How To Stage For Sale On a Budget?
25 August 2020
Today I will give you 5 tips on budget-friendly Home Staging. I know everybody wants to sell their flat as fast and expensive as possible and that is usually when they decide to stage it for sale.
Let’s assume your apartment is already cleaned, decluttered and depersonalized (if not go back to the post “How Home Staging works. 10 steps to success”). What is the next step to giving it the right look that will attract the right customer?
Before we start I want to make a disclaimer – I’m not a fan of the cheapest Home Staging in the sense “the cheaper the better because then you will earn more”. My knowledge and experience in this field show something completely different. Offering a good product gives you a chance for a better financial result. However, I am fully aware that apartment owners don’t always have a proper budget. Even if they want to spend more, they simply can’t. Then they have to make a compromise and that’s why I wrote this post – to show what you can change at a minimal expense that will help to sell.
APARTMENT FOR HOME STAGING
In the beginning, I have to tell you an important thing because you might think your flat looks pretty good.
Well, you’ve been living in it for so many years and taking care of it, besides, others often live in worse places. Of course, all this may be true but if you want to sell your apartment for a good price, you have to do your best. There is a whole bunch of places on the market that have been prepared by investors and that amaze the customers with their interiors. They are functional, beautiful, and seem pretty spacious despite their often small size. That’s why, if you want to break through these offers prepare as well as you possibly can, so that you don’t have to wonder why the apartment doesn’t want to sell.
1. HOME STAGING ON A BUDGET. APARTMENT DIAGNOSIS
How to stage your home on a budget? Start with diagnosing your flat. It’s something you can do completely free of charge.
Download a free fragment of my Home Staging e-book and fill out page 12 to see which advantages are worth highlighting and what aspects you still need to work on. Don’t skip this step – what’s written down is more visible. It will make it easier for you to plan your next steps.
2. KEY ROOMS
The apartment has to be coherent so the situation where one room looks like taken straight off Pinterest and the other begs for a renovation after 20 years is absolutely out of question.
Staging on a budget, it is worth paying special attention to the key rooms that simply need to be prepared.
Statistics show that among the sold apartments the living room is staged in 93% of cases, the kitchen in 84%, and the bedroom in 78%. What does this mean? It means that these rooms are crucial, especially if your apartment or house has more rooms, the ones mentioned above will often be the make-it-or-break-it selling point.
What do the brokers mention very often? The entryway! Prepare it well, make it shine, and check twice if it doesn’t seem too tight or nonfunctional. Why? Because it is the first room your potential customers see when they enter your property. The entryway makes the first impression. It also makes the last so it can either be your ally or enemy. The same goes for renting. The entryway is often neglected but the more clever investors know that it is where they need to make an effort visually. Of course, if they want their flat to be remembered.
If you can’t afford decorations just stick to the aforementioned tips from “10 steps of successful Home Staging”. Clean, declutter, depersonalize the space, and do minor repairs – at least the most urgent ones.
3. PAINTING
Paint the apartment if you can see the trace of time on the walls along with tiny handprints and crayons.
If you don’t have a budget for repainting in color, refresh the walls at least in white. That way the flat will seem a lot cleaner and newer. Painting is a classic in Home Staging on a budget because it always adds points to your property.
4. CHEAPER HOME STAGING? FIRST: CLEANING AND DECLUTTERING
It seems pretty obvious and yet it isn’t. Take all your personal belongings out of sight – pictures, children’s drawings, peculiar souvenirs, etc.
The apartment is supposed to seem spacious. All the counters need to be as empty as possible – no knickknacks lying around with no purpose. People often think the apartment is too cramped and small when they see a large number of unnecessary things.
One of the home stagers taking part in my Home Staging Gala confirmed it during the discussion panel. “The owners often say that they would be happy to live in their apartments after they see the results of the staging for sale”. What does it mean? We often require potential clients to be able to imagine what the apartment might look like when they make their changes… (if you’ve read my previous posts, you know it’s impossible). And yet, often the owners themselves cannot imagine that their current apartment could look so good. That is why the process of change and its visualization are crucial.
Look at every corner of the apartment with a VERY critical eye, be like The Perfect Housewife. I’m not kidding. Everything should be squeaky-clean and in the right place, as if the apartment was prepared for an official visit. This stage does not cost you anything (except maybe for your precious time) and is necessary for every Home Staging process. Not only during the staging for sale on a budget. Once this is done, move on to the next step.
5. STYLING THE INTERIOR
Once the flat is all shiny and fresh it’s time for styling. It’s a little like dressing up and putting on make-up before going out 😉
You don’t necessarily have to spend a fortune on it. It’s possible you already have some of the things from the list at home but they may not be properly exposed. What can you use to stage your home beautifully and on a budget?
- Fabric – the famous blankets and pillows really are a thing in the Home Staging business. They add a lot of warmth and a homey atmosphere to your interior, and the right colors can make you feel calm or stimulated. Everything depends on what effect you want to achieve.
- Light – chandeliers, lamps, lights. The most beautiful interiors are those with many sources of light. One ceiling lamp is not enough, add bedside lamps, floor lamps, additional small lights. All depending on what will look best in your apartment.
- Flowers – they always add charm! A few years back you would probably be advised against using artificial ones but their quality has improved so much over the years that you can go ahead and use them. Plants in pots, leaves, or flowers in vases will definitely add charm to your interior.
