If you’re getting ready to sell a home, this episode is for you! Today we’re going all in on staging tips for sellers—from what to clean to what to add (and what to hide!). Join us as we break down the most effective ways to prepare your home for the market, help buyers imagine themselves living there, and ultimately, get the best possible sale. Whether it’s clearing clutter, freshening up with neutral colors, or staging each room with intention, these strategies can mean the difference between “For Sale” and “Sold!”

Some of the tips we cover:
The checklist of “must-dos” for any seller to make a great first impression
Why your online listing photos matter and how to prep for them
Levels of staging: occupied vs. vacant homes and what to consider for each
Budgeting for staging and the impact of making simple updates
How to manage smells, lighting, and even music during showings
Specific tricks to make kitchens, bathrooms, and closets feel open and fresh
Outdoor must-haves: making sure the landscaping enhances the home, not detracts
When to invest in upgrades like carpet replacement or fresh paint

Don’t let your home go on the market without this advice! It’s all about setting the right mood and creating a space that invites buyers to see their future home.

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The following is a rough transcript provided by Otter.ai.

Hi, Alyssa. Hey, Katie, welcome to episode 276, first of all, I would like to welcome all of our consumers who are here. Yes, this episode is being recorded so that our agent listeners can share directly to their potential sellers, right or current listings, anyone who owns a home and wants to get it ready for market. But we wanted to welcome you here, if you’ve never listened before,

Alissa 5:45
yes, and today, we are hoping this will give you some excellent guidance and direction. Right? You

Katy 5:51
would think you couldn’t talk about staging, that you have to see it, but I actually do think you can talk about it. You certainly can talk about it. So we’re going to kind of take you through. Like the advice we give to our sellers before they list how they prepare, and we have some very in depth tips to share, correct. Okay. How do you want to get this started? You start? Okay, well, I’m going to start with this. Staging is not just what your home looks like, right? You mentioned it is also how you’re presenting your home to the market. So this means you’re listing photos. Are they professionally done? Your disclosures, your documents? Are they neatly filled out? Like, are they typed up? Are they handwritten, like, chicken scratch, or things crossed out? Like, do you have all of the information you need on your MLS listing, like when people find you on the internet, is the information there? Do

Speaker 3 6:47
you have a copy of your utilities? Do you have a copy of your HOA restrictions? When a buyer has a question you want it to be answered quickly? Yeah, very quickly. So all of those things I actually put in my listing binder, which is there for the buyers to answer their questions as they’re in their showing. But some things like a homeowner info sheet,

Katy 7:09
we see that a lot in our market is attached as a document to the listing so that agents can access it. The maybe the buyers can access it. Just depends. A top 10 list like these are all the things that are part of if your house is listed in the wrong zip code, the wrong area doesn’t have all of these things attached, then it is hard for the buyers to find it. And I think it’s now up to literally 100% of buyers start their home search online. Yes, so we need you to have your online listing looking good, or they’re not even going to show up and see your beautiful staging. Being a

Alissa 7:45
seller can be stressful. Can be stress, and I feel like the work that you do ahead of time should start early and needs to be done to the best of its ability, yes, before it even goes on the market. So

Katy 8:00
you always get an anxious, anxious seller who’s like, I want to sell quickly. Let’s just get on the market and I’ll deal with it later. I’m like, No, you’re actually going to shoot yourself in the foot. What if it just takes us a week, two weeks a month, I promise the amount of time it took you to get ready you’re going to make back in the speed of your sale once you get it on the market, because it’s looks good and the amount of money you

Alissa 8:22
make, yeah, the worst thing that can happen is, you know, you opt not to replace the carpets that have stains. And then you finally get showings. Showings are gold, okay, we just need one showing that loves the house enough to buy it. And then you get all this feedback, oh, I don’t know, the carpet just was felt grungy, and notice felt grungy. Sometimes it’s those little things that when you’re walking through just make a buyer go, I just don’t feel excited to buy this home. Buying a home is a very emotional experience, and so yeah, sure, I’ll offer a $3,000 carpet allowance. It I have never found allowances to excite a buyer. No, like, awesome. I

Katy 9:08
can buy this house and then do work? No, it’s more like putting a flashlight on the things that are messed like, oh, yeah, you’re right. I

Alissa 9:14
know new carpet. Do you feel? I feel like sellers are so quick to be like, can we just offer allowances? Right?

Katy 9:20
Because, oh, that goes into a very important question I learned in a staging class I took a while ago, and it was a big light bulb moment for me. When you meet with your seller, if you are a seller, you have to ask this one question, what is your budget to sell? What is your budget to sell? Most sellers will be like, Well, what do you mean? I I’m selling the house. I’m just going to put it on the market, and people will come and make me an offer. They don’t like the carpet, they’ll make me an offer. I want to give an allowance. I can do that. But having a budget to sell, whether it’s just sweat equity, are you going to get on the floor and scrub those baseboards like you don’t have to put literal money in it? But sometimes. You do. Sometimes you do. Sometimes you have to paint that, you know, hot pink bedroom. Sometimes you have to paint, you know, something that is, I don’t know, damaged or actually scuffed up. So it’s important to get an agent in there to look through the house and say, Okay, these are the things that we cannot put it on the market in this condition.

