Home sellers tips: Staging tricks that sold my home fast

I sold my house in hours
and I’m gonna share with you my exact strategy
hey there I’m Kasha and I’m a home stager
I’m gonna share this video of how I sold this house
wherever I’m gonna point it over here
and I’ll show you how I did it
and sold it within hours and over asking price
I know you’re probably chomping at the bit going well
what did she do different
how does she she’s keeping things away from us no
no no
and actually staging does to make a big difference
when it comes time to selling your house
now you may think it costs an arm and a leg
and I do have a video that talks about that
but really when it comes down to it
there’s really
five basic things that you really need to work on
when it comes time to staging your house
and preparing it for the real estate market
because let’s get to it
staged homes sell faster than non staged homes okay
that’s just the fact sometimes
two to three times faster than non staged homes okay
if you compare a house that has this kind of a mess
versus this nicely staged one
which one do you think you would pick
and in today’s market
buyers are looking for move in ready houses
I have very little work to do
so let’s start with the home staging staging strategy
say that three times fast haha
into what I did to get this house sold faster
so No. 1 the first thing that everyone should do
when it comes time to selling your house
is doing the pre staging purge
purge declutter
get rid of things
if you’re not using it for the next house
or taking it with you to the next house
then either donate it sell it
get rid of it throw it out
whatever do something
but it needs to be taken out of the house okay
that’s the first thing that you can do
and I did this with every single room in my house
now I have a
decluttering video that I plan on doing in the future
to show you all the different um
ways that you can declutter
and purge things from each of the rooms
because I know each of you are different
some of you may prefer to do all in one
some of you just may
little timer or something like that
I have different strategies on how you can do that
to help you get through the decluttering
the purging portion of getting your house ready to sell
because that is the biggest thing
when it comes down to it
because prior military and even military now
when we have to do the moves
our weight of our furniture
and everything that goes with it
is based on the things that we have packed up
and are put on that van if it is overweight
then guess what we have to pay for it out of pocket yes
exactly so
why take it with you if you’re not even gonna use it
when you move to the next house
am I right
so that’s why the purge is such an important thing
when it comes time to sell your house
now you definitely wanna go through closets
you wanna go through the toys
especially if your kids have outgrown certain toys
go through see the furniture if you don’t need the
you know the two dining room sets
like I had when I moved from one house in Virginia
to our house in North Carolina
I didn’t have a formal dining room in the next house in
in North Carolina I just had one
basically eat in kitchen area dining room
so I don’t need two dining room sets so yeah
we got rid of that dining
the formal dining room set
when we moved into the next house okay
so there’s certain things you wanna think about well
do I need this am I gonna use this
so definitely the purge can take weeks it can take um
it’s not an overnight thing
that’s for sure so
you definitely wanna declutter aggressively
and make sure that these are actually
things that you wanna take with you
to your next house No.2 is focus on first impressions
now the curb
your curb appeal is what makes your first impression
now I know you have driven your car into the garage
parked it in closed the garage door
walked in through the kitchen and you’re set right
but you don’t go through the front door well
now’s the time to start paying attention
so what I want you to do is
I want you to walk outside that front door
and I want you to go
take a look at your front porch area
your front yard take a look at it and go oh yeah
that bush is kind of scraggly
the grass is looking kind of sad and tired
okay yeah
we do we do need to fix things up
and I do have a video on the three
front porch staging tips that you can use right now
to help you with your curb appeal
so take a look at that video okay
but definitely first impressions make a difference
you have
eight to 10 seconds to make a great first impression
and your front yard is the one thing that
buyers will look at that’s the first thing they see
before they walk into your house
and if they see that
you haven’t taken care of the outside
what makes them think that you’ve taken
care of anything on the inside
you don’t want them thinking that way okay
