'Staging' a house can boost its appeal to potential buyers

By Owen Boss

Staff Writer

SOUTH HADLEY - Much more goes into staging a house - that is, getting it ready to show to prospective buyers - than tossing around a couple of throw pillows, adding a few coats of fresh paint and changing the color of the drapes in the living room.

When a homeowner enlists the support of a professional home stager, they are seeking to gain an outsider's perspective on their property and assistance from someone with experience in "setting the mood," a crucial part of any successful sale.

For Laura Dupont of Pioneer Valley Home Staging in Amherst, helping someone sell their house sometimes means letting them down lightly about certain aspects of their home.

"My job is to go in and tell them what I like and what needs to be packed up. I make sure to do it gently, though, so people don't get offended," Dupont said. "But what I tell them is if they end up selling and have to move out, they're going to have to pack it up anyway."

Dupont, who has staged successful home sales across the Valley, said during the recent economic downturn, the demand for home staging professionals has increased as selling a house became more difficult.

"Staging a house is a way of making a property visually attractive and appealing to all kinds of buyers," Dupont said. "It could be a young couple, it could be an older couple, you are just trying to neutralize the house so it shows well, regardless of who the buyer is."

This week Dupont is staging and showing Anne Rothschadl's Cypress Drive home in South Hadley, who had a friend recommend professional help after an unsuccessful open house last fall.

"Last fall I didn't sell so I took it off the market and before I put it back out there, I wanted to make sure to bring someone in to help set it up right," Rothschadl said.

Making it pop

After an initial consultation, Rothschadl and Dupont walked through the house, picking and choosing what was staying, what needed to go, and what Dupont could bring from her own personal furniture collection to spruce the place up.

"What she tried to do was create this sense of color with some window treatments, and we wanted to make sure that theme flowed through the house," Rothschadl said.

Although bringing in new furniture and changing the color of certain walls are typical tasks for homeowners looking to do it themselves, Dupont pointed out that a home staging professional knows what it means to make potential buyers see themselves moving in.

"The point of the whole thing is that you want people to fall in love with the house so when they walk in they can picture themselves living there," Dupont said. "This is what a home stager does, they put those little extra touches that can make the place pop."

Another typical pitfall homeowners run into, Dupont said, is trying to sell a house that is already completely cleared out.

"When you have the place entirely empty what happens is someone is standing there looking at an empty living room and they can't get a relative size for how their furniture is going to look in that space," Dupont said.

The idea, rather, is to bring in pieces of furniture that may not be exceptionally comfortable or a match with the homeowner's taste, but pieces that will accent the room and will appeal to the potential buyer's imagination.

"You want people to love it because they are able to picture their own stuff right in front of them," Dupont said.

Another important goal of any home staging is the depersonalization of the homeowner's space and the removal of some of the items decorating it.

"If someone has a collection of ballet slippers all over the wall, or something like that, it would end up distracting a buyer because they start looking at the owner's stuff instead of the house itself."

And as Dupont would tell any perspective client, home staging is not restricted to the inside of the house, and a lot can be said for working to obtain she calls "curb appeal."

Methods such as landscaping, painting and touching up problem areas outside the house, Dupont said, can go a long way in swaying someone's favor.

"You want to appeal to them right from when they step out of the car," Dupont said. "That is what this is all about."

Owen Boss can be reached at oboss@gazettenet.com.