Alissa 10:21
Let’s maybe quickly talk about the different levels of staging. Okay, let’s do that. Let’s say this is an occupied home. Somebody lives here, yeah, so at this time, I always like to remind my sellers that getting your house ready for photos is phase one of moving. Okay, agreed, agreed. Once we get a contract, we’re usually looking at a 30 day close, right? But you don’t want to pack and mess up your house during the 10 day due diligence period, or however long. The due diligence period is when the buyer is having their inspections, right? Because when they come back for the home inspection, you want them to feel just as warm and fuzzy about the house as they did. It needs to be perfectly staged. So then once you make it past the due diligence period, now you have like, 20 days right until closing. Yeah, you gotta hurry up and the buyers want to do a walk through a few days before closing. So you have a very small, like, a two week window, really, to get your house packed up, totally packed up, empty, yeah, and clean, yeah. And when I remind sellers of that, they’re like, oh, oh, that’s a good point. Like you’re procrastinating doing this for photos, right? But you’re gonna have to do it. You’re gonna move, so you may as well do it before photos, right? Because that way we will benefit from from that work being done, and you will thank yourself later when the drunk the junk closet is already empty, right? And all these things. I always tell them, if it’s not coming with you to the next house, it’s time to get rid of it. It’s time to get rid of it. That means cleaning out your closet so that it looks bigger and more spacious when a buyer opens the closet door. That means, if it’s all your breakable knick knacks, I would suggest going ahead and bubble wrapping them and putting them in boxes in the garage. Yeah, I

Katy 12:21
had a home stager once. Now we’re not saying you need to pack up, no, but I had a stager say anything smaller than a golf ball needs to like, if it’s decorative and it’s little, it needs to be packed up. Yes, it doesn’t need to be there anymore, because it becomes visual clutter. The other one, she said that I thought was so true. Let’s just say you have a nice, big bookshelf. Maybe it’s in her bedroom or office. Maybe it’s in your living room. You love to read. It’s filled with books. You have 300 books on the bookshelf. It doesn’t look messy, but she said, we have to take all these books off the bookshelf and just replace it with the one piece of decor per shelf, maybe three books on each shelf, because when buyers walk through and they see your 300 books, it reminds them how much work it is to move Yes, oh, that’s a lot of books, that’s a lot of tchotchkes, that’s a lot of decorative pieces, that’s a lot of stuff on the walls. And then all of a sudden it’s like, oh, maybe I don’t want to tackle that. Like, maybe I don’t want to move. They know they’re not going to have to pack up your books. But the problem is, your books are a reminder that they have to pack up, yeah, and move in, and this stuff has

Alissa 13:32
to go. I’ve been in a house with buyers many times who thought, how are the sellers gonna move out in time, right? Like, I don’t even believe it. Lot of stuff here, yeah, so just keep being mindful of that is while I think that sometimes my sellers may feel I’m being a little too strict on what I’m requesting, and I’m like, I promise you will thank me, right? Trust the process, because you’re going to have to do all of these things at some point if you want to move, if you reach your goal of selling the house, it’s all gotta go. So if a house is occupied, I do the best I can to quote, unquote, stage of what they have. I think sometimes when people think staging, that means we’re bringing in furniture. No, no, this is not Million Dollar Listing. No, no, no. This is just normal real life. This is how you sell a house. Yeah,

Katy 14:27
we need to make it look like it’s neutral enough for anyone to picture themselves there if

Alissa 14:34
you’re watching on YouTube. I have been doing this a lot at my listing appointments lately. I’ll tell my client. Okay, so the buyer pool is like this big, and I’m just holding my hands up, like a circle, like a basketball, like I’m holding an invisible basketball. Okay, every time there’s something unique or specific about a house, it gets a little bit smaller. Sometimes those can be good things or bad. Things like, if you have a pool and somebody really doesn’t want a pool, the buyer pool gets a little bit smaller. If your dining room and all the walls are painted red, there are some buyers that can’t look past that, it gets a little bit smaller. So our goal during staging is to see what can we do to make this as clean and neutral as possible, yeah, so that that buyer pool gets bigger and bigger and bigger and more. So that every personality of a buyer that walks through this home has a vision for it. Yeah, they can’t have a vision for it if they’re too distracted. Right? I have some clients right now, every house we go in, they are looking at the photos on the wall and reading the diplomas, trying,

Katy 15:47
no, do I know who this is? Yeah. And then they don’t even look at the house. No, they can’t remember the house, right? All they remember was that the owner was a doctor, sure, right? So all of that has to come down, all of the personalization has to come down. It doesn’t mean your photos and art aren’t beautiful and they and it doesn’t mean that your floral curtains weren’t beautiful. We’re just trying to neutralize to make that buyer pull bigger Correct, right? So how big can we get it when your home is starting to feel more boring and neutral, then you’re on the right track. Yeah, it shouldn’t feel like and you know what? This is also very helpful emotionally. If this is a home you’re living in, as soon as you do start taking down the kids names on the wall in their bedroom, the photos of you know, your family photos, your you know all of these things that are personalized to you, your collection of tiny boxes, whatever it is, it will help you sort of separate yourself and be like, Okay, this house isn’t isn’t just my home. My home is wherever I am and wherever my collection goes, right? So it will help make it a little less painful, yeah,

Alissa 16:52
so if a house is occupied, we’re going to do our best to work with what we have. There has been one or two times where I had to tell a seller. I think it would be best if you could move out.

Katy 17:04
I had a seller move out, yeah, just because it was too much, Jay, they already knew where they were going. Okay? They were like, well, we can leave this. We can leave that. I’m like, I just think that it’s, it’s dating, it in a, not a good way. So, like, just go ahead and take it and we’ll just show it vacant. Yeah. So sometimes that is necessary.

