people may buy your house, knowing that they're going to do it up. And if that's the case, then the people that you're anticipating coming into your house should have vision. So they should be able to see a room, strip everything out of it visually in their mind and know what that's going to look like. And so that's a completely different type of market. But if you're trying to sell your house or something that people can move into and not do anything with it, or even just temporarily, then it's important for you to invest this time and energy and potentially a little bit of money in Homestead Jim.

Ingrid  25:42  
Well, fantastic information, Lesley, and thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us. So listeners, are you getting ready to sell your house? And has this podcast made you think, Hmm, what a fantastic idea these ladies have given me I actually need to up my game here a little bit. And I actually need to get some jobs on on a list of things to do because I do actually want to sell my house for more money. So I'm going to have to just get on with it. I'm going to start with decluttering my house. So we really hope this podcast was helpful for you.

Lesley  26:17  
Can I say something now? You can declutter your house anyway. You'll stay in just saying I don't need to having to sell it. You can declutter anyway.

Ingrid  26:30  
We love decluttering less, we're biassed. But yes, I fully agree with you. You don't have to be moving house to do any decluttering and all of the tips you would give me You can also if maybe you've fallen out of love a little bit with your house. These tips may be really get you back on track to fall in love with your house again and realise why you're living there. And that is worth so much. You know if you feel happy at home, you feel I think happy in life hopefully so thank you Lesley for telling me this and

Lesley  27:02  
I just wasn't sure that you knew.

Ingrid  27:05  
Well, listeners we help you know as well that we love decluttering that's it for this episode. So thanks so much for listening. And please leave us a review and tell us what you think about the show. We'd love to know what you're thinking and if we'd love to read your reviews as well. So follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook as at declutter hub, and join us in the Facebook group to declutter hub community would love to see you there. If you don't want to miss the next weekly episode, please subscribe to us. So we come into your notifications each week. Every Friday, there's a fresh episode, Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and iHeartRadio. You can find us so thanks for listening and see you next time.

Outro  27:49  
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the declutter hub podcast. Check out declutterhub.com for more inspiration, and don't forget to tune in next week.
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Realtor in Edmonton says:

1 September 2022 at 3:09 PM

Accessorizing tight spaces can be challenging, so it’s no surprise that many listing agents and even professional stagers struggle with it.

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Episode 79 – Home staging for a house sale

Episode 261 – The power of slow in a fast world with guest Carl Honoré

Episode 260 – How to get things done with a list

Episode 259 – 10 Organising products worth investing in

Episode 258 – The transition from young adult to home-maker with guest Penny Moyses

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