Do you want to sell your apartment for a couple of million rubles more or rent it out at an attractive rate without investing in expensive renovations? We’ll tell you step by step how to do this.

The Evdokimovs were going to sell their old one-room apartment in Medvedkovo for 10 million rubles. The family turned to a specialist – an experienced home stager. The parties agreed that furniture and utensils would be removed only after the transaction. The home stager has developed a strategy: according to his calculations, after spending a week and about 200 thousand rubles, the apartment can be sold for 11-12 million rubles – and all thanks to home staging.

What is home staging

Home staging (from the English home staging – house + staging, staging) is a method of pre-sale preparation of real estate, creating its thoughtful image. The goal of home staging is for the buyer or tenant to be able to see their future life in the apartment and fall in love with this picture.

When home staging, a full renovation, as a rule, is not required – a minimal investment is enough to repaint the walls, clean and rearrange the furniture.

Who is a homestager

Homestager (stager) is a specialist who is engaged in home staging. His task is to consider the apartment’s potential for interesting and cozy housing. And then, at minimal cost, turn it into reality and competently present the result to potential buyers or tenants (in the case of rental housing). The home stager simultaneously takes into account design, marketing, and psychology.

Post an ad on Cyan for free. Rent or sell your apartment

One of the main tasks of the stager is to show the audience possible scenarios of life in an apartment or house. An object for sale or rent should be not just a room, but a home to which you want to return. In such options, potential buyers or tenants feel comfortable, and this is what they are looking for during numerous viewings.

What is the difference between a home stager and a designer?

The main difference between a home stager and a designer: the former’s work is based on market needs, the latter – on the customer’s requests. That is, the home stager strives to create a clear, ergonomic and attractive interior not for an inidual person, but for an entire segment of the target audience.

And the second difference: home staging is not a design project or an apartment renovation, but rather updating the space and preparing it for rent or sale.

What does a homestager do?

The basic scenario for a home stager looks like this:

1. First, the stager helps the customer determine who could buy his apartment. He creates a portrait of a potential buyer. What does he do for this:

• assesses the condition of the object;
• studies the nearby territory and what the potential buyer checks first: the appearance of the yard, infrastructure, transport accessibility;
• analyzes competitors;
• determines the target audience;
• weighs whether changes are needed: whether to repaint the walls and throw away excess furniture;
• calculates the cost of work, the purchase of necessary materials, etc.

2. Then the most interesting part begins – home staging work (read the chapter “7 steps to an ideal apartment” below).

Before/after: preparation for long-term rental in Moscow. The main task is to accurately hit the audience that the owner wanted to attract. Before/after: preparation for long-term rental in Moscow. The main task is to accurately hit the audience that the owner wanted to attract

3. Then marketing tools come into play. First of all, these are photographs and a correctly composed sales ad. They help position the apartment in such a way as to attract exactly the audience that is interested in buying/renting an apartment.

4. The stager also creates scripts for telephone conversations and viewing the object.

With this approach, only real buyers or tenants will come to view .

IMPORTANT

Preparing an apartment or house is not just about cleaning, touching up peeling window sills and screwing in burnt out light bulbs. This includes decluttering, adding light, and rearranging furniture (sometimes replacing or removing it). An experienced home stager emphasizes the advantages of the apartment and finds its strengths. At the same time, he does not hide his shortcomings, although he does not advertise them.

Apartment as a product

A fundamental point: the apartment being sold or rented must be habitable – bare concrete is almost impossible to process. But if we are talking about a renovated apartment from a developer in a new building, it needs home staging like air: there is too much competition with other similar apartments in the same residential complex.

Using special psychological techniques, the stager can create a wow effect from viewing. A pleasantly surprised person is unlikely to bargain; rather, he will decide that he was very lucky with this deal.

The owners may also need some psychological help. Many find it difficult to part with their home. As a result, some owners actively resist changes to the property, which does not help a successful sale.

