When you are selling your home, staging outdoor spaces is just as important as staging indoors. Whether you are selling a condo with a small balcony or a house with a spacious yard, staging these spaces creates interest and a lot of value to your home.
Thanksgiving is a stressful time for many. Hosting people is often a daunting task, and the holiday season is no exception. In addition to the ambitious task of cooking Thanksgiving dinner, prepping your house for friends and family can be overwhelming.
We put together a list of five of our favorite last minute and budget-friendly Thanksgiving DIY decor ideas so you can easier achieve a festive look and focus most of your energy on the turkey.
For those of us who live in Seattle, we know that a Mt. Baker home means having views of Lake Washington, I-90 Bridge, and the majestic Mt. Rainier. Furthermore, when it comes to Seattle Seafair, these homes offer a front row view to the Blue Angels air show.
When we saw this house for the first time, we knew that we needed to keep the design simple, sophisticated and calm to allow for the stunning views of the lake and mountains to standout. We selected neutral pieces and added a bit of pop with color.Read more
The combination of Seattle’s job growth and a record low inventory has turned the Seattle real estate market into a seller’s market. This is a solid fact.
We are seeing houses sell for more than their asking market price after receiving multiple offers. Homebuyers are prepared, preapproved and many are willing to buy their dream homes without even inspections.Read more
After staging a ton of downtown Seattle condos, we have learned that the people who live in this area fall into three different groups:
Young professionals who work downtown or nearby and love being where the action is. This demographic usually purchases studios or one or two bedroom condos on the lower end price range.
Professional couples or individuals who have established careers and want to be close to work and other amenities that the downtown Seattle area offers. These professionals typically do not have children living with them and they usually live in the higher end condos or penthouses.
The third group of people is the empty-nesters who want freedom more than anything else. Freedom from house maintenance, garden work, and dealing with home security. This demographic wants the freedom of being close to all of the shopping and restaurants and they love the fact that they can close their doors and travel without worrying about the garden or the security of their home while away. These individuals usually opt for the higher end condos or penthouses.
This Queen Anne Condo on Taylor Ave was Staged & SOLD for more than the asking price with multiple offers in just days.
Staging Queen Anne neighborhood homes are always a blast for us at Seattle Staged To Sell. This Queen Anne condo was no exception. Located on Taylor Ave N, this condo provided incredible views of Lake Union, included large living spaces, and was located in close proximity to the Bill Gates Foundations and Queen Anne shopping areas.
Right away, we identified the targeted buyers of this condo to be empty-nesters and this gave us our design direction: a classic and elegant design approach. We brought in neutrals with blue and brown accent colors and carried these colors throughout the home.Read more
Our home staging design, brought the soothing and tranquil colors of green and yellow to this Green Lake Modern house.
We wanted our design to be simple, neutral and with some pop of colors. The white walls, enormous windows, the light bamboo floors, and the clean lines of the actual house, gave us a great background for gray and light green color combination.
For some homes, especially for the modern and contemporary ones, less is always better. This concept definitely held true for this modern Green Lake home.
As we write in so many of our blogs, we strive to make the actual beautiful features of homes to stand out and not our furniture. Home staging is about creating a lifestyle and merchandising homes for the targeted buyers.
This home was sold within days and we destaged it within 2.5 weeks after staging. It is always a pleasure to stage Green Canopy Homes and this Modern Green Lake house was no exception.
Before I share how home staging produced fantastic results for this particular Bellevue new construction, I like to share with you some of my own experience being in this business.
After having a home staging business in the Greater Seattle Area for years, I have come across all kinds of comments about staging from both the believers and nonbelievers. For example:
Home staging didn’t make a difference, my house would have sold anyways.
Home staging was great and I had a great experience.
Staging my home produced the best ROI.
I wished I had done the work earlier while living in the house and enjoyed.
What a difference? I didn’t know I was living with so much clutter.
In a strong market, home staging is not necessary.
I can go on and on with more examples, but the above are some of the most common comments that people share with me. My reply to is always the same: Home Staging is not an option anymore regardless of the market. In a down market, home staging moves the inventory faster and in a strong market, staged homes get multiple offers and are sold for more. In each case, homeowners end up reaching their sales goals.
This year, where the Seattle real estate was hot, home staging still made a huge difference, as we we knew it would. We got numerous calls from buyers and agents, because their homes/listings sat on this hot market, vacant, and without any offers, even though the initial price has been reduced. After all that failed, they wanted to stage their houses/listings to get quicker results. For me, this is very painful to see. We could have helped the homeowners to get the asking price of their home, if not more, if we had staged these houses and turned them into complete products ready for market. This scenario held true for this Bellevue new construction.
The builder of this Bellevue house stage their buildings themselves, but when it came to stage this house, they ran out of inventory and decided to list the house without staging it, since the real estate market was hot and their other buildings were selling fast. However, this house stayed on the market for 6 weeks. The builders, before making a price reduction, they asked us to team up with them and stage this lovely new construction in Bellevue.
