When it comes to selling or renting your home, first impressions matter a lot. But sometimes, in the rush to make everything look perfect, it’s easy to overlook small details that can actually turn buyers away. From over-decorating to ignoring lighting, even simple mistakes can make a space feel uninviting or hard to imagine living in. In this article, we’ll walk you through some of the most common home staging mistakes and how you can fix them. Whether you’re doing it yourself or working with a professional, these tips can help your home stand out for all the right reasons.
Read on to find out common mistakes in home staging.
Home staging is filled with opportunities where you can choose between a variety of interior design styles and find the one that suits your listing as well as your personal style. From Contemporary to Modern and Scandinavian, pick one that goes with the aesthetics of your home, otherwise, there will be a lack of flow between rooms. Remember to not over-personalize the home to ensure it appeals to a broad range of homebuyers.
Cleaning your home is mandatory to make it presentable to buyers. While we might be used to the small dirt and grime in our houses, it will be the first thing to catch their eye when the homebuyer visits. So, hire a professional deep cleaner or do it yourself by focusing on every nook and corner of your home.
We know renting furniture is expensive, but there is nothing as unattractive as leaving a room empty. Avoid this major staging mistake by using affordable pieces of furniture to decorate your room. By doing so, you’ll also be able to hide imperfections.
Clutter is easy to form but takes a significant amount of time and effort to clear. Whether the mess of toys in your kids’ room or the one in your utility room, buyers notice all of it, which eventually influences their home buying decision. So go that extra mile and make your home spick and span before the showing.
Home exteriors create the first impression on buyers, so it is crucial to make them look welcoming. Make it a point to water the green grass, trim them, and paint the walls. Also, place decorative flower pots and lawn chairs to give it a homely feel.
The focal point is the star of the room, where the viewers’ eyes land first. It is an important interior design rule to have only a single focal point in a room. For example, it can either be the TV, fireplace, art piece, or window in your living room. Multiple focal points can make the room look cluttered and therefore unappealing to the buyer.
Furniture should fit into your space, not the other way around. So ensure your pieces enhance the beauty of the room. Filling your house with excess furniture that hardly fits is a common mistake to be avoided. If you struggle to fit your furniture in the room, the buyer won’t be able to visualize theirs in the room.
Artworks are meant to accentuate a room and add depth to it. So make sure the size and style of the art blend with your room. While hanging art pieces, place them at eye level. You can also rest your pieces on a wall or top of a cupboard. Refrain from using photographs that will make your room look too personal.
Lighting plays a major role in how a home feels. If a room looks too dark or dull, buyers may not see its full potential. They want to clearly see the space they might live in.
To fix this, brighten things up. Add extra lamps, swap out low-watt bulbs for brighter ones, and open up those curtains to let natural light in. A well-lit space always feels more open and inviting.
Buyers love storage. It’s one of those things that can really make a home feel functional. But many sellers forget to show it off.
Make sure you highlight built-in storage areas like closets, cabinets, or under-the-stair compartments. You can even add a few stylish shelves or baskets to show how the space can be used smartly.
Online photos are often the first thing buyers see. If your home looks great in person but not in pictures, that’s a missed chance.
Let in more natural light by opening the blinds. Move furniture slightly away from the walls so the room looks bigger. And always do a quick check through the camera to see how the space photographs.
Old or chipped paint can make your home look outdated. Even if the color was trendy once, buyers today prefer clean, modern spaces.
Give the walls a fresh coat of paint, especially if they’re dark or worn. Lighter shades like beige or soft white can make rooms feel bigger, cleaner, and more appealing.
Little things like dripping taps, loose handles, or cracked tiles might seem minor to you, but they stand out to buyers. They signal that the home hasn’t been properly maintained.
Take care of all these quick fixes. A little effort here can go a long way in building trust and making the home feel move-in ready.
Every home has something special. Maybe it’s a beautiful view, a balcony, hardwood flooring, or a cozy fireplace. But if you don’t draw attention to it, buyers might miss it.
Rearrange the furniture so the best parts of your home are easy to notice. Make sure buyers can immediately see what makes your space stand out from the rest.
Virtual staging is a process by which designers decorate the interiors of a home digitally, adding life to empty pictures. They add furniture, accessories, wall art, and more 3D objects to beautify homes for sale. This process helps real estate agents showcase the real potential of their listing and attract buyers. Since experienced photo editors do virtual house staging, they help agents avoid the above home staging mistakes by choosing the right design style for your home’s architecture, placing fitting furniture, add decorative items in the right places without overdoing it, remove unwanted objects, and touch up imperfections that will be replicated by the time of the home showing. Virtual staging has several advantages as it is time-saving, hassle-free, and costs only a fraction of physical staging.
Here’s how virtual staging can be a solution for the common issues related to home staging:
Now that you know the possible mistakes in virtual staging, watch out and stay clear of them while staging your listing in the best and most creative way possible. Remember, first impressions and external appearances matter a lot in real estate.
Small staging mistakes can make a home feel less appealing, but the right approach can turn those around. Styldod’s virtual staging helps you overcome those slip-ups by refining the look, improving presentation, and showing buyers the space at its full potential. It transforms photos into warm, well-arranged visuals that highlight strengths and create a lasting impression. This way, even if the original setup has flaws, your listing still shines online.
Want to know more? Check out some of our best work here.
Styldod is a design-tech company that aims to simplify real estate marketing and help agents present homes in their most favorable light online by reimagining and automating the listing photography process. Having begun as a virtual staging company, today, Styldod has affordable and best-in-class products and services for every facet of real estate marketing and photography. Styldod’s suite of services include virtual staging, image enhancements, floor plans, virtual renovation, 3D renders, 360 degree virtual tours, and Matterport virtual staging, to name a few. We're trusted by over 10,000 realtors from all over the US and from companies like ReMax, Coldwell Banker, Keller Williams. Know more about us at https://www.styldod.com.
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