Alissa 17:21
I also tell my sellers, save the exterior part for, like, the week before Fauci. We live in Louisiana, so we have a lot of humidity and moisture. So if you power wash, you may have to power wash again. Yeah, don’t do it three months. Feed your flower beds. Weeds come back, right? So it’s like, don’t focus on the flower beds yet. Let’s get the inside ready first, and save all of the exterior for last, right before photos, so that your mulch is so fresh, so that’s occupied. Okay, let’s talk about a vacant house. Sure, there’s more options for actual staging. Yes, there. What do you typically do for a vacant house? The

Katy 18:03
thing with a vacant house is there is nowhere to hide, so the maintenance is more important than anything in the cleanliness. So maybe you don’t have to wipe down every single baseboard in an occupied home that’s perfectly staged and furnished, but in a vacant home, it’s got to be squeaky clean, well maintained, no obvious stains on the ceiling or, you know, worn carpet where people were walking now that the furniture is gone, it has all those dents in the carpet. You know, you can get carpet stretched, you can get it cleaned, you can you might have to get new carpet, I think, vacant. You just have nowhere, nowhere to hide,

Alissa 18:41
right? So all they have to look at is the flaws, right? Their eye is going to be paying extra attention to detail. If you were trying to sell a vacant house, yeah,

Katy 18:53
dusty fans, light fixtures. And if you are going to be selling a vacant house, and you cleaned it when you moved out where the last person who lived there, it was clean, and it’s been several months. Vacant houses still become dirty. Yeah, they still they definitely get dusty. So many bugs, so many dead bugs in the corners of things. So we don’t want it to look and like we’ve talked about this before, a vacant house to me, the longer it stays vacant, it it’s like the house dies. Yeah, it starts to feel kind of like a haunted house, if you will. And it doesn’t matter how great it looked when someone was living there. It’s just those little things you take care of when you’re living in a house, like the bugs on the floor or what the cobweb at the light that they kind of build up in your vacant house. So

Alissa 19:37
what do you typically do? Or does it depend on the house

Katy 19:39
I have only once in my career brought in staging furniture to a vacant house, actually the same one I just mentioned, where I was like, Y’all gotta get out, but it was a luxury listing. We got everything out. It showed beautifully, but we were still struggling getting it sold. So we brought in furniture to kind of because it was built. The 90s. You know, it was 20 years old, and it had classic finishes, mostly, but new furniture from the stager made it become more current. And it made sense, right? It made sense. So that’s the only time I’ve ever brought in furniture. There are markets where vacant houses get furniture. Stage stage with furniture all the time. It’s just not that common here. Well,

Alissa 20:23
staging with real furniture, couches, beds, it is very expensive. Yeah, it’s a cost that is, you know, usually charged monthly. There’s a larger upfront cost for the initial move in, and then you pay on a monthly basis every time, every month that the furniture sits in the home, and then usually there’s a removal fee. So it is very costly, but sometimes spending $5,000 on staging can help depending on the listing, yeah, I also find it depends on the floor plan. I was about to say that if it’s very obvious that this is the formal dining room, right? This is the living room. It doesn’t need it quite as much to help a buyer have the vision. And in that situation, Virtual Staging may even be good so that online, you could show buyers a picture of what does it look like. Here is it empty and here is it with furniture. The Virtual Staging has come such a long way. Yeah, you really can’t. You can’t I have to, like, zoom in and look so close, and even then, I’m not sure, but I always save that like I if it’s a new listing, maybe I’ll just list it totally vacant pictures and see what the feedback is. And if I feel like we need to do something to spruce up the listing, Virtual Staging is also an option. Another option would be, if the house is vacant, I do what I like to call light staging, right where we just bring in some white jars for the kitchen, some greenery for the now empty bookshelves, an orchid for the bathroom, like, just something that when buyers are walking through, it’s not so cold, it’s not so cold, it just warms it up a little bit to be like, Hey, I am a house that loves people. Yeah, I do desire people become my people. Yeah. Will you be my people? Yeah? For sure, for sure. And I also feel like that really makes the photos, yeah, stand out. My

Katy 22:23
take on vacant staging and doing the light staging, which I think is great, is I never do it in a way that it’s not how the room would be used. For instance, it is never okay in the living room to have a rug and two dining room chairs. This is not good staging. You would have been better vacant. But I think it is okay to put a nice, you know, piece of art on the mantle, or a couple of pieces of greenery there, but I’m not going to bring in a chair, no, or a table with a lamp. It doesn’t look right now. So that means that the easiest places to vacant stage are the bathrooms in the kitchen, and those are the most important places, because all you could it, when you look at the photo of a kitchen, if you and I have two bar stools, I brought them to so many listings, I couldn’t even tell you if it has the bar stools and the little bit of decor, it looks like it’s done. Yeah, it’s complete the bathroom. Just needs the hand towel in your orchid and, you know, maybe a little rolled towels, whatever it’s done. When you look at the photo, that’s a, that’s a completely ready to go bathroom, yeah, but you don’t want it to be like, you know, you just have to be careful when you’re

Alissa 23:30
recently where I sent this house to my clients, and I was like, Hey, I feel like I sent this house to you before, but y’all weren’t really interested in going to look at it. But the more I look at it, I’m like, it, it’s, seems like such a great neighborhood. And really checks your the box. And he goes, I know this is weird, but do you know what’s been throwing me off this whole time? I was like, what? And he was like, the recliner. It’s, it’s vacant, except for one TV and one recliner. It feels weird. He was like, it feels like a scary movie. Yeah, yes. I was like, it does That’s hilarious. And so I was like, well, we’re going to look at it. And they bought it. And it was so funny because during the home inspection, I sat in the recliner the whole time on my laptop and just worked. I was like, worked out great. It looks very out of place, but I’m glad to have a chair here, right? But it kept them from even looking at it. That’s a great story, like, that’s what kept you. I’ve shown one before where it was like a creepy movie. They had an old TV on a TV tray, yeah, and a chair in front of it, and they liked to leave the TV on at all times to make it appear as though someone lived in the house, right? They kind of like a rougher neighborhood, if they were trying to make it appear someone was home. Okay, every time I went to that house, I was like, No, this is a scary movie, yeah. I

Katy 24:57
just okay. Well, while we’re on. The vacants. Let’s also talk about so cleaning, the staging. You have a couple of options there. The sounds vacant house with the beeping smoke detector, not okay, right? The smells like, were there pets when you left? That That smell when you’re no longer cooking and living and lighting your candles and doing your daily stuff, that will really come out. So you gotta go to that bacon house, and you gotta really look at it with all your senses, just like a regular even an occupied house, but like, How does it smell? Is the smoke detector beeping? Like, are people going to want to get out of here in a hurry? What is the thermostat set to right? I understand you don’t want to pay to heat and cool this vacant house. However, if it’s freezing cold outside and their heater is not even on, I’m not hanging out in a vacant house for long, no, and I’m not going to get the warm and fuzzies, literally, literally. And I sure don’t want to be in it like sweating like, you know, when you go into a vacant house and the upstairs is like you walk up the stairs and the hot air just like hits you with every step, the showing needs to make people want to stay longer, or at least stay long enough to see it all.

