2023 Report: Is it a Buyer's Market — or is it still a Seller's Market?

As the Market Cools, Home Staging Can Make a Big Difference on Sale Price

The news surrounding the real estate market is all over the place these days. Is it a buyer’s market now? They say it isn’t. Is it still a seller’s market? It doesn’t feel like it for the homeowners that have been sitting on the market for a couple of months.

Everything is relative. It is most certainly a buyer’s market compared to 2021!

It’s all about comparison

There is an average price for your community and an average price nationally. If the average home in your community is $500k, that seems quite low to the buyers trying to purchase a home in San Francisco, but quite high when compared to rural West Virginia.

There are dozens of colors in the “whites” section of my paint deck, but some are more blue, cream or gray. It’s about comparison to the others.

When marketing your home for sale, compare your home with other homes your buyer might be considering. By looking at nearby homes for sale or recently sold homes with similar features, you are best able to determine the value of your home.

Pricing a home correctly is the job of an expert Realtor, but making your home stand out among the others is determined by how well the home is staged and presented to the market.

A staged home has a higher perceived value when compared to homes that are not staged. In order to stand out with fewer buyers shopping for homes, presentation matters because the buyers are comparing.

Capturing Buyer’s Attention

So much of our attention is on photographs and videos these days. We look to our social media feed for ideas, inspiration, information and entertainment and every day the standard gets higher for our scattered attention. In order to capture a buyer’s attention, first with online marketing photographs, then in person, sellers must have a market ready, staged home to win offers over the competition.

Is Staging Expensive?

The biggest challenge I think stagers and Realtor’s face is the notion that staging is expensive. Staging can be expensive but sweat equity is extremely valuable when marketing a home. Buyers shop with their hearts and fall in love with the most beautiful homes first, but they buy with their wallets as well and so they make offers when they see the highest value for the best price. This is never more true than when the cost of a mortgage is higher than most homeowners can remember.

Should you stage your home?

Staging a home is the most effective way to increase the perceived value of a home, shortening the days on market and increasing the sales price. As the market has cooled off and sellers are faced with a lower list price than they imagined, they are even less interested in spending money to get their home sold.

Don’t spend. Invest.

An investment in staging a home, at any amount, is worth it. I’ve had sellers spend no more than the cost of moving boxes and others invest thousands in upgrades, updates, decor and repairs in order to best present their home. Staging might just involve prepacking, rearranging and a deep clean. That investment of time only, will pay off for sellers.

A consultation appointment with a professional stager is invaluable and far less than the dreaded price reduction after sitting on the market too long. Or worse, pulling it off the market and starting over.

You’ll never know unless you ask.

Perhaps you need to do more to stage your home than you thought. Perhaps you need to do less. Perhaps it is something, not that expensive, that will make all the difference in the world and you’ll be so disappointed that you didn’t get to enjoy it for yourself.

Reach out to schedule a Staging Consultation if you are planning to sell this year, next month, or no time soon to get your home stage ready!