- Paintings and posters – they are great for emphasizing the different functions of the places in the flat and they make it easier for people to actually notice them 🙂 They just have to be coherent with the style of the apartment.
- Accent pieces – the what? Accent pieces are objects that highlight home features e.g. an elegant breadbox or cookie jars in the kitchen, books in the bookshelf right next to the armchair, throw pillows on the bed in the bedroom. Everything that shows us more distinctively what the function of a given place or an area is.
This is the minimum that should be done when you can’t spend much on changes and just want a low-cost staging. Also, people often can’t afford to hire a professional home stager. What can you do then?
HOW TO STAGE FOR SALE ON A BUDGET?
There are situations when we don’t want to delegate the staging to a professional home stager, for example, because we want to try our hand. Especially ladies like to test their skills.
Pretty often they think about developing their own business related to interior design or Home Staging. I know you can do it yourself if you have the right knowledge. That’s why I created the “Home Staging. How to effectively create that profitable Insta worthy interior.” e-book that shows how to go through the whole Home Staging process step by step. How to choose colors, assess which expenses and changes are crucial, and how to start. The e-book leads you through all the stages right to the grand finale – an apartment perfectly prepared for sale or rent.
You don’t have to have any artistic skills for that either. Many of my clients regardless of gender and profession have already staged their properties with the help of my e-book. Then I got pictures from them – financial analysts and software developers of their beautifully arranged rooms or flats.
Take a look yourself 🙂
STAGING A ROOM FOR RENT
Here is a room for rent that looks decent at first sight. It’s not PRL style, it’s quite new. It seems a little cramped, though. One more thing, it looks like a million other rooms in Warsaw.
Unfortunately, the majority of investors prepare rooms in this one, universal, dull style. This means that the tenants can’t even differentiate between offers, because everything looks the same. That’s like PRL style reimagined. What did the investor do? After reading the e-book, Marcin first changed the layout of the furniture which made the room much more spacious and functional. Different colors, different accessories, and completely different feelings when you look at the photo on the right.
The wardrobe was placed in the nook behind the door and the desk moved towards the window. Rearranging the furniture alone changed so much already and the new décor of the room resulted in this email from Marcin:
“Hey! Here are the photos from after the staging – thank you Klaudia 🙂 I’m also sending some old photos from “before”. The effect was the rooms were rented by the first visitor right away :)”
ANIA SMASHED IT…
Want to see more? 🙂 I talked with Ania @instylewarsawrooms back when she was on the stage of designing the changes in the apartment she’s renting. She had read my e-book and ordered a consultation to check whether the changes were going in the right direction.
SO MUCH FOR A ROOM?!
Ania prepared beautiful rooms and achieved great success. She is also phenomenal with her rental marketing. Here’s a fragment of her opinion and stunning photos she sent me.
“It was hard for me to define market prices because there are few comparable flats (that is – in the same neighborhood and a seemingly old building but beautifully finished) but I rated them at about 2 600 – 2 700PLN.
Having basic home staging knowledge (I’ve been exploring the subject for about half a year) I have set myself an ambitious goal – to rent this apartment for rooms for 3 000 PLN total. I am calling it “ambitious” because when I shared it with people with experience in renting in Warsaw, I heard: Really? 1600PLN per room? In this area you can rent a studio apartment for not much more (1800PLN)… – I also had doubts whether my ambitious goal wasn’t a slight exaggeration.
Ultimately, my current income from the apartment is 3 380PLN. I am at least 20-25% ahead versus the market and I estimate that at least half of this surplus is only thanks to your consultations. The other half is thanks to home staging in general, but I’ve been learning about it mainly on your Facebook group, from your videos and your e-book.
You convinced me that I can introduce this business model on a different basis – create beautiful rules, treat tenants with class and… earn even more from it.
You also convinced me that in renting (just like in any business, by the way) good strategy and market analysis are the most important. And since I have been working on strategy and market analysis for years, it went smoothly.
The rent for my rooms is so high that people who are not in my target group either say “So much for a room?!” or they go speechless.
My rooms are so beautiful that people from my target group say “How beautiful!”, “Amazing design!”, “You really designed it all by yourself?”, “Wow!” and they don’t even negotiate the price.
I am so proud of it. Thank you so much!”
Ania, I am also very proud of your achievements and I wanted to congratulate you here on this blog and wish you further success in the conquest of the real estate market!
WOULD YOU LIKE TO ACHIEVE RESULTS LIKE THESE?
Would you like to learn how to stage your apartment for rent or sale? Or maybe just make some changes in the apartment for yourself? My e-book about Home Staging will certainly help you achieve these goals.
Download a free fragment of my e-book, get a 10$ discount, and just get to work – it won’t happen by itself. You can’t get fit just by watching the training 🙂 And if you want to know more about what’s inside, you will find more details here, in short – this e-book is like a course closed in a book.
Want more? Everyone who buys my e-book about Home Staging gets a unique bonus – the “Home Staging Trends 2020” e-book. It is a gift to those who purchased the “Home Staging. How to effectively create that profitable Insta worthy interior”. Inside you will find home staging trends to use right away. This will make you even more competitive in the real estate market, and your offers will be the ones that attract the most attention. So, are you in? 🙂
Hi there, I have been reading home staging blogs all over the internet. This one caught my eyes when I stumbled upon it. I am new to staging and learning as much as I can. Will keep coming to your blog every now and then. Thanks