Alissa 26:10
What do you do for smells? Well,

Katy 26:13
honestly, I have a vacant house that is listed right now, and it was very strongly. There was like, five pets there. Okay, okay, so it wasn’t like destroyed, but they had carpets in the bedrooms. And after they were gone, I was like, it’s pretty bad. Even the photographer was like, I’m sensitive to Cat smells. And there was obviously a cat here. And I’m like, Okay, I agree. I can smell it. And my seller was very hesitant to take the advice to, you know, change the carpets. And she had a very style specific kind of limey green, pea lime, like a light colored green, but it was bright on all of the main living room, all of the bedrooms, the walls, the walls were painted green. All green. Oh no. And I was like, this is this is too style specific. And she’s like, I love that color. I just painted

Alissa 27:03
it, you know, last year, fire pool is a small green piece,

Katy 27:07
so that’s fine. It went on the market in a like, you know, in a modest neighborhood, but we’re so it’s easy to come I’m like, this is the right price. It went on the market our very first day, we had a showing, and the feedback was the buyer realized it was going to be way too much work because there’s all this colored paint and it’s and the carpets have to be changed. It smells like it needs work. And so I forwarded on the feedback to my seller, and I said, Hey, unfortunately, this is the feedback I was expecting. And we previously talked about, yeah, like, this is not surprising. I think we need to at least paint the main part of the house, the living, the kitchen. I mean, it was green everywhere. Yeah, we need to paint this part. And she’s like, okay, no problem. And she changed out the carpets, and I went back and did new photos. And guess what? The next showing we had is going back for a second showing. That’s amazing, since it’s but it didn’t even have showings in between.

Alissa 28:04
You know, what’s interesting is that the people that left that that feedback, even after you remedy the problems that they pointed out, those buyers are gone. Yeah, they’re not coming back, they’re not coming back, right? And you’ve lost them,

Katy 28:19
and your first buyer is usually your buyer. Yeah, they’re the ones that were most excited to see the house. They got their first right? Like that first group of buyers, we don’t want to waste them correct, because the only way to get a new first group of buyers is to reach is to not just make the changes pain or the carpet or staging or whatever. You also are going to probably have to change the price.

Alissa 28:37
And I think that sometimes sellers have trouble hearing, yeah, it’s like it’s just coming from us, right? Just coming from your agent, right? Saying this is what needs to happen, but you, you need to come from us, so that it doesn’t come from the show, because that’s going to cost you money. Yeah, it’s not gonna cost you money to hear it from me. No, because how much do you think if they would have left it green, would they have had to drop the price over and over and over again, seeing it would have just called it didn’t cost,

Katy 29:06
like, maybe a couple 1000. Yeah. And, you know, it’s probably the first price change was going to be 5000 right? There’s your it’s going to be 10. There’s your pay, right? Exactly. Um, so that’s the story with Do you have anything else you want to talk about on vacant I think that’s probably, yeah, that’s pretty good. Oh, the other thing landscaping. Obviously, someone needs to be maintaining your yard when your home is vacant and being shown but the landscaping also needs to be addressed. I had sweet sellers who had moved out of state. Their listing was vacant. They were I was their second agent. When I went to look at it, I’m like, Hey, you really have a lot of work to do on the landscaping. And they’re like, What do you mean? And I sent pictures, and they were like, well, our agent didn’t even tell us we thought they were checking it. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So my PSA though, to sellers is, it’s your house, yeah, if you at the end of the day, you need to be the one who’s. Like either prompting your agent to check the landscape if that’s something you’re concerned with, or you need to be sending someone, or you need to go look at it like it needs to be looked at, because those weeds do come back pretty fast. Yeah, that mulch does wash away, like branches break in storms, whatever like you we need to make sure that the landscape is looking good, because nobody wants to pull up to the house and it just looked disheveled, right? And nothing like the photo. Yeah, that’s the other thing. Do you want to give them your kind of getting ready for pictures list? This is like the laundry list of your to do’s that works for everyone, right? Yeah.

Alissa 30:35
Do you want to start outside? Yeah? Let’s start outside. Yeah, so I feel like I’m telling my sellers. In regards to landscaping, people prefer minimal. Yeah. Don’t plant new things. Just make sure what’s here is alive and mulched. Fresh mulch. Minimal, yeah. Don’t let your bushes cover your windows.

Katy 30:58
The stager also used to say it’s like a sorority party. No, it doesn’t matter if you’re gonna look good next year, you gotta look good right now to get in. Oh, she’s talking about dead bushes. She’s like, I understand, maybe next year those bushes are gonna look great, but yeah, right now they don’t, they don’t, and they gotta get

Alissa 31:18
when you’re looking at these crispy sticks, and the sellers like these come back every spring, and you’re like, well, that’s October, and it looks like it goes like a dead garden, yeah? So you have to, like, prune that stuff back, remove

Katy 31:31
it, put in something that’s green right now, hopefully, or just put in mulch again. Just remove, yes, outdoor

Alissa 31:39
the landscape is typically remove, yeah, just take Yes. I’ve never told people, let’s plant some things,

Katy 31:45
right? Remove and mulch. Yeah, and it’s gonna be great. That’s what we need. Trim the trees, mulch. And also, can you see the house? Yeah, right. How

Alissa 31:55
tall are the bushes, right? How,

Katy 31:57
how overgrown are the trees? Like? We need to see the front door.