Bellevue New Construction Home Staging
This house, even though had a traditional craftsman architecture, the interior had some lovely modern elements. We decided to create a transitional design and brought in the greens and the yellows to brighten up the grey and brown wall colors and dark finishes. We staged this house two days before Thanksgiving and it was SOLD in two days.
Remember that 99% of buyers look at the online MLS listings before deciding to come in and look at the properties in person. Empty rooms, where the buyers get to see the beige carpets and walls without getting a true sense of the spaces or the house, will only help to sell the competition.
Staged Bellevue house entry welcomes the buyers.
A staged home, welcomes the buyers the minute the doors open whether the home buyer is viewing the home online or in person.
Home Staging produces the most optimal results like it did for this lovely new construction in Bellevue. Home staging is an investment and paying for it is lot less than the first price reduction, not to mention less painful.
The Green Lake neighborhood is known for its charming houses. This particular house had great bones to it and we just wanted to update and prepare it for sale.
Our solution: painting the walls in a beautiful neutral warm color. We selected Camouflage paint by Benjamin Moore. The second step was to select furniture pieces that were more modern. After updating the house with paint and preparing it for the market, this house was ready for the targeted buyers, who we had identified as a young professional couple.
This living room was narrow, especially since the front door opened into it in the middle. Therefore, we decided to face two love seats in front of the fireplace which showcased an ample sitting area for this space. The sofa table also suggested an entry space. Our choice of incorporating a geometric mirror added interest and emphasized the fireplace as a focal point.
Camouflage Wall Paint
This room previously was painted in a loud orange. Camouflage paint created a peaceful and tranquil bedroom. It also worked with the wood floors and the white painted trim. We kept it neutral by selecting a neutral bedding. A bit of black accent color made everything pop.
This space was a wasted space in the basement by the storage area. It was spacious enough that we decided to add a function to the area so the home buyers could envision a use for the space. The result was a welcoming home office.
After staging ton of downtown Seattle condos, we have learned that the people who live in this area fall into three different groups:
Young professionals who work downtown or nearby and love being where the action is. This demographic usually purchases studios or one or two bedroom condos on the lower end price range.
Professional couples or individuals who are have established careers and want to be close to work and other amenities that the downtown Seattle area offers. These professionals typically do not have children living with them and they usually live in the higher end condos or penthouses.
The third group of people are the empty-nesters who want freedom more than anything else. Freedom from house maintenance, garden work, and dealing with home security. This demographic wants the freedom of being close to all of the shopping and restaurants and they love the fact that they can close their doors and travel without worrying about the garden or the security of their home while away. These individuals usually opt for the higher end condos or penthouses.
Our approach to staging each of these groups of condominiums differs since our targeted buyers are different. For example, a sofa that fits perfectly by price range in a penthouse condo will not be the same sofa that will fit just right in a one bedroom condo in the lower price range. As I always try to educate my clients, home staging is about creating the RIGHT life style for each home.
For this particular downtown Seattle Cosmopolitan condominium, we knew that our targeted buyers would fall into the young professionals group and we wanted to make sure that both of the focal points of this unit, the gorgeous views and the fireplace, were showcased.
Staging Steps for this downtown living room:
We placed the sofa in such way that the beautiful Seattle downtown views and the Space Needle were kept open.
We choose a love seat vs. a sofa to open up the space.
We added two chairs to each corner in an angle so the flow was kept open and this created a conversation area.
A glass coffee table connected the seating arrangements together while keeping the space visually open.
A white shag rug brightened up the space and created a beautiful contrast with the wood floors.
We kept the design simple and modern.
Adding functions and claiming the vertical spaces:
As I had mentioned earlier, adding functions to spaces with small square footage is very important. This ladder shelf suggests storage and display spaces. For small condos like this unit in downtown Seattle where there are lots of windows, storage and display spaces are golden.
Many of the condominiums, if they have a fireplace like this one, tend to have TV plug-ins above the fireplace mantle. This condominium in the heart of Seattle included this feature. But we know that most people don’t put their TV above the fireplace since this means the TV will be much higher than eye level and therefore, not a very comfortable place to sit and watch TV. But we still decided to put the TV above the fireplace to show the potential buyers that this would be an option as wall art or a mirror wouldn’t have suggested the availability of TV and cable wiring. To demonstrate additional alternatives, we added a console table and another display and storage piece which could also work as TV console. This way the buyers would clearly be aware of their various options.
We wanted to showcase the size of the bedroom. We brought in a dresser with a mirror which not only clearly demonstrated that this room is generous for a condominium and that it added storage. The mirror brought in light and reflected the beautiful downtown Seattle skyline.
We selected this platform bed for this master bedroom because it left the footpath open and the storage underneath it suggested more storage possibilities. The very tall bedside lamps added more visual height to the room.
If you are selling your Seattle downtown condominium, first determine who the targeted buyers are. Your real estate agent will be of help you in identifying this demographic. Then, based on the results, bring in the right furniture pieces and accessories to showcase your home. Remember that a sofa that goes into a penthouse is going to be different (price point) than a sofa that will be placed in a lower end condominium. Always keep the targeted buyers in mind. Last, but not least – SHOWCASE storage. Define the spaces well. These are our tips for how we stage our downtown Seattle condominiums.
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