A person needs to be helped psychologically to leave his home . Parting techniques involve a delicate conversation with the owner, during which the stager explains a number of points:

• why no one needs expensive repairs anymore;
• why selling on the principle of “it will do” is a loss of money;
• why order, cleanliness and absence of odors will help sell an apartment in hours, and not in months.

As a result, the customer begins to look at real estate not as a home, but as a product, and calmly accepts the changes that are taking place.

The main task of home staging is to turn an apartment into a product , and from its owner into a seller who knows what exactly he is selling and why.

INTERFERENCE WITH STAGING IS NOT ACCEPTABLE

The home owner is not involved in the creation and development of the product. It only provides the stager with initial data. Further work with him is not discussed, his edits are not taken into account. This may seem strange, but the staging project does not have to please the owner of the apartment.

Owners are not always able to take an objective look at their home, and to solve this particular problem, both a preliminary conversation and an inspection of the property are needed, explains experienced stager Irina Chu.

7 steps to the ideal apartment

Sometimes, to achieve a goal (profit, quick deal), you don’t even need to invest additional resources in an apartment – it’s enough to wisely manage what you already have. Having thought through the strategy and image of the apartment, which is supposed to make potential buyers fall in love with it, the stager moves on to the most interesting part, when everything planned is realized.

Step 1: Decluttering

The first task is to remove 90% of furniture, decor, personalized items and souvenirs. Apartments on the market are often cluttered: over the years of our lives, we all acquire a lot of things. Therefore, the main thing in preparing such apartments is to rid them of visual garbage: take out extra chairs, a wall cabinet, an old piano, remove photographs, sets, all traces of your personalized life. Often, a good result appears already at this stage, assures Anastasia Potapova, curator of the Homestaging intensive course at the British Higher School of Design and co-founder of the UN design bureau.

Step 2. Minor (or not so minor) repairs

A full renovation is expensive and pointless: the new owner will probably want to remake everything for himself. It’s easier and more effective to get your apartment in good shape with minimal effort.

Often, an apartment becomes much more attractive after painting the walls in a single color – boring but universal white, gray or beige.

The good news is that both your kitchen and bathroom can be updated with little expense. Paint the kitchen cabinets, tape the countertops, replace the hardware. In the bathroom – paint the tiles, clean or replace the grout, hide the pipes behind doors or textiles. Among the important little things – replace the toilet rim with a new and comfortable one, hang a new curtain. A simple white curtain in the bathroom solves a lot of aesthetic problems, notes Anastasia Potapova.

Step 3. Changing the functionality of rooms

This item is optional, but sometimes necessary. For example, sometimes it is worth swapping places between a dark office and a bedroom located next to the kitchen. Or remove the owner’s greenhouse, clearing the way for sunlight and lighting for the nursery.

Step 4. Purchase of interior items and inidual pieces of furniture

Of course, we are not talking about a complete replacement of furniture. Perhaps the sofa has been asking for a coffee table for a long time or there is not a single chair in the kitchen.

Step 5. Thorough cleaning and decoration of the room

It is at this stage that pictures of the buyer’s future life are created: here he will drink coffee and look out the window, here he will relax with a good movie, and here he will sleep, because the room is always fresh and cozy.

IMPORTANT

If you still live in the apartment, you need to remove all personal belongings: photographs, clothes, numerous toys and all private collections (magnets, porcelain cats, etc.).

Step 6: Taking Photos

Pictures are created taking into account the selected positioning. Here you should be extremely careful not to overdo it. For example, be careful with textiles. Not everyone can casually throw a blanket on the sofa so that the composition looks stylish. There is a great risk that the negligence will not be what you expected.

Try shooting during the day and you will see a huge difference. And if the room is dark (for example, when daylight in an apartment on the ground floor is blocked by trees), when processing the photo, increase the exposure by 5–10%, but no more: otherwise you risk misleading potential residents.

Don’t know how to beautifully photograph an interior? Read simple and clear tips!

