Home Staging Infographic and Tips

How the five senses can help sell homes

Many clients are familiar with that sensation— the moment you walk into a house and just know it’s the home for you. What they may not know is the feeling of “home at first sight” sometimes needs a helping hand.

Home staging is all about creating that emotional connection. To be successful at it, your clients must appeal to all five of a potential buyer’s senses, as outlined in this home staging infographic. Share it with them today!

Smell

Smell can evoke an emotional response that doesn’t even register in our conscious thoughts. Even the slightest hint of mustiness can conjure impressions of mold and mildew, so clients should make sure each room in the home smells as fresh and clean as possible.

Weather permitting, sellers should open the windows and doors to let in the fresh air. Box and ceiling fans can help circulate air into rooms with less ventilation.
Fresh-cut flowers can brighten any room’s atmosphere. Just make sure clients choose varieties with subtle scents and low pollen. See examples
Encourage sellers to replace or remove old rugs and bathmats and clean or air out curtains.
Make sure clients have carpets and upholstery cleaned just before putting the house on the market and remind them to vacuum daily. With any luck, the floors will be seeing a lot of extra foot traffic!
As much as possible, sellers should keep trash—especially kitchen waste—in sealed containers outside or in the garage.
Tell clients not to let dishes pile up in the sink or dishwasher. They should:
- Rinse dishes after each use.
- Take special care to keep the garbage disposal clear.
- Run the water for at least 30 seconds after turning off the disposal.
- Clean with vinegar and water as needed.
- Toss in some citrus peels for a fresh aroma.
Sellers should also choose cleaners that won’t leave a harsh chemical smell in their home. This is a chance to do something nice for themselves, as well as their visitors. Cleaning is a much more pleasant task with a dose of aromatherapy. See examples

Pet owners: If furry family members must stay in the house while it’s on the market, ask clients to try to limit them to areas with hard-surface floors and encourage them to stay off the upholstery. Encourage them to bathe and brush pets frequently to keep shedding and odors minimal. Buyers with allergies will be grateful! Sellers should also try to take pets out of the house during showings if at all possible.

Smokers: If clients have been smoking inside the house, now’s the time to stop.

Touch

Your clients can benefit from using a variety of cloths and textures in the home. Ask them to cover furniture with new fabric if the original upholstery is starting to look worn. Bed linens should be clean, stain-free and touchable. Have sellers run their fingers over some of the surfaces in each room. Dusty? They should clean it. Splintering wood? It’s time to sand it and refinish.

Sight

While a home is on the market, it needs to be set up in a way that serves selling goals, not necessarily your client’s lifestyle. That may mean rearranging or redistributing their furniture, putting personal belongings into storage and/or painting and other redecoration.

Each room should be shown to its best advantage. Small rooms can appear larger with the proper furniture placement, paint color and lighting. The right window treatment can help compensate for small windows. Instruct sellers to take steps to address cracks, stains or other visible signs of disrepair. No matter how minor they may be, they don’t want buyers to start thinking the house needs work.
If clients have been using the dining room as a home office or the guest room as a storage closet, have them consider borrowing or renting furniture that helps re-establish each room’s original purpose. Buyers should be able to see how they’d live in each space, not how the sellers have chosen to use it.
The less clients showcase their personal tastes, the easier it is for buyers to see their own design possibilities in each room. Encourage them to pack away mementos like family pictures and trophies and de-clutter as much as you can. Have them consider adding a fresh coat of paint; it will help create that clean slate they’re going for and freshen up the walls at the same time. Clients need help choosing an interior paint color? Share this article

Hearing

Have clients take a moment to listen to the house. No, this isn’t a zen exercise. Do they hear dripping faucets, squeaky steps or anything else that needs a quick fix? Sellers can’t control things like traffic sounds or noisy neighbors, but they can distract from them by playing soft music throughout the whole house.

Taste

Arguably the most difficult sense to appeal to when selling a home, taste can be addressed by providing refreshments. Visitors might not remember which house had a vase of daisies on the counter, but they’ll remember the one that had just-brewed coffee, ice-cold bottled water or a fresh fruit tray.

Just how important is staging a home? According to the National Association of Realtor’s Profile of Home Staging, 58% of buyers’ real estate agents believed that staging a home affected how buyers viewed the home most of the time, and 31% agreed that staging had an impact some of the time. In addition, 81% of buyers’ agents cited that home staging made it easier for buyers to visualize properties as their future homes.

Staging a home may seem like a lot of work, but remind your clients that it will all pay off if it helps sell the home faster. Keep reading our blog for tips!