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A must read for sellers with a limited budget

This is a must read for sellers with a limited budget. Whilst home staging sells, not every seller has the finances to invest in a professional property stylist. Having personally renovated and sold several homes and with my many years’ experience as a real estate agent, I understand the importance of staging a home for sale and have perfected doing so DIY style on a budget. If you want to maximise the sale price of your home, then doing it yourself is time well spent.

Here are 5 essential tips worth your investment. They cost way less than professional home staging and the best part is once your home is sold your staging items can be put to use in your new home.
 
Betsy Wilbur a professional home stylist says. “A staged home will sell for 17% more on average than a non-staged home, and 95% of staged homes sell in 11 days or less. That is statistically 87% faster than non-staged homes.” In an interview with Forbes magazine.
 

Tip 1

In hundreds of properties I have listed for sale or appraised, I seen many living rooms deprived of something as simple as a rug.

A rug in the living room has several aesthetic benefits. Firstly, it instantly softens the appearance of the room. If your living room has hard flooring such as timber, tiles, or polished concrete, a rug will immediately create a much more inviting space, if you have carpet it will add more texture and colour. Rugs don’t need to be restricted to living rooms, applying to other areas in the home can work really well! If your dining room looks cold or hard, a large rug under the dining setting is a great addition, same goes for the bedroom if you have hard floors a rug under the bed can make the room feel bigger and more luxurious.

Secondly, rugs create great visual divides. For example, an open plan property with a dining area adjacent to the living room. A rug in one, or both, differentiates the two spaces. It can create the perception of two generously sized rooms.

Finally, rugs are a great way of adding texture or colour to an otherwise dull space. If you feel that your room is lacking some oomph, opt for a textured wool rug with a pattern or a shag pile rug for a serious plush injection.

The purchase of a new rug is the most expensive of my 5 tips for DIY home staging. However, it’s a worth the investment.

You don’t have to pay top dollar. Check out local rug stores for any sales. They always seem to be on sale, right? Don’t overlook the budget friendly range at IKEA or Bunnings either. They have a great selection of sizes and styles to work with most homes.
 

Tip 2

After depersonalising your property, the walls will look a bit bare where the family photos used to be, Artwork is a great way to inject colour, personality into your home and they don’t have to be expensive
Staging your home creates an emotional connection between the buyer and the home. Artwork is a great way to achieve this, but choose carefully, select pieces that are broadly appealing and in line with the style of your furnishings and home feel. Beautiful artwork is more likely to draw buyers into a room and they’ll spend more time appreciating the space than an otherwise blank room. A couple of my favourite places for well-priced artwork again IKEA and Freedom Furniture. Freedom have a great range of varied sized pieces in both canvas and glass framed as does IKEA and their prices are budget friendly. But don’t forget good old Kmart if you are really on a tight budget, their range is limited but you can still find some interesting smaller pieces there.
 

Tip 3

Bedrooms and bathrooms are personal spaces. You want to depersonalise as much as possible for potential buyers. Faded towels and bed linen tell a story of a stranger’s home, it’s a phycological thing buyers don’t want to move into a “stranger’s” bedroom. They want to move into their bedroom and sometimes they can’t see past these things so there should be very little to no association of the current owners of the home on display in these areas.

Fortunately, this is a super easy fix to create a super fresh and neutral space, you can achieve this with a fresh quilt cover on the bed and fluffy towels in the bathrooms. Think luxury hotel vibe, rather than a lived-in house.

I like to neutralise the bed with white linen. Colour is added through artwork, scatter cushions and a throw rug. Make sure your styling is cohesive throughout all of the bedrooms in the home to make them feel connected, bring pops of colour from other rooms to make the bedrooms feel connected to the rest of the house also.

Buy quality when it comes to linen if in the budget as you’ll be taking these with you to the next home. You may as well treat yourself. Get something that feels as good as it looks. Quality that meets a DIY home staging budget, can be found at a lot of different places, Adairs have a great range of linen and towels on the higher scale, but still very budget friendly. Spotlight is a little cheaper, still with a great range and again good old Kmart for the really budget conscious.
 

Tip 4

Cushions and throw rugs, the quick and affordable makeover for any space. They can also be a great disguise taking attention away from what may be a dated or worn sofa beneath and bringing it back to life with colour and texture.

Select cushions and throw rugs that work with existing colours in the room to maintain a harmonious palette. Before heading to the store, take a photo of the room. Make sure any artwork is captured in the photos (if you already have your artwork). Once in store, you can refer to the photos to help select colours that tie with the existing palette. If you’re feeling completely helpless, ask for assistance. A sales assistant can help you with your selections.

Use scatter cushions and throw rugs on your sofas and beds. Cluster the cushions in two’s or three’s depending on the size of the cushions and furniture. Play with colour and mixing textures or patterns when it comes to both throw rugs and cushions, faux fur throw can add a bit of a luxury feel or a knitted throw can add a bit of interest and contrast. Cushions with feather infills are a favourite as they produce a more luxurious finish after a “pillow chop”. Pillow chops are the easiest skill to learn for a DIY home stager.
 

Tip 5

When creating fresh spaces, nothing is fresher than a living thing. Plants are number one for creating a fresh space. Greenery adds life and is a great styling tool for many areas in the home.
 
Something as simple as foliage in a vase on your dining table, coffee table and/or your kitchen bench instantly adds colour and interest. Fresh flowers provide beautiful pop of colour and an inviting fragrance which buyers will appreciate. The upkeep of fresh flowers over a sale campaign is challenging and can be expensive so after the listing photos are complete, and the first open home has been conducted if they last that long, I suggest you replace them with foliage.

Selecting the right foliage will stretch those dollars further. Native gum leaf varieties, proteas and banksias last for weeks rather than days. And can be usually found for free out on a walk around the neighbour hood just make sure you ask your neighbour if you can take some cuttings if its on their property.

If you don’t already have one and the budget allows a floor plant is a great addition, whether it’s a feature plant at the entry or filler for an empty, dull corner of the home, indoor plants add a homely feel.

Visit your local Bunnings or nursery for indoor plants and pots at reasonable prices.
 
I hope this helps you as much as it has helped me!

by Chris Pole

Sellers with a limited budget
palmbeachfn.com.au July 2020
First National Burleigh
Ph: 07 5522 3100