Homes are selling in this hot market, but as always, desirable homes are still selling for more money and in record time versus unstaged homes. Virtual home staging is a proven tool to sell your home fast and for larger profits. Even if you aren’t moving, you can use these tips to freshen up at home.

I had the pleasure of helping the owner of this cute one-bedroom condo prepare her home for sale. Like most homes, it had some nice features and some dated elements, too. Our mission: to make the most of the features while eliminating or minimizing potential negatives.

Virtual Home Staging Sells Properties

Meeting in-home during the pandemic wasn’t in the best interest for either of us, so a virtual staging session was just the thing. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3.

1. The homeowner joins our Zoom call on their smartphone and walks through the property, room by room, with their camera turned on.
2. The stager evaluates and scores each room, experiencing the home just like the buyer would in person.
3. Together, we agree on a detailed plan of action for each space. We email the report to the client within 48 hours.

(Sorry, I’ve been on a mission lately organizing my own recent photos, and apparently deleted the before pictures, but you’ll still enjoy the tour with the after photos.)

With a small property like this, every space matters! We started in the foyer, adding visual square footage and better flow by removing bulky items from the entry hallway, clearing a view to the floor-to-ceiling windows and open living space. It may feel strange to remove the foyer table and chairs that you’ve always had there, but when a one-bedroom seems to go on for-ev-er, you know you’ve done the right thing.

First impression. Move-in Ready. Nailed it.

Virtual Home Staging Maximizes Space

The single bedroom needs to make an impression right away. It’s a generous size, so that’s a great start. We agreed that all the furnishings should be substantial and high-end looking, so I recommended moving out the older, more utilitarian-looking dresser and moving in a glossy dresser previously taking up space as a storage chest in the living room. The bedroom carpet needed to be cleaned, and you’d never know it from this photo. Bright white bedding replaced the existing bedding, an easy way to freshen and brighten the room.

Virtual Home Staging Modernizes

The kitchen was a good size, but having the breakfast table jammed up against the wall made it look cramped. The table and the dimensional shelves hanging above it were removed to maximize the kitchen. Remember, buyers are paying for square footage, not your furniture. When you look at this picture, are you missing the table that used to be over to the right, or are you thinking, “Wow, this place looks big and bright!”?

Virtual Home Staging Sells the Wow Factor

The dining room next to the kitchen looked grown up with the table and curio cabinet. The smaller accent tables were removed or repurposed, both brightening and enlarging the room.

The living room opened from the dining room, which looks amazing in this after picture. We made sure to highlight the architectural features by relocating a beautiful painting to above the fireplace, which naturally draws your eyes again to these amazing windows. We removed the small furniture that previously filled the space. You aren’t missing the extra chairs, the plants, or the TV that used to sit in front of the window, right?

Take Virtual Home Staging Outside

The final space was the balcony. A large outdoor space like this can really set a condo apart from it’s competitors, so we made sure to draw the eye from inside the dining room to outside onto the balcony by setting up a colorful seating area. We also draw your eye down the full length of the deck by adding another seating area at the far end. Without a table in this space, you might assume that the balcony was too tiny to matter. Accenting these areas made it hard for a buyer to forget this valuable feature. And that wooded view! What a peaceful setting. This turns and apartment into a home.

I recommended removing all the smaller personal items and decor from the bathroom, kitchen counter, and even the single hallway closet. This is often the key to making the property feel like a model home that is move-in ready.

You might notice the one potentially negative feature that we jointly decided was very low on the list of things to address. When I left her, I wasn’t sure whether she would remove the unfortunate, dated border in the kitchen. Wallpaper borders are often seen as an unfinished project by buyers, and should be removed before listing. However, when balancing time, budget, and energy, sometimes you can’t get to everything. I gave her the option of making all of the other changes we discussed and leaving the border, since it wasn’t a wild print.

Stage Now or Let Your Listing Stagnate?

It might seem like a hassle to basically execute two moves, one to move some of the furniture ahead of the listing, and then again one before the closing. This gal had some help from some family members to make all the staging changes you see here with the smaller furniture, and then she hired a local mover for the final move.

The homeowner did a great job executing the plan. She was rewarded with an offer that was $5K over the list price within two days of listing.

Staging is an important part of the puzzle for selling your home. Pricing and marketing are the other two legs of your success formula. If you want results like these, you want to work with a realtor who knows the value of staging and is willing to bring in a staging pro to help you get to your goals. Brett Furman and his team on the Main Line is one of those smart realtors who brings experience, resources, and a track record of success to your project. Thanks to him for permission to share these photos with you.

Start here when you are ready to schedule your virtual home staging. If you need an appointment quickly, if you don’t have a home stager in your area, or if you just prefer meeting by Zoom, virtual staging can be right for you. It’s virtual staging, but real results.

Learn more about choosing HeartWork Organizing as your home staging company.