Let’s talk about staging tips for selling your home so it appeals to potential buyers who will pay the highest possible price.

Staging can involve rearranging furniture, eliminating items from a room, painting, and even updating and remodeling.

Prudent sellers and agents appreciate how powerful home staging is for selling a home quickly and for the best price.

In this article, you’ll learn the top 6 tips for staging a home for sale. 

Why Home Staging Is Important for Selling Your Home

Staging is designed to showcase a home to impress buyers and motivate them to offer the highest possible price.

Good staging allows the buyer to imagine themselves in the home, highlights its best features, and tries to hides its flaws.

According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR) 2021 Profile of Home Staging, 82% of buyer’s agents say staging makes it easier for buyers to visualize a property as their future home.  

Even more interesting, according to the same report:

• Staging the living room was found to be most important to 46% of buyers
• Followed by the master bedroom, at 43%
• With the kitchen in third place at 35%

6 Home Staging Tips for Selling Your Home

To help you focus and make the most of your efforts, here are the 6 top staging tips for selling your home.

1. Clean the Entire House

Our first home staging tip is about cleaning. A clean home shows potential buyers that you care and have maintained the home. Ideally, you should clean the entire house, from the floors to the ceilings — and everything in between.

Consider these basics:

• Make sure your kitchen appliances are spotless 
• Likewise, make sure your bathrooms sparkle, from the corners of the bathtub to the sink drain
• Don’t forget your floors and all surfaces, too

Your goal should be to make everything look as new as possible.

Quick & Easy

AI Virtual Staging

Interiors. Landscapes. Commercial. Virtually transform any space.

Try AI Virtual Staging Learn More

2. Declutter Every Room and Space

There are two central issues with clutter. First, it distracts buyers from seeing your home’s best features. The second is that it makes the home seem smaller.

Give these ideas a try:

• Box up and put into storage the things you don’t need on a day-to-day basis
• Eliminate things you no longer need — expired food in the back of the cabinets, and the clothes and toys the kids have long since outgrown 
• Donate whatever you don’t need or love

Empty storage and space are a great thing, the more, the better.

3. Remove Personal Items

When home staging for selling, this next tip is important – buyers need to be able to envision themselves in your home, so remove all the family photos, keepsakes, refrigerator art, and so on.

Think about these tips:

• Keep clothes out of sight as much as possible
• Make sure the kitchen and bathroom counters are empty 
• Put away any toys and pet supplies
• Remove anything else that is highly personal or a reminder of the home’s current owners

4. Have Adventures With Furniture

An important home staging tip is to make sure all the furniture is the right size for the room. Furniture that’s too big will make a room look small, while too small furniture can make a space feel empty.

Try out the following with the furniture in each room:

• Experiment with placement — move the bed, try out the sofa on an angle, be creative
• Arrange the furniture to make each room feel spacious, homey, and easy to navigate
• Make sure the furniture is clean and without stains
• Make all the beds, and do your best to remove wrinkles
• Consider renting furniture to stage your home
• Use throw pillows to add a splash of color.
  

Whatever you do, make sure the furniture looks tidy and inviting. 

5. Define Each Room

When staging a home for sale, make sure that each room in the house has a single, specific purpose.

Each room should follow its natural purpose:

• The dining room is for eating and should have a table and chairs
• The living room should look inviting and relaxing
• A finished attic could become a home office 
• A finished basement can become a family room
• Even a junk room can be transformed into a guest bedroom

Buyers may want to use the room for a different purpose, just help them to see that every inch of the home is usable space. This includes corners, small alcoves, breakfast nooks, and other areas.

6. Don’t Forget the Final Touches

Ensure that all your efforts have the greatest impact with a few final touches that will make the home seem warm and inviting.

Give these some thought:

• Put fresh flowers in vases
• Light a few candles 
• Put new, plush towels in the bathrooms

Often it’s the little things that make the biggest difference. 

Quick & Easy

AI Virtual Staging

Interiors. Landscapes. Commercial. Virtually transform any space.

Try AI Virtual Staging Learn More

Here’s a Final Tip – Virtual Staging Can Save You Time and Money!

It’s easy to see why staging is such an important part of the home-selling process.

However, actual home staging takes time, money, and lots of effort.

But there’s another — and some say — better way.

Consider virtual staging: 

• Virtual staging saves you time and money. There’s no paint, no remodeling, no need to move heavy furniture 
• The virtually staged photos create a fantastic online presence when selling your home
• You save money — the price for virtual staging averages 97% cheaper than actual staging
• And it only takes a few days

PhotoUp’s virtual staging technology is fast and affordable.

Best of all, virtual staging is easy and only involves 3 steps:

• Upload the photos of the rooms you want to be virtually staged
• Pick from our digital design furniture library. The library is flexible, and sets can be customized
• We send you the virtually staged photos for you to approve and to download

It’s simple — and much easier than moving furniture around and painting. Even better — your buyers will love the photos.

Sign up with PhotoUp today and learn how virtual staging can make you stand out as a real estate pro!

We hope this blog post helped you learn the top 6 tips for staging when selling your home. 

If you enjoyed this post, make sure to check out the following resources as well:

• How to Virtually Stage a Room in Less Than 5 Minutes
• 10 Benefits of Virtual Staging for Estate Agents
• Virtual Staging – Everything Real Estate Agents Need to Know
• Make More & Spend Less With Real Estate Virtual Staging
• 6 Advantages of Virtual Staging

Are you looking into best practices when staging for real estate photography?

Home staging is preparing a listing to look its best for an upcoming sale. It can involve rearranging furniture, pairing back items in a room, making updates, and painting. The goal of home staging is to impress and motivate buyers. 

Smart sellers and agents know that staging is also a powerful tool for real estate photography. 