so make sure your curb appeal is looking fantastic
that the grass is cut the bushes are trimmed
there’s no dust there’s no cobwebs
there’s no spider webs in the corners that you’re like
oh yeah I don’t want to go there
mm hmm yeah
okay so
make sure that
that curb appeal is looking fantastic for pictures
so this is what we did had in this colonial home
with the ugly bushes in the front
and they were overgrown
and they were just brown inside
you couldn’t cut them back
the chair was kind of plain
there wasn’t much to it
so what we did was we actually cut out those bushes
put in some flowering azaleas and day lilies
and put a nice
brighter chair with a cushion for the front
to make that curb appeal look a little more appealing
than what it did before
the next thing you need to do is neutralizing
and freshening up your house
now when it comes time to neutralizing
some people may think that as wall color
some people may think it as decor
it is both yes
we’re neutralizing
and if you listen to any of my videos
you know you know
that I want you to take down all those family photos
yes every single one
take them all down
no one needs to know what your kids look like
what you look like or anything like that
plus it’s more personal
you want to neutralize it
so that anybody that walks into the house can go
oh yeah I yeah
I can see that we can you know
use this living room for our bigger family
or this is a great kitchen
just for the two of us
depending on the size of your home
and the people that are moving in right
so each house is gonna look a little bit different
but you definitely want to neutralize it
and the colors and the decor okay
now with colors you definitely
want to make sure that you don’t have things like
red dining rooms or yellow living rooms
those two colors are like
the worst ones that you can have in your home
when it comes time to sell your house
and you also don’t want to look at pictures online
with multiple colors in every single room
like
say you have a red kitchen with a yellow living room
and a blue office and a green bedroom
all of those pictures are gonna be lined up in a row
and you’re going oh
that’s a lot of colors and those buyers are gonna think
oh yeah we need to neutral
just change those colors that’s a bit too bright
too vibrant
too whatever and that’s distracting to the buyers
you don’t want to distract them with that
if you want any distractions
you want them to go wow yes
this is exactly this is great space
it’s open and airy it is move in ready
not the oh I got a to do list of this
I gotta paint I’ve gotta fix this
I gotta fix that yeah
you don’t want them to start a to do list OK
don’t don’t have them
start doing that
when it comes time to selling your house
because you won’t get as much money for it OK
that’s what it comes down to
so if you just like yeah
I don’t care what the house sells for
I’ll just you know
leave it as is yeah
mm hmm you’re not gonna get as much as you want right
yeah
so yeah so we did do that
we luckily
the paint colors in our house are fairly neutral anyway
but we did have some home decor
that I did have to take down
all the family photos that I had
I had on the staircase going down
I did have to take all those down um
I had um
the I love me wall for the military
if you’re in the military
you know what I’m talking about yeah
that all those with those medals
those patches those awards that you’ve gotten yeah
now’s the time to take that down okay
yeah when it comes time to sell your house
yep no
just take them down mm hmm
I know you’re proud of it
but it’s time to take it down
when it comes time to sell your house
okay and then
so then
we move on to highlighting
the key spaces in your house
so we’re talking about the living room
we’re talking about the kitchen
the dining area the master bedroom
all of those rooms you need to show off
and show off in a great space that it is okay
you don’t want to get bogged down with toys and and
and puppy dog chow or whatever
in those types of things
you want to show off the space
as to how it’s supposed to be used okay
so we’re gonna use budget friendly accessories
which is what I did
I went to some of the big box stores
when I didn’t have things like oh
I don’t have something to put on the coffee table here
to kind of cause the coffee table had
all the remote controls in there
and like you know
random hair things
and it just stuff that I’m looking at going
how did this get in here you know what I mean
so yeah
so sometimes I would have to go to the big box stores
just to go get something simple
something neutral whether it’s a a box
you know
a decorative box or a plant or something like that
just to make it more neutral and accessory
and just make it homie feeling
and then things like using throw pillows and blankets
and things sometimes I had them
