Staging an investment property can help potential buyers visualize what it will be like when they move in to your property.  As buyers look at similar homes in a neighborhood, this will give your property a leg up on the competition.  Seeing the true potential of how a home is laid out with all the furnishings included is a major advantage compared to your competition.  Basically, house staging allows you to show off the property‘s best features, and display them in their best light.  And ultimately, it will yield you a quicker sale at a greater price.  And that’s the real bottom line – maximizing your net proceeds.

House staging can make a small room feel more open  with just a few simple tricks. A professional stager is used to staging a house for sale.  They traditionally look at a property’s appeal through the eyes of the buyer, and will recommend ways to make your investment property look better for buyers.  The stager helps buyers visualize themselves living in your house. Also, staging a home for sale includes trying to increase the property’s overall market appeal to a wider range, and therefore, pool of buyers.  Naturally, it’s  a good way to have your just-renovated property look very homey.  In order to obtain top dollar for your investment when it comes time to sell, you want to make your house look  as light, orderly, open and inviting as possible.  And home staging is how best to do it.

The job of any good home stager is part of the overall marketing strategy to sell your investment property for top dollar.  Staging can be very elaborate (for high-end homes), or very simple (for smaller, or low-end properties).  A stager will suggest their ideas for how best to exhibit the space. For antique homes, staging may mean using older style furniture.  But for newer homes,  more modern furnishings would be the way to go to bring out the best look of the entire house.

Staging costs vary greatly, based on the size and style of the house.  For starters, a stager will do a walk-through of your investment property, then generate a report with their recommendations. The cost for the analysis and report can range from $100 to $400, on average. Then you would pay rental fees for furniture and accessories that will be brought in, set up and staged to the stager’s specifications and trusted eye.  This is where things can get pricey, and you can allocate somewhere between $3,000 and $10,000 to properly stage a vacant property, depending on the house size and length of time it will take to sell the property.

It’s best to look for stagers in your area who really know interior styles that are right for your particular house and rehab work completed.  Be sure to check out their prior work, especially in the same neighborhood as your investment property. You can ask your local realtor for referrals. Most realtors have created relationships with stagers in their area, and tend to recommend them the most.