Alissa 32:01
I think I’ll have a good before and after picture to share on Instagram. I

Katy 32:04
can’t wait for this one. I can’t wait. Okay, so what else outside? Minimal. The landscape shouldn’t be blocking your windows and doors.

Alissa 32:12
Oh, the front door should be really nicely. Clean, clean, freshly painted, yeah, stained if it needs it. A lovely welcome, Matt, because

Katy 32:23
y’all the most time most buyers spend at your house is standing at the front door while their agent opens it, which means waiting for the lock box to click, click, click, click, click, getting the key out, figuring it out how to open the door. Oh, while we’re on keys, sellers make sure your key is working and it’s, it’s, it’s a nice looking key,

Alissa 32:43
and a lot of times they are newer keys that are given to us, and they may need a little right, like, if it’s a brand new key in an old lock, it can be a little tricky, sometimes sticky. It doesn’t get in there, yeah. So make sure to, you know, use it a few times before you give it, be aware of the look of your front door and the useful like, how

Katy 33:05
hard is it to get in, right? Because that’s gonna feel like, oh, man, this is hard. This house needs maintenance. Yeah. Okay, so the door has to be clean, though we’re spending a lot of time there. What else you got? And

Alissa 33:19
then patio furniture, cushions, mats, anything that is decorative outside. I’m not a fan of like gnomes, garden flags, yeah,

Katy 33:30
less is more less, because those are technically style specific. Very

Alissa 33:34
when I see a gnome, I’m like, oh, Lord No, thank you. No, yeah, but

Katy 33:39
that’s okay. You can pack your gnomes. Yeah, they’ll come with you go to your new house, and

Alissa 33:43
then garage, yeah, um, we where I where we are. I don’t take pictures of the garage, nor do I, yeah, I’ve only done it, like one time. I had to do that. You’re saying I’ve taken

Katy 33:57
one garage picture. I

Alissa 33:58
was like, wow, wow. Look at this. Wow. He had, like, the floor finished exchange and the shelving system he had installed, and, like, installed, and was leaving with the house. I was like, we are taking it. If it looks like you’re in an episode of the home, edit photo. Good, yeah. Otherwise, garage does only the photo. That’s only happened once, yeah. Otherwise, I’m telling my clients, you can use your garage for storage right when you’re moving. You don’t want the buyers to have evidence of that a little bit all over the house. Yeah, it’s better to just put it all in one spot. Yes, it’s better to say, Listen, that all the boxes are in the garage, yeah, one space. It’s so funny because I showed a house the other day, one of the most well staged homes I have ever seen. My client is buying it. We close soon. He we’re like, wow, how do they live like this, you open the garage door. Yes, we open the garage we’re like, oh, it’s like a clown car. Yes, it didn’t turn us off, though. No, you’re just like, we just were. Yeah, because we’re like, they’re moving Yeah, but the garage was full to the max with moving boxes, extra dining chairs, like, all the stuff that she did not this seller understood the assignment, right? We were like, wow, this is incredible. So yes, the garage is a great place to store things. Yeah, you know, we know that moving is costly. If we can help you save money by not having to rent storage space, you know, like, I try to utilize what we have access to as best as we can,

Katy 35:35
yeah, and I think that’s a good point too.

Alissa 35:37
I don’t want my sellers to spend money. No, if it’s a necessity, it’s a necessity, and it’s only a necessity when you’re spending it to save it exactly. Also when it comes to moving your garage when you move out, also has to be totally empty, so all the stuff that accumulates in storage sheds. Yeah,

Katy 36:00
I like, sometimes the seller will leave behind all these old, rusty paint cans, like they’re doing the buyer a favor. Like, that’s actually just garbage, so it really should be removed. And this buyer could request you to do so, yeah, it’s not, it’s not helpful, correct? Okay, are we moving inside now, yes. I also want to just point out we’re reading off of the list that you send, or we both send our sellers pre us going to their home, correct? And then when you get to their home, you get more into the nuance of maybe this couch needs to go here, this bookshelf needs to have that like, you know, yes. So this checklist is going to apply to all homes. It’s the pre work for any home it. I

Alissa 36:43
have been to some listing appointments. I think that’s why this was born, right, right? I didn’t used to send something ahead of time. I would just walk into a house that’s been lived in for 30 years, yeah. And they’re like, Oh, what do we need to do? And I’m just like, I’m I’ve spent hours before. So now, in the pre listing email with the checklist, letting you know, like, hey, once your personal to do list is done, then I come, we do a consultation, we walk through and we see what we need to do for your house specifically to be ready to photograph, right? Okay, so

Katy 37:17
now we’re going inside. We’re going through the front door. Woo hoo. That’s

Alissa 37:21
where the lock box will hopefully go. Yeah, please. It’s much better for a buyer to enter the front door than to enter the carport. Yeah, that goes straight into the laundry room and yeah, like, if you can, if you can swing it, let’s get it on the front door, right? Okay, um, we need to be aware of odors and lighting whenever we are there. If you have the means to either you or your agent, have all the lights on for every single showing, it makes such a difference. I try to get there early to turn them over there when I’m showing a buyer. Um, clearing off your surface areas, kitchens, bathroom. Count dresser tops. Yes. Dresser tops are a big thing, window sills, the refrigerator, all those magnets and

Katy 38:11
all the things on top of the fridge. Yes, nothing on the fridge, right? Just an empty fridge. We

Alissa 38:17
need to also be mindful of power cords, cables, wires, like any, any rats nest of of wires. Just, we just need to unplug and hide. I’ve even like if a seller has a TV mounted on the wall, but the plug is way down here. I’m just unplugging it and wrapping it around, tucking it behind, like we just, we don’t need to see all these wires. Hide your trash cans for showings in the

Katy 38:41
garage. Works a lot of times. It’s close to the kitchen.

