Tips for Staging Your House to Sell

Staging your house involves furnishing and decorating it specifically to appeal more to buyers. It can help your home sell faster, and for a higher price. 

Imagine three identical houses for sale. One of them is a hoarder house, brimming with junk. Another is completely empty, a husk with nothing to spur buyers’ imagination. But the third features a few tasteful furnishings and decorations — just enough to let buyers imagine themselves living there, in the same elegance as the decor. 

And in today’s world, you don’t even necessarily need to put physical furniture in the property. 

Follow these tips for staging your house to sell fast, for the highest possible price. 

Does Home Staging Work?

According to a 2023 study by the National Association of Realtors, 81% of buyers agents reported that staging helped their clients visualize themselves living in the property. Meanwhile, 27% of listing agents reported it helped the home sell faster compared to comparable properties, and 20% reported a higher sales price after staging. 

HomeAdvisor reports even greater benefits, claiming that staged homes sell 33-50% faster than non-staged homes. They also report a 20% average increase in sales price. 

An older case study by the Real Estate Staging Association supports these claims. In reviewing their clients sellers who hadn’t staged their homes, they found that they let their homes sit on the market for 143 days on average before giving up and hiring a staging company. Once staged, the properties sold within 40 days on average. 

The study also found that homes staged before listing sold in just 23 days on average. 

How Much Does Home Staging Cost?

Those benefits sound great and all, but everything comes at a cost. So before you dig into how to stage your house, consider the average costs. 

According to HomeAdvisor, professional house staging costs $1,839 on average, and typically ranges from $839 – $2,933. 

The NAR study found that many sellers use a less expensive approach. They found sellers spend an average of $600 when hiring help, and spend $400 on average when they pay the listing agent to take care of staging. 

That said, not all staging is created equal — and some ways of staging your house cost far less than others. 

How to Stage Your House: 3 Options

In the classic real estate staging strategy, you remove every stick of furniture from your house and physically move new furniture into it. The house remains staged that way until it sells. 

But that’s not the only way to stage your home.

You can instead hire a professional real estate photographer who stages the house only for the shooting, then removes all the furniture. I did this for my own home a few years back. The photos make the listing stand out, attracting more showings which in turn leads to more offers. 

In today’s world, you don’t even necessarily have to do that. Some online services help you digitally stage your photos, inserting tasteful furniture and decor in your photos of each room. Check out VirtualStaging.com or Styldod.com as a few options to get you started.

Alternatively, depending on the condition and appearance of your furniture, you may get away with simply removing half of your belongings to make each room look larger and less cluttered. Make sure you get ruthlessly honest input from your Realtor, because it usually requires you to remove at least 50% of your belongings from each room. 

12 Tips for Staging Your House

As you start learning how to stage your house, start with these ideas to make staging easier (and possibly cheaper). 

1. Start with Aggressive Decluttering

Your house — like most — probably has a worn, comfortable, lived-in feel. That’s not what you want when trying to stage a house. 

Buyers don’t want to see your furniture or family photos or art. They want to imagine their own in the property. 

That’s the trick of staging: putting just enough neutral furniture in each room to let the buyers envision their own belongings there. 

When you go through each room, ask yourself “What is the bare minimum furniture that this room could have and still look like a living room?” Or bedroom, or dining room, or whatever. 

Then remove everything that exceeds that bare minimum. 

It won’t be fun or comfortable. It will likely mean removing at least half of your stuff from each room, perhaps three-quarters. 

When in doubt, ask your real estate agent for help. 

2. Clear Flat Surfaces of (Almost) Everything

Decluttering starts with furniture, but it certainly doesn’t end there. 

Clear everything from every surface in the kitchen and bathrooms (except hand soap, of course). Clear everything off the dining room table, except possibly a small centerpiece. 

The same goes for almost every shelf, mantle, and end table. A flower vase here or a lamp there could make the room look fresh and cozy, but as a general rule, start from “empty” and reintroduce one or two small items as needed. 

3. Think Twice About Antiques

Antiques and family heirlooms might suit you perfectly, but they can make an otherwise modern room look dated. 

Don’t let buyers walk away with the impression that your house feels old, just because it includes old furniture. Your grandmother’s hutch can hide until you move into your next home. 

If you want a second opinion, check in with your Realtor. 

4. Rethink Furniture Placement

Just because you’ve always organized a room a certain way doesn’t mean that it’s the most universally appealing layout for that room. 

In larger rooms, it might make sense to use furniture to split the room into two usable spaces. Position furniture so the flow of movement through a room is obvious. Bedrooms might look bigger or more inviting with the bed against this wall instead of that one. 

Again, ask your real estate agent for their opinion. Their expertise is what you’re paying them for, after all. 

5. Deep Cleaning

If your house doesn’t sparkle with cleanliness, no amount of pretty furniture will help it sell. 