Step 7. Designing an ad and entering the market

This stage takes place in conjunction with a realtor, who writes the text, combines it with a photo and conducts the sale. The stager makes recommendations that will definitely help you reach the right audience.

The sequence of photos in an ad is very important – many people overlook this.

How long to wait for results

It may take one day to rent out an apartment. At the same time, there will also be a queue of people interested in it – the owner will be able to choose a tenant to his liking.

It will take one week to test the stager’s theory – will the object be in demand? If there are no calls, adjustments will be needed. This happens extremely rarely with good specialists, but it cannot be ruled out.

One month may pass from the publication of the advertisement until the transfer of ownership. For example, an apartment in the Marushkinskoye settlement sold after home staging in one month at the price announced by the seller. Although initial forecasts assumed a longer period and an income of 500 thousand lower.

How much more expensive will it be to sell/rent?

After high-quality preparation of the object, you can set a price higher than the market price and even at the maximum level for this location. It is only important to comply with the agreements between the owner and those who come to view. If the photos promise one thing, but in reality the potential buyer/tenant sees something completely different, home staging will not work.

A pleasant difference between expected and actual income is a completely logical result of the work done. For example, clients of Irina Chu from Samara, before staging, were faced with buyer reluctance to agree to the stated price. They could be understood – the apartment was not in the best condition.

Apartment in Samara: preparation for sale Apartment in Samara: preparation for sale

Then stager Irina Chu and the owner used the depersonalization technique: they decluttered and said goodbye to the apartment.

The room is simply unrecognizable after homestaging! It seems that all that remains from the previous one are the curtains and the shelving unit. In fact, its purpose was also changed: it was a children’s room, but became a bedroom for adults with a corner for work. The bed was moved from another room, and the console was purchased. But cleanliness, unclutter and plenty of light play a key role.

As a result, the apartment was bought in five days at the top market level. The buyers turned out to be pleasant people who didn’t even haggle, which was the main task of the home stager.

According to Anastasia Potapova, competent home staging increases the cost of selling finished housing by 5%, raises the rental rate by 15–30% for short-term rentals and by 20–30% for long-term rentals.

Real examples: before and after home staging

Let’s look at a few examples of modifications.

All options afterwards are united by a lighter color palette. This effect was achieved thanks to the addition of light decor and textiles (curtains, bedspreads), as well as the competent approach of the photographer, who worked during daylight hours.

1. Here you can see that two single beds are combined into one – the tenants will be married couples or those who travel alone but love comfort. The bed is made and this makes the room look much more comfortable. The not very presentable floor is hidden by nice rugs.

Preparing the apartment for short-term rental. The goal is to increase the check and attract solvent people. Implementation period – three days Preparing the apartment for short-term rental. The goal is to increase the check and attract solvent people. Implementation period: three days

There is a lot of light and air in the room. I would like to rent this kind of housing

2. These shots show another bedroom. Before homestaging, it created a feeling of sad desolation: a bare crib with a giant teddy bear and an uninspiring bed to lie down did not create a blissful impression. The mood was aggravated by the not very healthy yellow lighting, and the curtain looks sloppy.

Apartment in Moscow near the Teply Stan metro station. The project implementation period is one day. Apartment in Moscow near the Teply Stan metro station. The duration of the project is one day

New textiles and daylighting have worked wonders: crisp linen, a soft blanket and an armchair from which you can watch stunning sunsets (they can also be seen in the photograph) beckon from the photograph of the future tenant.

The life scenario has also been thought out: the room belongs exclusively to the parents (the crib has been replaced by a wardrobe), here you can relax and be alone or alone. Everything for relaxation!

3. It’s difficult to guess anything in common in these two rooms, but they’re the same room! Stager suggested furnishing the apartment and he was right: with furniture, the image was complete.

Apartment in Prague: preparing the studio for sale. The owner wanted to sell quickly and at the maximum price. The staging period is two days. Apartment in Prague: preparing the studio for sale. The owner wanted to sell quickly and at the maximum price. The staging period is two days.