Alissa 38:44
I tell my sellers too, like photo day is the hardest day, because the day I’m going to be the hardest on you and the most strict, right? When we have a showing, it’s okay if your trash can is in the kitchen right where it goes, right? But I don’t want it there for photos, and that’s a slippery slope, though, because your house should for showings, look as close yeah, to your photos as possible. Lights on blinds turn

Katy 39:16
horizontal, like all your beds made all the toothbrushes hidden away like it needs. You need to have that buyer show up and not think they were tricked. Right? They can’t show up to your showing and be like, This is not the house I saw online, correct? That is a no no no no, for example, if, especially if you have, like, a nice tiled shower or something, if

Alissa 39:38
we’re getting a picture in your bathroom, there should be no shampoo in your shower for showing I think it’s okay if there’s shampoo. And that’s fair, that’s fair. But yes, I like we need to be as minimal as possible. I even have. I’ve opened the oven before and found stuffed animals shoved

Katy 39:54
in there. I will tell you where you can stuff your stuffed animals in the washer or the dryer. Yeah. Yeah, nobody’s looking in your washer and your dryer,

Alissa 40:01
right? If you’re preparing for a showing and you need to hide. But other than that, there’s

Katy 40:05
really very few places to hide, because even your closet, you can’t just go throwing a bunch of stuff in there. In fact, for photos, you can hide stuff in the closet, right? For showings, you can that ain’t gonna work.

Alissa 40:17
I always tell for closets and pantries, a buyer needs to be able to see the floor. Every bit of it, every bit of the floor needs to be visible when they open that door. Yeah, agree. Personal photos, diploma. Talk, clutter, the shelves, buyers will open your closets and your pantry patterns. Patterns are very style specific. Yeah, it’s going to vary from person to person. What they like neutral is best. So we’re talking about bedspreads, blankets, drapes. If they are too loud or too patterned. I would just, and they don’t photograph. Well, they do not photograph. Well, they come out very loud, yeah. And then when you’re in the house, it’s just, again, very loud. So removing fake floral, fake floral has come a long way. Look, I

Katy 41:19
will say the fake floral that’s still that looks good now is typically the succulents, yes, maybe even a fern in some case, and the orchids, yeah, that’s about it. If you really have to touch it to figure out if it’s real, that’s a good one approved if it is 1985 Ivy, oh, it’s gonna have

Alissa 41:37
to go, yeah, the ivy needs to go also,

Katy 41:43
like my sweet mother in law, she has the top of her cabinets very beautifully decorated with, like, antique things, jars and baskets. It’s quite nice for her decor that is not good for a show like, right. There shouldn’t be anything on top of your cabinet. Lovely for what she is living in. But that’s the difference. Staging is not home. Design, nope. We’re just trying to get more people to want to live in your house. Yes, they can put their stuff on top of the cabinets. You cannot have stuff on top of the cabinets, yep. What else

Alissa 42:16
if you do need to replace drapes, just go on Amazon and get some creamy, neutral, great white oatmeal drapes, yes, yeah, and replace what you have there, you know, leave them with the house. And

Katy 42:27
if you have blinds, maybe you don’t even need drapes, right? Like, it’s not necessary.

Alissa 42:33
I’m I’ve been a big advocate for removing blinds and only having the drapes, the drapes, yeah, because you can open it when the drapes are open and there’s no blinds, especially in the living room, when it looks out onto the backyard, it’s like, look at this photo. This

Katy 42:51
is the best photo. Um,

Alissa 42:53
light bulbs. Man, light bulbs have come a long way. Sure have. And they all have to match. They need to match. You cannot have three whites and a yellow.

Katy 43:03
And it can’t be one room is whites and one room is yellow. No. What is your what do you tell sellers on the light bulbs? What do you recommend?

Alissa 43:10
Like, a natural white light, like a not a white what is it called?

Katy 43:15
I like the soft light. Okay, so like, I don’t and they do lumens or whatever. Now, if it says daylight, that’s the one that comes out looking like white, okay? And it feels like you’re in a dentist office or an office building. And that’s okay. If that’s it hurts my eyes too, and it’s not warm and inviting. Okay? So you need to get away from that daylight in the white end, and you need to get to the warmer end. I don’t care if it’s in the middle. It doesn’t have to be all the way yellow, yeah. But like no daylight, you want the warm light, right? Okay, so just stay away from daylight. Okay, okay, and they match. Make sure they all match. In a photo, if there’s one light bulb that’s burnt out or is a different color than the rest. It stands out so so much. All of the light bulbs need to work, and they you’d be surprised. Changing the light bulbs makes the house so much brighter. Even if they’re still working, they just kind of get dim, like the old school ones, especially get just dim over time. Okay?

Alissa 44:18
And then just like a final clean ceiling fans, appliances, baseboards, window sills. I think you give your sellers some old English, oh, yeah, sort of like, look up something

Katy 44:30
at Lowe’s Home Depot, wherever you can get this little jar of Old English scratch cover is what it’s called. It’s six bucks. Ish. You put it on with an old rag. Throw the rag away. It will clean up scuffs on anything that’s stained cabinet, furniture, whatever. And yes, obviously your furniture goes with you, but if it looks like it’s in rough shape, it just makes the house feel like it’s in rough shape. So it wouldn’t hurt to rub that. There’s like a light color in it. Dark color. Rub it right on, fix you up. It’s kind of like those stain pens for your floor. If you’ve got some scratches and scuffs on your wood floor, go get a stain pen like try to at least minimize the appearance, right? But yeah, I do like the old English. And get yourself a stack of magic erasers. They’re so good, though. They will clean stuff that you thought for sure would not off of a wall. Now, of course, if you have flat paint, you have to be careful, yeah, because it’ll start taking off the paint. But it will clean up your cabinets really nicely. It will clean up like your whatever I mean in the Old English scratch cover for $6 I had a client basically repaint, re stain their wooden exterior back door. Yeah. I mean,