Start by scrubbing the house from top to bottom. Pay particular attention to the kitchen and bathrooms, but get every speck of dust off of every shelf, every cobweb out of every closet. 

6. Neutralize the Walls

If you have the time and budget, consider repainting the interior of the house. That too helps every room look cleaner and newer.

Wallpapers create a personalized look. They appeal to some, but turn off other would-be buyers. Ideally remove the wallpaper and repaint the walls with a neutral color. 

Speaking of neutral colors, rethink your daughter’s bubble-gum pink walls. And every other room with walls that aren’t a clean white, gray, or beige. 

That said, “neutral” doesn’t have to mean “boring.” You can add a pop of color here and there. But follow the 60/30/10 rule: 60% of a room should be in the primary (neutral) color, 30% can have a neutral secondary color, and 10% can feature a fun, bright color. 

That 10% doesn’t have to be painted, by the way. It can come from pillows or other accessories that brighten the room without crossing the line into kitschy. 

7. Freshen the Odor

You don’t notice it, but your house has a smell. Lived-in houses always do. 

Now that you’ve cleaned the house to a reflective shine, turn your attention to the odor. Don’t let trash accumulate in the trash cans (and consider using small trash cans that force you to take out the trash every night). Don’t let bits of food sit in the sink. Stop smoking indoors. 

Vacuuming the floors can kick up dust and leave a lingering odor for a day. Aim to vacuum a day in advance, and ideally air out the home afterward with windows open. 

Before an open house, consider baking cookies or cinnamon-doused apples. If you don’t bake, you can always light a (subtle) candle or two in strategic places around the house. You can also wipe down the counter with lemon juice and put bits of lemon peel in the garbage disposal in the sink. 

And always, always clean all signs of pets before showings. 

8. Remove Floor Coverings

Buyers want to see the floors themselves — not your bath mat. 

Remove throw rugs, doormats, bath mats, and other unnecessary floor coverings. Let your house’s floors take the spotlight for a clean, simple look. 

The exception, of course, comes into play if your flooring is ugly or worn and you don’t want to replace it. Then you can consider a throw rug that spruces up the room’s appearance. 

9. Your Home’s Best Light

Dark, dingy rooms don’t appeal to anybody. Buyers like natural light, so open all curtains and blinds before showings or open houses. 

In fact, if any of the curtains or blinds look ratty or outdated in any way, consider removing them entirely. 

Likewise, look at your light fixtures from a fresh set of eyes. Do they look dated? Ask your real estate agent’s opinion about replacing them. Light fixtures are cheap and easy to replace, so don’t sweat over them. 

You may also want to replace dimmer light bulbs with brighter wattages. Again, brighter is better for staging your house — just don’t overdo it. 

10. Define Each Room & Usable Space

You want buyers to see every area of every room as usable space. 

Have an unused bedroom that you use for storage? Stage it as a bedroom. Have a finished attic? Stage it as a home office. Have a finished basement? Stage it as a family room or entertainment room.

Some rooms also have quirky spaces that you don’t necessarily use. The same principle applies: figure out their highest and best use, and stage for it. Alcoves, breakfast nooks, window seats, and other awkward spaces should be put to use. When in doubt, lean on your Realtor for help.

11. Spackle the Cracks

If any walls or ceilings have cracks, spackle and repaint them. 

Cracks not only make your house look old and decrepit, but they make buyers wonder what problems may lurk beneath the surface. 

Note that you can’t hide structural or foundation problems from buyers. If they exist and you know about them, you must disclose them by law, or face a lawsuit later. 

12. Clean Up the Outside Too

Tips for staging your house to sell don’t end at the walls. 

If your house has any outdoor living spaces, consider staging them too. And if there aren’t any outdoor living spaces, consider creating one with a few well-placed pieces of patio furniture. 

While you’re at it, spruce up the landscaping. Mow the lawn regularly, trim the bushes, prune the garden, edge the walkways. Power wash the driveway or patio or exterior walls as needed. You could plant a few flowers if appropriate, or add a few window boxes to the front of your house. 

If you have a pool, it needs to stay clean and clear (or covered, when out of season). 

Curb appeal matters, for the same reason that first impressions matter. You need to make a great one if you want to sell your house quickly and for top dollar. 

Final Thoughts

As you explore how to stage your house, start from the premise that less is better. Remove everything you can think of removing — and then remove some more. 

Less stuff in a room makes it feel larger and airier, which is exactly the impression you want to make on buyers. 

Use the above tips for staging your house to sell, working in concert with your real estate agent at every step of the way. Or save yourself the headache and simply hire a professional real estate staging service. 

No matter how you approach staging your house, invest time and money in getting the best possible photos for your MLS listing. That could mean hiring a real estate photographer, virtual staging, or both. But your photos cause showings, and showings cause offers, so don’t skimp on outstanding photos. 

Staging your house doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. But if you don’t invest money, plan on investing time and labor in dressing your house to impress.