7 tips to stage your home ready for photos & viewings
Oakheart Property
When you sell your home you want it to look its best for potential buyers so they have the right first impression. Oakheart Property has put together 7 quick and easy tips to prepare your home prior to our team visiting to ensure it’s lens ready.
Why stage your home ready for photos?
Staging your home is the method of highlighting your home’s most impressive features to help buyers imagine themselves living there. According to National Associations of Realtors’ report, a whopping 77% of potential buyers say they visualise the property as their home when it is staged well.
Opt for a de-personalised scheme.
One of the main objectives when it comes to staging your home is to set it to a blank canvas. You want your home to have style and charm but you don’t want too many personal touches to dominate the idea that the home belongs to the seller, not the buyer. While it can feel odd to make your house less of a home, it is extremely useful to help buyers connect with the property which can speed up the sale. Here are our top tips to de-personalise:
- Remove personal photos.
- Take off any magnets on the fridge.
- Keep clothes stored away and out of sight.
- Clear bathroom tops full of personal items.
Let the light in
One of the quickest, yet most crucial tips, is to let natural light into every room as much as you can. Natural light creates an instantly appealing environment so open curtains and blinds to maximise the light coming in.
Furniture placements
Be open to moving your furniture. Why? Photographs are normally taken from the door entering the room and usually from a crouched position to get as much of the room in as possible. If a sofa or bed for example is positioned close to the door, it will appear large in the photograph making the room appear smaller. Moving the sofa, coffee table and other furniture away from the door will help keep the room looking spacious.
Declutter
Less is definitely more in photographs. It allows the prospective buyer to concentrate on the room rather than knick-knacks spread around the room. Pay specific attention to:
- Books, CDs and DVDs.
- Kitchen tools that currently live on the counters.
- Posters in your children’s bedrooms.
Prepare the outside
A driveway full of cars will add nothing of value to your photos, especially if prospective buyers can not appreciate the exterior of the property to its full potential. We would recommend moving your vehicles off the driveway until the photos are done. Here are some more top tips to ensure the exterior is fully prepared:
- Ensure all wheelie bins are hidden out of sight.
- Give the lawn a cut, prune large bushes and brush away large debris from the patio.
- If you have children, tidy away any garden toys so it’s not spread across the garden.
Clean top to bottom
If you really want your house to have the wow factor, it’s all about paying attention to the small details. Clean the windows inside and out, dust your skirt boards, bleach your tile grout and polish reflective surfaces such as taps and mirrors. These details all matter, especially with natural light enhancing the details even more on final images.
Set up accessories accordingly
Use cushions and throws to layer up the sofa and bedroom. You could even buy fresh flowers and have these in the dining room. Keep the space simple but welcoming to start buyers off on the right foot.
Upon appointment with Oakheart Property, your agent will advise and help move belongings to ensure we get the best pictures possible to present your home.
Ready to get your Colchester home on the market with Oakheart Property? We have an experienced team of sales and letting agents across Essex and Suffolk who will be more than happy to guide you through your entire property journey. Get in touch with our team of property experts today.