Alissa 45:47
y’all looks like night and day different. She

Katy 45:50
rubbed it on with a rag in like five minutes, and it was totally it looked totally different, right? So, easy thing, cheap thing you can do. Okay, let’s talk about a little. We talked about all of our senses. We did not talk about music, though. So let’s talk about showing instructions a little, and then we might dive into just a few more of our little nitpicky staging tips for people. Okay, okay, but that was the pre list. We’ve gone through the whole pre list. Now let’s talk about showing instructions. Go on, give it to Okay,

Alissa 46:20
when you have a showing when they walk in, every single light and lamp in that house needs to be on on as well as all the blinds and curtains need to be open. We are trying to make this as bright and inviting as possible. With the right light bulbs, all of your toilet lids would be closed down. Jay, put them down. The amount of things so much to see in a toilet, just close them, dirty dishes, put away, remove your pets and the evidence of pets, right? And I don’t mean the carpet, I mean the bowls, the beds, yeah, the toys. Put the kennel in the garage. Sort of need, like, a go to go kit for your pet. Sometimes people use, like, a big laundry basket, and that, when they have a showing, they just load up their stuff, and then they put it in the car. And then they come,

Katy 47:17
my clients just ride around with the pet in the car. Yeah, until the showings I ever tell you

Alissa 47:21
about, like, when I was selling our very first house, no, every time we had a showing, I would go walk the dog, okay? And, like, pretend to be a friendly neighbor.

Unknown Speaker 47:36
Hey,

Alissa 47:37
it’s a great neighborhood. Look at me.

Katy 47:40
I’m just walking my dog. That’s funny, because did you not think that eventually they would see you at the closing table? I don’t know. I

Alissa 47:48
had a hat on. Anyway, you were in disguise.

Katy 47:52
You were in disguise as a friendly neighbor.

Alissa 47:53
Nowhere to go, you know. So anyway, the dogs got it. I also have a listing right now, and they wanted to go back for a second showing, and they requested it a little too short notice for the second showing. And I called her. Was like, hey, my sellers have to leave work to go get their dog. Could you go? Like, an hour later? And she was like, a dog lives in that house. I never would have guessed. Like success. I was like, that’s excellent to know. Good feedback, yeah, she didn’t see a single bowl. No evidence, no smell, no evidence. Set the thermostats to about 72 degrees. That should heading on her way. Yeah, it should be fine.

Katy 48:32
I mean, like, if you know it’s the middle of winter and you really only need 68 that’s fine. But if you’re gone forever, yeah, just put it on the 72

Alissa 48:40
and call it a day every day. When you leave for work, your beds must have got to make the bed. Yeah? Find a way to incentivize your children to do the same. Yeah. Also before you leave, just in case there’s a showing request, remove all your daily items from your countertop. Yeah, so that it’s just ready for you, hair brushes, dish towels, surround sound, yeah. What do you think about music? Okay,

Katy 49:05
I like a little music in a showing, but this is a really hard choice. It is. I have been to showings where they’re playing like, like, random rap music, and I’m like, while I think this is entertaining, I don’t think this is appropriate for my buyer, necessarily, right? So I think you want to go with, like, locally. I always love going to a house, and I’ve got, like, jazz, like, Yeah, feels like Mardi Gras music, yeah, like this, like, you want some upbeat jazz or something.

Alissa 49:34
I also heard like, a really good, like, Michael bubli station where it was just like, soft and soothing, but sort of like a beat. It’s gotta be upbeat. Yeah? It wasn’t sad. It was just like, oh. It was just pleasant. Like, look at this. Yeah.

Katy 49:48
I’ve also had, I’ve gone to showings where maybe the backyard, like, backs up to a busy road or something, and they’re, like, blaring something. I’m like, I see what you’re trying to do here. It’s like lighting 600 candles and plug ins in every outlet because the house smells, yeah, too loud of sounds. It’s like, well, wait a minute, what are we blocking out? But I think a little bit of music is nice. But I will tell you, quite honestly, very rarely do I go to a showing when they have it on.

Alissa 50:16
Speaking of blocking it, I know very rarely for me as well. Speaking of blocking it out when it comes to smells, sometimes air fresheners are bad. Yeah, you can’t have too many. You can’t have too many. It can’t be the wrong smell. Like, how do you figure it out?

Katy 50:32
I know I used to like the stager would recommend the sachets from Kirkland’s or wherever, and then she liked Paris and Venice. Those were the scents, but they don’t even have those anymore. When I go, Yeah, I think I’ve heard vanilla is okay, yeah? But here’s the thing, like, if you’re putting a sachet or something, hide it in a closet, like, so it’s giving off some smell, but it’s not like knocking someone over when they come in the front door, yeah? Really, what you just want is a neutral smell? Yeah, the only way to get there is for the house to be clean.

Alissa 51:03
I know, clean and not. If you are a huge chef, you may just have to, like, go out to a restaurant a little bit so that it’s not always a smell. Yeah, you can’t be cooking, like, curry

Katy 51:15
or something. Yeah, I do, like, there are some candles that, when you have them open, not lit, they’re still putting off smell. But it’s not like, as if you when you lit it, it was really, I like that mahogany, teak. What a lot I

Alissa 51:28
do like when a seller has candles lit for a show, nice. It’s just like, so nice, yeah,

Katy 51:36
I think that’s okay. But again, you don’t want 10 candles, like two, yeah, right, yeah. I guess it depends on the season. Yeah, okay. Presentation is everything. And I think we kind of went through the vacant home show instructions, but again, remember to check those smoke detector batteries.