So, in this article, you’ll learn 5 best practices when staging a home for real estate photography. We’ll also share why staging a home for photography is a good idea.

Why Is Staging a Home for Real Estate Photography a Good Idea?

Let’s start by discussing why you’d want to do home staging for real estate photography in the first place.  

87% of buyers report that photos are an extremely important part of the home purchasing process. Buyers see photos of the home as they begin their search online — before they ever step foot in the property.

Top-quality photos are crucial for a fantastic first impression and to get buyers to come to view the home. Poor-quality photos can sink a home’s sale. 

Home staging for real estate photography ensures the home will be in the best possible condition for the photoshoot — also ensuring better quality photos.

Here are some stats showing the importance and value of staging:

• 25% of buyers’ agents report that staging increased their offering price 
• Among sellers’ agents, 22% report the same findings
• 17% of all agents say staging increases the offering price by 6% to 10%

5 Best Practices for Staging for Real Estate Photography

1. Stage for the Camera – Not for the Showing

Always think from the perspective of the camera when staging for real estate photography. 

Sometimes what looks impressive in photos isn’t that impressive in person.

Remember, you are staging for the camera right now; you can always make adjustments for actual showings later. 

Consider these issues when staging for photography:

• Angles matter — will this angle look right, will it show off the best features of the room? 
• Lighting often appears differently in photos — will the light hit these items correctly for the camera? 
• Look through the camera lens first, when aiming for symmetry, perspective, flow, and so on

2. Lights! Camera! Action!

Effective lighting is a must for excellent, compelling photos. The right lighting makes a home look inviting and appealing. 

Keep in mind the following lighting tips when staging for real estate photography:

• Brighten up a room for staging with as much controlled light as possible
• The angle and direction of the sun, plus weather conditions, can make a huge difference
• Open the blinds on all or some of the windows for natural illumination
• When working with natural light, avoid harsh shadows in the space
• Rooms tend to look their best with indirect sunlight brightening the room

More Than Industry Leading

Real Estate Photo Editing

PhotoUp is the end-to-end business platform for real estate photographers.

Join PhotoUp Learn More

3. Don’t Forget the View Outside the Window

Even though your focus is photographing the interior of the home, the view out the windows will often become part of the photos.

Therefore, be mindful of what’s outside and in view:

• Is the view out the window a lovely garden, a seascape, or a pile of trash?
• Consider cleaning up and even staging the areas outside the window 
• If the area can’t be cleaned up, consider covering the window
• One more detail — are the windows clean, without spots or streaks that will show on the images?

4. Strive for a Simple Color Scheme

You want to approach your photos like a fine painting — the color palette is extremely important.

Think carefully about color when staging for real estate photography:

• Is the room a mix of clashing colors and tones?
• Buyers tend to prefer simple, neutral colors
• Strive to have only one “color story” per room 
• Too many colors can make the photographs look chaotic and visually noisy
• How do the colors look through the lens and in the images?

Make sure a room’s colors are not a source of distraction. Neutral tones, while perhaps bland, allow the buyer to imagine the home with their preferred colors.

5. Capture Patterns and Rhythms in the Photos

Color isn’t your only concern. Symmetry, repetition, and rhythm can be found throughout any room, and highlighting these patterns can be aesthetically pleasing.

Play with these ideas when staging for real estate photography:

• Symmetry can be found in the shapes of furniture, artwork, decor, windows, and even area rugs 
• Repetition of colors, pillows, flowers, or themes can be pleasing 
• Rhythm can be found in materials used, fabrics, glass, metal, and so on

Explore ways to make a space more aesthetically pleasing by using these simple principles of good design — it’ll make for better photos!

Let Us Share a Secret! Photo Editing and Virtual Staging Can Save You Time and Money!

Yes, buyers are strongly influenced by high-quality photos, making them more likely to want to see your house in person. 

And yes, spectacular photos make a powerful first impression.

So, it’s easy to see why staging for real estate photography has become such an integral part of the home-selling process.

However, there are some downsides to actual home staging for real estate photography:

• Actual home staging can be expensive
• A photographer can only do so much to make your home look good 
• Home staging requires much time and effort on the part of the seller

Quick & Easy

AI Virtual Staging

Interiors. Landscapes. Commercial. Virtually transform any space.

Try AI Virtual Staging Learn More

Consider these definite advantages of real estate photo editing and AI virtual staging:

• Photo editing creates the most polished, appealing, and professional online presence for any property
• Virtual staging is cost-efficient — the price for one virtually staged room averages 95% cheaper than actual staging
• Turnaround times for virtual staging are typically just a few days
• Virtual staging is less disruptive to the seller while offering multiple style options for the same property

PhotoUp specializes in expert photo editing and photorealistic, fast, and affordable virtual staging. 

Here’s how it works:

• Upload the photos of the spaces you want to be staged
• Select a design style set from our professionally designed digital furniture library. You can even customize each set 
• We’ll send you proofs of each virtually staged room for you to approve and download

For more information, check out our AI virtual staging uploader video tutorial:

It’s really that easy. And your clients will love the results!

Final Thoughts

With PhotoUp’s professional real estate photo editing and virtual staging, you can create stunning images for a fraction of the cost of hiring a home staging service.

Sign up with PhotoUp’s today, and let us make you stand out as a real estate pro!

We hope this blog post helped you see the benefits of staging for real estate photography and learn 5 of the best practices. 

If you enjoyed this post, make sure to check out the following resources as well:

• How to Virtually Stage a Room in Less Than 5 Minutes
• 10 Benefits of Virtual Staging for Estate Agents
• Virtual Staging – Everything Real Estate Agents Need To Know
• Make More & Spend Less With Real Estate Virtual Staging
• 6 Advantages of Virtual Staging