sometimes I didn’t and I’m like oh
well red okay
this is looking a little bit tired and sad or oh
I don’t have this bedding hmm
need to change that out
that’s a little too bright and loud
so I go and get you know
lighter colored bedding for that room because then I
just take it with me to the next house right
it doesn’t stay with the house
it comes along with us
so I always find things that I can use for the house
to the next one that we’re moving into
and then finally definitely wanna talk about lighting
um in the house when it comes to it
so yes
make sure all the light bulbs are in working order
but
you wanna make sure that all the blinds and curtains
are open OK
if you do have darker curtains
push them off to the side
I know my husband in our bedroom
he loves those room darkening panels
you know what I’m talking about
yeah makes it so dark like a cave in there
and some of you may say well
I like living in a cave I like it dark
well when it comes time for pictures
you’re gonna have to open up and bring the sun in
just bring it in I promise you
it’s not gonna hurt you you aren’t Dracula
you’re not gonna die with the sunshine coming in okay
I promise you but for the pictures
open up those curtains and that’s what I did
with those room darkening curtains
we open them up cause I have several
kids that also like the room darkening curtains
and we got those and they’re perfectly fine
we just gotta
push them off to the side to show off the space okay
so if you have plantation shutters or blinds
definitely either push them out of the way
twist them open whatever you can do
to bring in the light and make it feel
bigger and brighter okay
so what happened when we did all these changes
so first off let me back up before we go into that
these changes were not done overnight
they were not it took me 3 weeks
and normally
it takes me about 3 weeks to do the purging
to neutralize things
to go shopping for a couple of things to realize oh
that doesn’t work here nope
I gotta sell this oh
I gotta donate that that took three weeks okay
and that doesn’t include things like
if you need like
a carpenter or electrician
or somebody come over to come fix things that
you can’t fix before you sell the house right
cause you gotta disclose those things right
so yeah three weeks is about the normal time
and so we got the pictures taken
and we had the open house
and when the buyers walked in
we had I want to say
the realtor told us we had like
14 parties come in on that day for the open house
and they came in they’re like wow yeah
this is moving ready let let’s go this is okay
great so then we had an offer
not only an offer within hours of that open house
but over asking price yes
so even our neighbors were shocked when they heard that
we got over asking price and in a short amount of time
they’re like wait
what did you do
and so they actually came over to see the house
and so mind you let me back up on this part
their house
because we lived in a cul de sac neighborhood
with lots of houses
these houses were built in the 1970s
cause they were colonial homes
so you know
there’s gonna be certain ones that are the model homes
that have you know
this colonial house
and then this kind of a different style
and this one’s a different
so there’s like
three or four different styles in the neighborhood well
our neighbor had
this one house that looked just like ours
and they’re like
wow she did that to that room and for example
let me show you a picture it was a sitting room
yeah it was kind of back then
sitting rooms were a thing in the 1970s
well in the 2 hahaha hmm
not so much right
yeah so you’re kind of like
what do I do with this space
we tried different things we try to use it as an office
we try to use it as a
it could be a nursery if you had one
but we didn’t have little babies like that then
and so
we wanted them to have a actual closet and stuff
cause this one didn’t really
so yeah so we ended up turning it into a walk in closet
and oh my gosh that made such a difference
so basically it was a his and hers
so I got the bigger one yes
all me I know
and then my husband got the other walk in closet
that was just a narrow long galley type of closet
but it worked
we still actually used both of our stuff in there
cause it was so big
but our neighbors were just wowed and going
wait you what
what they were they couldn’t believe it
they just were just flabbergasted that these changes
like well
we could do this too like yes
you can but what I do think and totally um
am for this if in the future
when you do buy your house and you’re like
well we could
you know we wanna change this carpeting
or change this room into this thing
do it early yeah
luckily we did that walk in closet
probably about 2 years before we moved
maybe it was a year I don’t know
we didn’t get to use it as much as we wanted it