Alissa 51:53
I do think that if a home is vacant, if, if you are the if the agent can get there. Or if a neighbor see a neighbor, would be the easiest thing if you could partner with a neighbor, yeah? Or, like, pay a neighborhood kid five bucks, like, every showing, yeah, to go and turn on every single light and get it ready. I just think it would be make such a difference, yeah?

Katy 52:17
Because the bad news is not every buyer’s agent has time to get maybe they’re seeing 10 houses in a row, or five or whatever, getting there. They’re not they’re not early enough to turn on all your lights for the buyer that’s coming. And sometimes at that point they pop in, they might just lean their head in a room and literally never turn the light on. I cannot tell you how many showings and vacant homes I have been on where my buyers saw a whole house without turning on a light. Now, I would turn on as I went, sure, but yeah, it’s not that. It’s not not the same. It’s literally not showing your home in its best light. Yeah, literally, like we need the lights on, yes. Okay, so, oh, and in vacant homes, I always try to pick the windows that are not exposed to the street. You know, it is a safety concern to have a vacant house like windows wide open, but all of the rear I turn those blinds horizontal, yeah, at least as much natural light as possible is coming into the house all of the time. Yeah, okay. I think this was very helpful. Okay, we do have our staging tips list that you can get on our website. So if you want the I mean, way even more detailed than what we’ve just talked about and some overlap, you can go to hustle, humbly, podcast.com/staging, yeah. Okay, and get this you can get, yeah, you’ll get the whole list. The way this list is broken down, it’s the staging tips. It has an indoor section of items to remove, so we talk about what you’re removing. So look removing things again. Free, this whole there’s a whole page of free, yeah, right, okay. Then there’s the indoor section of items to clean. Again, free, free, free. On the very last page you’re gonna get the indoor items to add. So this would be like replacing all your light bulbs, putting maybe in a large leaf, changing your bed linens to white, using a light colored rug to help define a space if you’re in like an open these are things you can add to right? You know, neutral throw pillows, these sorts of things. And then the outdoor section kind of goes over what we’ve already we have covered all of the outdoor parts. Also, the pressure washing is not negotiable here. I don’t know about where you are, but it’s gonna get pretty dirty over time, and we need the sidewalks and the patio and the driveway to look like new construction, right? Because when you pressure wash it, it does look brand new, right? So it’s like you won’t even. Show your age if you go wash that all right, anything else you need to tell them? Oh, I do want to share one color. Oh, okay, what do you have a go to Color cue. Let’s

Alissa 55:10
hear some of your favorite colors. Sherwin Williams, Swiss coffee. Swiss coffee. Swiss coffee is good for the traditional homes that cannot handle like a white, white. It’s a good creamy color, and pretty much goes with anything. Okay. I also like alabaster. That’s

Katy 55:30
the one I That’s the That’s my default. That’s the only one I default to, okay. That’s a Sherwin Williams color. I have used that so much I have never had to go wrong, never, never. So regardless of what color your trim is, it just seems to work. Yeah? So that is a good one, and it is gonna read as white, but it is a warmer white. It is a warmer white. And I know people are like, I don’t like white. That’s okay. You’re not gonna live there anymore.

Alissa 55:56
Yeah? Yeah. We’re painting it for the next people. We’re trying to sell your house and look at what you like. Maybe the next people don’t like white either. But going from a white is it’s more of a blank slate. Yeah, they they’re like, Oh, I can’t wait to paint this neon yellow, right? We just wanted to give you the vision. Can’t wait to see

Katy 56:14
it. Can’t wait to see it. So that’s a good color. I don’t really think there’s any other I mean. And of course, it’s harder on the exterior, yeah, because you’ve got bricks. What is your siding color? Like? What you know? What do you have to work with? My office obviously has design services, so I have to rope in my my, my broker, designer

Alissa 56:34
all the time, yeah? Like, help me right? What to do? What do we paint these shutters? What

Katy 56:38
are we going to do?

Alissa 56:40
This was great. This was so good. I know it was long. I know being a seller can feel a tad overwhelming, and you may think, why does placing a leaf on my dining table make my house sell? Right? It is the it is not the single one thing on this no list that is going to help you. It is the compilation of it all together. Is what is going to get your house sold and set you apart from the rest. You just have to be better than everything else that’s on the market. Yeah, and you

Katy 57:12
have to think your competition could be new construction, depending on your price range. And that means that someone can go get fresh and squeaky clean and brand new, never used neutral colors around the corner at a similar price. Well, then you really have a lot of work to do.

Alissa 57:27
I heard if you aren’t getting your house ready for the market, you’re just helping sell the competition. Wow. What a great way to put it. Because if they come to your house and it’s like, I mean, it’s okay, you can just tell they’ve, like, lived here a long time. You can tell they have pets and kids, and then they go to new construction, they’re like, Man, this is like, a breath of fresh air. We

Katy 57:48
love this house sold, even though it’s smaller, or maybe not everything I needed, right? Because it’s no work and and don’t kid yourself as much HGTV as we’ve all watched. Buyers don’t actually really want to do that work, right? It’s a very, very small niche of people who want to come in and fix up

Alissa 58:06
a house, and the ones that want to fix it up want to pay a really low price, exactly.

Katy 58:09
So maybe that new carpet that’s going to make it smell great and look good is only going to cost you 2500 when a buyer comes in and sees that it needs carpet, the price to tag in their mind is 5000 right? So you need to just cut off that objection at the pass. This was so helpful. So I think that really go again if you want the full staging tips list that is hustle, humbly, podcast.com/staging, and agents, also, you grab that and share it with your sellers. Yeah, you

Alissa 58:40
can brand it to yourself. No

Katy 58:42
one, no one loses when the house is well prepared, no market, no one loses. No one. Okay, this was fun. Staging is my favorite. I know you love it. Who doesn’t love a before and after? Love A before? Does not love a before and after? Yeah, especially when it impacts how much money you make and how quickly you sell. Right? Goals, great,

Alissa 59:03
great, goodbye.