If you are in the process of selling your home, and you are having trouble selling it, maybe buyers need to see it in a different light. Real estate agents often engage in a practice called "staging the home." It involves switching out your furniture and possessions for nicer things to create a better image to sellers. Here is more about what the staging practice/process is, why it is done and where you can find model home furniture to make your home more appealing.

What "Staging a Home to Sell" Is

Sometimes homebuyers need a little help with visualization and seeing the potential in a home. When some buyers cannot get past your grandmother's favorite chair in the livingroom, they may not be able to see the rest of your home for what it can be for them. That is when your real estate agent will suggest that you "stage your home to sell." If you have not already moved your belongings out of the home, you will need to move all or most of your things into the garage or a moving/storage pod first.

Then the agent will bring in nicer, higher quality and more expensive items to freshen up the decor in your home. Typically, this is done for open house days, so you do not have to make this semi-permanent during the entire time you are trying to sell the house. In short, you are setting a stage, a different scene than what you had in your home, so that buyers will get excited by what they see and want to make an offer.

Why "Staging to Sell" Is a Common Practice

"Staging to sell" is a common practice in real estate because it is an effective tool that gets homes sold. Your home may have lots of amenities that make it attractive to logical, sensible buyers, but it may fall short on curb appeal or interior appeal. Because these issues are just cosmetic, a changing of the scenery (so to speak) encourages buyers to look at all of the great things your house has to offer and what they could do to make it even better for them. It also gives the real estate agent an easy way in to discuss the many possibilities that the home could bring to the buyers.

Finding and Using Model Home Furniture

Quite often, when staging your home to sell, you will be using model home furniture. There are businesses that specifically cater to real estate agencies with staging in mind, because it provides free advertising for them (e.g., buyer asks where a particular chair or couch came from and real estate agency poses a "guess" about the store). There are also interior decorators who regularly focus on staging a home to sell, and they know where they can borrow furniture to help you stage the perfect home. The furniture is returned through the interior decorator, or to the model home furniture store once you are finished with it.