Home Staging Effect on Buyer’s View of Home

Can home staging have an effect on a buyer’s view of your home? Statistics say yes!

• Eighty-three percent of buyer’s agents said staging a home made it easier for a buyer to visualize the property as a future home.
• Buyers were more willing to walk through a home they saw online (38 percent), and buyers’ agents identified that staging would positively impact the home value if the home was decorated to a buyer’s taste (37 percent).

What do Agents have to say about Staging?

Home Staging: Buyer’s Agent Perspective:

• Forty percent (43%) of buyer’s agents cited that home staging had an effect on most buyers’ view of the home.
• Eighty-three percent (83%) of buyer’s agents said staging a home made it easier for a buyer to visualize the property as a future home.
• Staging the living room was found to be most important for buyers (47%), followed by staging the master bedroom (42%), and staging the kitchen (35%).
• One-quarter of buyer’s agents said that staging a home increased the dollar value offered between one and five percent, compared to other similar homes on the market that are not staged.
• Home Staging: Sellers’ Agent Perspective:
• Twenty-eight (28%) percent of sellers’ agents said they staged all sellers’ homes prior to listing them for sale. Thirteen percent (13%) noted that they only staged homes that are difficult to sell.
• The most common rooms that were staged included the living room (93%), kitchen (84%), master bedroom (78%), and the dining room (72%).
• It was common that sellers’ agents personally offered to stage the home (26 percent).
• The median dollar value spent on home staging was $400.
• When staging a home, 22 percent of sellers’ agents reported an increase of one to five percent of the dollar value offered by buyers, in comparison to similar homes. Seventeen percent of respondents stated that staging a home increased the dollar value of the home between six and 10 percent.
• Twenty-eight percent of sellers’ agents stated that there were slight decreases in the time on the market when the home is staged.
• The most common home improvement items agents recommended to sellers were decluttering the home (95 percent), entire home cleaning (89 percent), removing pets during showings (83 percent), and carpet cleaning (78 percent).

What do Buyer’s Think?

Home Staging Buyer Expectations:

• Eighty-two percent of respondents said that buyers had ideas about where they wanted to live, and what they wanted in an ideal home (74%) before starting the buying process.
• Forty-two percent of respondents stated that buyers typically thought the home buying process would be neither easy nor difficult.
• Thirty-nine percent of respondents stated that buyers found the home buying process to be harder compared to their expectations.
• A median of 10% of respondents cited that buyers felt homes should look the way they were staged on TV shows.
• A median of 25% of respondents cited that buyers brought family members with them to view homes.
• A median of 40% of respondents cited that buyers consulted with family members during the buying process.
• Thirty-eight percent (38%) of respondents said that TV shows which displayed the buying process impacted their business.
• In the last five years, 56%  of respondents cited they have seen an increase in the share of buyers who planned to remodel a home.
• Fifty-eight percent (58%) of respondents stated that they were not influenced to stage homes as they saw them on TV.
• Thirty-two percent (32%) of respondents stated that buyers did have an expectation of the number of homes they saw. Among those who did have an expectation, buyers expected to view a median of 10 homes.
• Fifty-four percent (54%) of respondents stated that buyers’ expectation of the number of homes they saw before buying matched the market.

Percentage Change in Dollar Value When Home Was Staged

One-quarter (25%) of buyers’ agents said that staging a home increased the dollar value offered between one and five percent, compared to other similar homes on the market that were not staged.

Twenty-nine percent (29%) of buyers’ agents indicated that staging a home had no impact on the dollar value that was offered.