Customer Reviews

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Staging your Home to Sell

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is, by my standards, the best book on teaching a novice to stage your home for maximum sale value! The book is very well-organized and takes you through everything, step-by-step, that needs to be done prior to putting your home on the market. There are checklists of things to do, as well as time and budget guidelines. All in all, I found this to be an extremely valuable book! The help it's given me to get the most "bang for my buck" while preparing my home for the real estate market is amazing. I highly recommend buying, reading and implementing the procedures in this book prior to selling your home, no matter what price range your home falls in. Next best thing to hiring a professional stager.

As a Real Estate Staging Specialist, I found this book to be full of excellent ideas for the DIYer with more time than $$. Just as you would get dressed up when selling yourself for a job interview, your house needs to look it's best when selling itself. The authors did a great job explaining how to prepare your house for the market, and why a house should be staged (higher profits and a quicker sale).

This book is full of excellent advice. I would not have thought to do all the tasks this book suggests. Once the author explains it, it makes perfect sense as to what staging is, why it's so important and most importantly (if you're a novice like me) how to pull it off. I had multiple bidders and got more than my asking price. If you're selling your house, I highly recommend reading this book BEFORE you put it on the market.

I loved this book! I just sold my home within two weeks and I attribute it to this book. This book allowed me to prioritize what needed to be done and address rooms with quick, inexpensive fixes that made my home look great. Don't get me wrong, we had to put in some elbow grease, but it was worth it. If anyone is thinking of or is going to sell their home, buy this book, take the experts advice, and put in the time to stage it. It's worth the expense of the book and small items (pillows, place settings, etc.) to make your home stand out rather than sit on the market and make less money. This was the best home improvement product we have ever bought. It's a definite buy!

In a buyer's market, you have to do everything possible to sell your home. I followed 90% of the advice and we had a contract after only 6 weeks on the market. Most of the houses in our neighborhood (and surrounding areas) are taking 6 months to sell. This is very helpful and is a very quick read! I highly recommend it!!!

This book has helped us prioritze our home renovation projects. We aren't selling now but want to be prepared to do so if necessary. It's saved me a lot of money and will keep us from falling prey to the "money pit" syndrome. Plus, I've learned how to present my home in a way that makes me happy now too.

My clients have used the priciples and ideas in this book to help us sell their homes sooner and for more money. In today's real estate market, if a home is not properly staged and priced-it won't sell. Buy this book to help your home stand out from the competition-it will be money well spent.

David Stefik
Stefik Realty
Niagara Falls, NY

This book answers a lot of the questions that have swirled through my head while I've been thinking about what to do to get my house ready to sell. I opened it - and there was a question about replacing carpets. My son opened it - and there was a page on kitchen renovation, which he is planning. Very helpful and easy to read.

This book is great! Especially in today's real estate market, your house has to stand out from the crowd, and this book gives you the tools to make that happen. The authors give you general tips for the whole house, then a room-by-room section helps you fix up each room to its best potential. Lots of before-and-after photos help you visualize what you need to do.

"De-clutter" is a regular drumbeat that goes through this whole book, and we seriously did that. The result was that nearly all of our potential buyers commented on how clean the house was. Well yes, it was clean, but the appearance from the de-cluttering was more important in causing the look of cleanliness.

A psychological plus for us: after the staging, the house was now just a house, no longer our beloved home. That may sound negative, but it helped us see a low offer for the house not as an insult, but just as a starting point in negotiating for this object. We could be much more objective in the selling process.

Was this book responsible for four offers on the house in one week? Can't know, but we're sure it helped. Also, We thought enough of this book that we recommended it to our real estate agent after the house sold, for her other clients who might need it.
- Bill McGann, Author of The Story of the Tour de France

I was very disappointed in the photos...they're all in BLACK N' WHITE!
I think that seeing things in color would have made this book more interesting and useful. One photo was describing a pink bedspread...I sure didn't get the whole picture at first and then tried to imagine what the rest of the room was like. And my Gosh! One photo displayed a black (I think it was black) sexy nightgown laying out on the bed as part of staging? Staging for what?!? I think that could embarass the buyer! And they were worried about offending someone with having a bottle of wine out! Save your money! There are plenty of other books out there where someone could afford to have it published in color.