Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
Home staging remains a popular tactic among real estate agents, with 62 percent of realtors saying they believe it helps to decrease the amount of time a property stays on the market according to a new survey from the National Association of Realtors.
The NAR's 2017 Profile of Home Staging found that 39 percent of agents believe home staging "greatly decreases" the time a home spends on the market, while 23 percent said it "slightly" decreases the amount of time. Sixteen percent of agents said staging increases the time on market, while 8 percent said they believe it has no real impact.
"Realtors know how important it is for buyers to be able to picture themselves living in a home and, according to NAR's most recent report, staging a home makes that process much easier for potential buyers," said NAR President William E. Brown, a Realtor from Alamo, California and founder of Investment Properties. "While all real estate is local, and many factors play into what a home is worth and how much buyers are will to pay for it, staging can be the extra step sellers take to help sell their home more quickly and for a higher dollar value."
According to the report, some 77 percent of agents believe that a staged home makes it easier for buyers to visualize a property as their future home, while 40 percent are more willing to visit a staged home that they first identified online.
Another big benefit of home staging is it can help to boost a home's value, if it's decorated to the buyer's taste, said 38 percent of agents. As such, sellers should ensure the home is decorated in a way that appeals to as many buyers as possible.
As for the most important rooms, a majority of realtors said the living room is the most important, followed by the master bedroom and the kitchen.
Some 31 percent of buyers' agents reported that staging a home increases its dollar value by 1 to 5 percent. Thirteen percent said that staging increases the dollar value 6 to 10 percent, while 25 percent stated it has no impact on dollar value. Only 1 percent of buyers' agents felt that staging has a negative impact on a home's dollar value.
Sellers' agents report even more value is added from staging: 29 percent reported an increase of one to five percent in dollar value offered by buyers, 21 percent reporting an increase of 8 to 10 percent, and 5 percent reported an increase of 11 to 15 percent. No sellers' agents reported a negative impact.
When deciding which homes to stage, 38 percent of sellers' agents said that they stage all of their sellers' homes before listing them, 14 percent will stage only homes that are difficult to sell, and 7 percent stage only homes in higher price brackets. Thirty-seven percent of sellers' agents said they do not stage homes before listing them, but they recommend sellers declutter their homes and fix any faults with the property.