What we have in front of us is not just some square meters, but a comfortable studio with a large window and thoughtful functionality. Here is a bed (I had to buy it), here is a table for morning coffee with a croissant, here are light chairs.

Nothing complicated has been added here, but what dramatic changes! And in just two days.

4. The only new thing here is the path on the table and the correct approach of the photographer: a slightly different angle and daylight hours. But look how the room began to play.

Preparation for long-term lease. The goal is to deliver it as quickly as possible in the midst of a pandemic. The duration of the project is two days. Preparation for long-term rental. The goal is to deliver it as quickly as possible in the midst of a pandemic. Project duration: two days

It itself has not changed: the walls, chairs, layout remained the same, but now the apartment looks more presentable. It became clear that it was convenient to have dinner at the table, and then you could go to the bright, welcoming living room.

5. And again work on creating a script. The child slept well – with such and such a bed; and it was comfortable to fall asleep, because you could read a book at night in the light of the lamp. And in the morning he is ready for student exploits – so his table has been waiting for him!

Preparation for sale in a new building in the Marushkinskoye settlement (New Moscow). The project implementation period is one day. Preparation for sale in a new building in the Marushkinskoye settlement (New Moscow). The duration of the project is one day

The seller’s personal belongings are carefully hidden: there are no pink dolphins, no numerous books, no furniture panels sticking out in the middle of the room for some unknown reason. A new perspective presents the space in a more advantageous light.

6. In this case, there was no need to buy anything additional: the stager rearranged the furniture.

Preparing an apartment for long-term rental in Sochi Preparing an apartment for long-term rental in Sochi

As a result, the potential tenant sees proper zoning and a comfortable atmosphere instead of a huge and almost empty room.

How much does home staging cost?

Prices for a home stager’s services depend on what scenario he is considering – preparation for sale, long-term or short-term rental. Please note: costs for materials, furniture and interior items should not exceed 1% of the cost of the apartment.

How to calculate home staging costs:

According to Anastasia Potapova, curator of the Homestaging intensive course at the British Higher School of Design, co-founder of the UN design bureau

Check list. What you can do yourself

1. If possible, remove dark colors and clutter of things . It is necessary to make the space light, bright and visually spacious.
2. Conduct a photo shoot during daylight hours (do not turn on artificial lighting). Home staging does not involve processing it in a photo editor beyond recognition, but in most cases, unprocessed photographs present the apartment much worse than it looks in reality.
3. The furniture needs to be arranged so that the buyer can imagine his life in this apartment. The coffee table should be next to the sofa, and not at a distance of 3 m from it. The TV should not hang above the crib. On the balcony, instead of a warehouse with skis and cans, it is better to put a sun lounger to contemplate the view.
4. Light. Replace old Soviet chandeliers with modern lamps. This immediately transforms the apartment. Check that all the light bulbs in the lamps are on and that the light is the same temperature everywhere: do not mix cold and warm lighting.
5. Textiles add coziness to the interior : buy a couple of decorative pillows, a blanket, new curtains, a linen runner for the dining table.
6. Minimize disadvantages . Hide a hole in the wall (if it’s not through) under a picture, disguise the pipes in the bathroom with a storage system, cover scuffs on the floor with a modern rug or lay down new linoleum/laminate – it’s not as expensive and difficult as it seems. Some experts recommend simply repainting the floor, and even dry paint should not leave marks on the white socks.
7. It is important to distinguish between detail and visual noise . Ideal surfaces are empty. Or almost empty: one vase, one book and a couple of cups with a teapot for the whole room – good. Unwashed cups in the sink, a housewife’s bag, 15 bottles of perfume – bad.
8. Take a meticulous look at the apartment and answer the question: would you like to live in such a place?

Conclusion

Selling real estate is a business that involves many people and services. Home staging simplifies the interaction between the owner of the property and the buyer at all stages of this process.

Apartments in which home staging has been carried out bring profit to all participants in the transaction and almost never linger on the market.