Is staging important?

Question

Good Morning all, I am NEW to BiggerPockets.  I am very excited to be a part of this dynamic community.  I have a simple question to kick off my subscription;

When reselling a flip, how important is it to "stage" the house I am about to show?  I have flipped 4 houses relatively easy this year, however I see just about everyone on the TV shows stage their properties.  Taking that with a grain of salt, just because it's TV, but curious nonetheless.  My previous sales have been relatively quick and easy, but would staging allow me to get more money out of the sale?

Looking forward to your feedback.

Account Closed · Answer

The other thing is, if staging sells your flips, say, 5 days sooner and you flip 4 properties a year, that adds up to an extra 20 days in which you could possibly flip another. Would that be important? Something to think about. Of course you need to factor in the cost of staging.

Account Closed · Answer

Since the benefit would be long-term and repeated, I would say it's worth doing - especially for home buyers. It doesn't matter if it's high end or low end, you want to do everything you can to help the potential buyer see themselves in the property. You could actually do your own A/B testing and stage your next 4 flips and compare with your first 4.

Good luck!

Account Closed · Answer

@Joe Hughes   You don't necessarily have to stage it fully (furniture,etc). Even a little bit of 'light staging' (a few items on kitchen counters, mantles, bathroom items, etc) can be effective. An empty house seems "cold"....staging warms it up a bit.

Jesse T. · Answer

Staging is going to really depend on the market/price point.

Even without doing formal staging I would generally try to avoid having houses listed completely completely vacant as @Andreas Mirza mentioned.  Having to completely mentally furnish a house can be a barrier to buyers "seeing themselves in a house".  For example a couch in a living room, lets them picture there couch in its place and add their other furniture, TV, etc.  It is a lot harder if their isn't anything to start with.

I also agree that the benefit is most likely to be quick sales vs. a direct increase in sales price.

Joe Hughes · Answer

Thanks for all of the GREAT feedback.  I checked around and there is only one person who does staging in my market.  We are going to meet at a property I have going on the market next week for an estimate.  I am going to give this a try and measure the results.

Jessica H. · Answer

I do think it depends on market, however, we have staged all our properties and they sell right away at list price.

Andy Mirza · Answer

I think this depends on your market. Are you seeing other houses for sale in your area being staged? If it's not a normal thing and your houses are selling quickly I'm not sure it's necessary.

In my area, higher end houses ($600k+) benefit a great deal from staging. In general, they sell quicker and get top dollar. I know one investor who stages all of his houses.

You can decide to go the full route and have a professional stage your house (the more you spend the nicer it should look) or you can try it yourself with just a few things. It's surprising on how much of a difference just a few items can make compared to a completely vacant house.

Kevin Page · Answer

Not sure if you get more money out of it but it should help selling it faster. For inexpensive properties it may not be worth it.