For this month’s blog, I thought I would focus on an item that many dismiss or do not think about when trying to sell an apartment. As an investor, you need to think about ways in which you can help yourself command the most amount of money for your property. The first way, you can do this is by staging the apartment.

Staging an apartment, refers to the sense of decluttering your apartment, putting new beds, sofas, chairs; in a nutshell making it so that it looks ready to live in, essentially making it a “turnkey” product. “Bring your toothbrush” mentally.

The pros of staging a condo can include aspects such as below:

• Visualization: Buyers in today’s market can find it very hard to visualize themselves in the apartment, for example, they are thinking where would the bed go? Where would I put the sofa? By staging the apartment, you are providing this visualization for them, you are allowing them to have less stress on planning, and this makes your property more attractive.
• Care for The Property: As an investor your job is to cash out of the investment as quickly as you can, in this case you may come off as not caring about the property, by staging it allows you to show the buyers you care about the property and you have treated it like a home.
• Uniqueness: While we as investors may belief our condo is dissimilar to all others, fundamentally most condos will have very similar features, by staging an apartment it allows you to create your own unique spin on the apartment, even if all apartments are staged, you can still customize yours.

The negatives of staging an apartment:

• Financial Component: If you decide to stage an apartment, you are looking at another cost of sale that perhaps you had not budgeted for. Many buyers will potentially also ironically fall in love with the apartment due to the staging, and demand these items as a condition of the sale.
• Logistical Delay: Logistically you are taking time to stage the apartment, unless you decide to trust your stager without any oversight or try to stage yourself, either scenario takes time away from you or your realtor’s ability to sell the property.
• Customization: The more customization you put in a property, the more you narrow your buyer pool. For example, unless you try to keep it neutral (difficult to do), buyers might be turned off when the staging looks like a bachelor pad, and your buyers are a family.

I hope through this article, I have opened up your eyes to the possibilities of looking into staging, I will let you decide if you believe staging will help you or hurt you.

I leave you with this; investors want to sell as quickly as they can, buyers want to envision themselves looking in the home as long as they can. Does staging help bridge this gap?