cause if we had done that earlier
if we had thought of that earlier
yeah it would have been done earlier
but I know budget constraints and things like that
that’s not in everybody’s Bailey wig
I get that plus
we had other things we were working on in that house
like the No. 1 thing we changed
the first thing we changed within
like first months of moving in was the kitchen
so of course
the budget just for that doesn’t happen overnight okay
right so yeah
so we did little things and big things at first
then we did the little things later
so if you can make the changes
so that you can enjoy them before you sell your house
um so yes
so these are just a couple of things that we did
I know we also renovated our bathroom at the time um
we didn’t have the budget to do a whole Reno
of the master bathroom cause that was like $60,000
and I’m like oh
I’m not spending that much on a master bathroom
that we’re never gonna see a return on investment on
I mean you’ll get most of it but not all of it
so what we did was we updated the countertops
we changed the lighting out
we um painted we changed out the mirrors
there was a couple of things
it wasn’t a lot but it was about
$2,000 worth of things that we changed in there
and that was enough to get the house sold
so that buyers can see themselves moving in
there was not the major projects
that had to be done to get the house updated
and livable and moved in
so that people can
imagine themselves living in the house
but a lot of it was purging
a lot of it was the kids toys yes
I said kids toys
uh there was a lot of them cause we had
we had little kids at the time
and you know that they love to make a mess
as soon as they pull things out of the cabinets
out of the drawers you’re like
oh my god I have a showing in 30 minutes
and I have all these toys out here
well what I did to make it easier on me as a parent was
I packed most of those toys up
I think I packed up like eighty percent of those toys
maybe 90 I know I’m ruthless
you really have to be ruthless
when it comes time to sell your house
um and so yes
so I’m the tough love mom going
oh no we’re putting all those Legos away
and all those little toys that you can step on
and hurt your feet and go
oh my god this hurts
why did I why is this out
because the less stuff you have out
the less mess that can be made
whether it’s kids toys whether it’s your stuff
whether it’s your spouse’s things
whatever
all that stuff needs to be put away and packed away
although to be fair my husband did
say that I managed to clean up a little too well
sometimes and then he’s asking me a week later going
hey honey where’d this go
oh you needed that really crap okay
so what I recommend is if there is something that
you think your spouse may need later
maybe put it in a box
and just leave it with their name
and then put it in the garage and go oh
you know what I I put it in there
I think it’s it’s over here and I hope you find it
cause there are times where yeah no
I don’t know where I put it
in my hurry of getting everything put away yeah
just be aware of where you put stuff
cause embarrassed to say that yeah
that that has happened to me
uh huh on more than one occasion so yeah
so just keep keep the love going
but just be careful what you put away
and where you hide it OK
alright so
if this is something that you’re interested in doing
to get your house sold quickly
I do have a free home staging guide called the
how to Start Staging Your house now
in there
I talk about the things that you can do right now
to influence home buyers
what you can do for home improvements
and it’s not the things that you think about um
and uh the top stage some 10 home staging tips
that’s it yes
um
along with trying to come up with a plan of how to get
a tackle all this stuff right
so yes so take a look at this free download um
so that you can get your house sold quickly now
and even if you’re not selling your house right now
maybe you’re selling in a couple months
get this guide now so you can get started
because like I said
it took me three weeks to stage a 4,000
square foot house at the time
and that’s a long time
that was doing things like after work
sometimes I take a day off from work
just to tackle certain things
and I would do things when no one was home
cause it was just easier I know yes
you’re probably thinking oh yeah yeah
so if that’s what it takes to get this house staged
was to have no one home and doing it yourself
then you know that’s that’s what may work for you okay
so if you found these tips uh helpful
I hope you like comment leave a comment
if you found some other strategies that you used
have used in the past to get your house sold faster
I would love to hear them
and if you subscribe to my channel
you’ll get more home staging tips in the future
I hope you guys have a fantastic week
and we’ll talk to you later bye