Decorate home before selling

Should you Decorate your House Before Selling?

Last Updated: 2021-08-12By

Homes are being sold all the time in all cities and regions. To drive up the costs of real estate people have thought of decorating and staging the place. This brings personal touches to all rooms and help buyers see themselves living in this particular home.

Two exactly the same houses were compared in a study. Results showed that buyers were willing to purchase or submit offers faster for decorated home. Also we found that empty house would be sold 5% – 7% cheaper even though it had exactly same features, rooms and finishing materials.

Imagine walking into empty space and what your first thought would be. Luxury kitchen and modern bathrooms feel extremely empty without proper decoration and staging. It loses the feel of completeness for the home you want to picture yourself living in for many years ahead.

In this article we wanted to explain importance of staging and answer should you decorate your house before selling? Read below our subtopics:

  • Benefits of Decorating Home Before Selling
  • Cons of Setting up Furniture When Placing on Market
  • Associated Costs with Staging Your Home
  • How Much Does Decorating Help in Selling
  • Who to Hire For Home Decoration

In our shop you can find most of the items for decorating home before selling it. If you are not sure on what to select, contact our team with images and plan of your home and we can help you stage everything without going over budget.

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Benefits of Decorating Home Before Selling

More and more homes are not only renovated, but also decorated before put on the market. Here we wanted to separate pros and cons of staging to answer if you should decorate your house before selling in more open way.

Here are the pros:

  1. Increase the Cost of Sale – there have been studies that decoration of home before selling drives the cost up by several percent. There are only average numbers and it should work for most of properties, but not for everything. Luxury homes should increase the sale way above the costs of hiring decoration team.
  1. Sell Faster – areas with unsaturated real estate may wish to sell faster. Every day of property stands on market costs seller money. Decorating the place enhances it and give a chance to attract more buyers that can place a bid sooner.
  1. Hide Some Deficiencies – every residence has minor deficiencies. We do not recommend doing this, but there are home owners who want to hide little problems with decoration items. Scratched floor may be covered with mats or pretty carpet. Uneven or damaged wall can have picture or mirror attached.
  1. Help Visualize Living Here – by placing furniture and everyday items in house, you help buyers see themselves in action. They will imagine cooking, going to bed and even using bathroom. There is not enough time during the showing to analyze everything and decorating helps to speed up imagination.

Cons of Setting up Furniture When Placing on Market

Cons of setting up furniture

The negative effect of placing furniture before selling the house.

Improving house with new furniture almost automatically means making it better, but there few exceptions. Although the idea is always to bring positive results and drive up the price or sell faster, it can sometimes hurt the property or be somewhat pointless.

Here are the cons:

  1. Tough Market for Sellers – spending money and time on decoration during hard times to sell is something home owners want to avoid. There is not much you can do, but regardless of the situation properties may be several month if not years without adequate bids.
  1. Need Budget for Decoration – another negative point about decorating home before selling is necessary budget. Many times home owners dispose properties due to financial problems or even bankruptcies. On top of all legal costs you need to budget for decorating and staging with designers.
  1. May not Be Liked by Exact Buyer – whatever you attach to current home for enhancing may not be liked by specific people. Everyone has different preferences and while some absolutely love only luxury styles, others are attracted by modern or other type of decoration.

Associated Costs with Staging Your Home

It is not a secret that to decorate home before selling requires some expenses. But how much do you really need? Remodel On Point describes 5 steps that home owners spend money on during staging.

  • Furniture – probably biggest expense during home decoration is getting furniture. Purchasing everything is expensive and people rather rent everything for several months. Extreme way (that we do not recommend) is buying furniture and returning it after the house is sold. Expect to spend $3000 – $5000 for average size home.
  • Small items – to finalize decoration process you need small neutral items that bring place to live. Items like face towel, flowers, tooth brushes, silverware and even couch pillows. You may already have beautiful pieces to finish up the process, but to follow the style of staging you can spend $200 – $500 for all these.
  • Delivery – where ever decoration items are coming from, make sure delivery is taken care of. Otherwise money will be spent on truck rental or hiring delivery company. The range of costs for delivery is from 0 to $600.
  • Hiring professional – with demand for decoration of homes before selling, there professional home stagers became a thing. Hiring one of them to help outsource entire process of staging can cost $1000 – $2000. We recommend spending time on computer and learning how to do it yourself.
  • Photography – do not take pictures of house before decorating it. If there is a plan to put additional furniture, wait till it is completed. Good photographers charge $300 – $600 for this work. It includes adjusting all images on specific software before uploading them.

How Much Does Decorating Help in Selling

How decorating help in selling

Pros of decorating your home before selling.

Why some people claim decorating house does not help sell the home or increase the price while other have only positive things to say about it. We believe most of it has to do with type of the home being staged and how much thoughts are put in the work.

Cheaper properties that are not in great condition have the lowest effect of driving sales with decoration. This can be explained by buyer intentions to either flip property or to find most affordable options. Thus they would not care much for furniture being properly placed throughout the house.

Average cost and size of houses take most of the sales in real estate and see larger benefits with decorating prior to sale. It helps to stand out from all other images buyers look at before even booking the showing. Attracting more potential buyers, increases amount of bids.

Luxury properties these days do not even sell without decoration. Imagine walking into several million dollar place and it’s completely empty. Walls and flooring are boring and customers leave without a thought in their mind.

Another point that increases value of decoration is doing it properly. Simply by adding bunch of furniture and paintings does not help at all. The whole process has to underline all benefits of the house and let buyers fill the gaps of how they envision living here.

Who to Hire For Home Decoration

The process of home decoration is not as simple as it may seem from first time you think about it. There are several steps to it and knowing exactly what to do is a must. For quality work decorators need to have resources and connections where to get all staging items for good price.

  • Hire local professional – there are agencies that specialize in decoration for any house, condo and commercial places. They are true professionals and know how to get the maximum for your dollar.

Decoration and staging companies have their own inventory or have partners they work with. They charge for entire process and charge around $10 000 for everything from beginning to end. It is on expensive side but you save a lot of time for selecting everything, delivering and placing it.

  • Hire online specialist – another option to get help on distance. Home owners pay $500 – $1000 for consultation and entire break down of what to get and where to get it. Remodel On Point provides decoration packages online for all homes and offices.

The idea is to be involved in the process and save money by not hiring company that includes full package services. Home owners save 20% – 30% by hiring online professionals in decoration and sticking to the list of items to rent and place in their home.

  • Do it yourself – the last option we are discussing is decorating everything by yourself. Simply by doing research, home owners can learn about process of decoration. Even placing your own existing decoration is a thing, but does not work as well as new items.

Doing it by yourself will save you some money. You will have to do all the planning and finding where to purchase or rent decorations. Time spent on this work is never worth the money. We recommend either getting online help or hiring local company.

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Each building has some sort of driveway or at least should have. The main reason is for vehicles to come closer without need to walk all the way. Some homes are residential with small driveway for their car to come in and park before garage or front entrance, and others can be large commercial buildings with loading docks, delivery entrances and casual parking entrances. On Point Remodeling was asked for suggestions on residential driveway for new home construction, and we decided to write detailed article for all our readers. Using this guide you can select the material for your driveway and see what works for your budget. Here are the materials for driveway we will be discussing in our guide:
  • Asphalt
  • Concrete
  • Paver Stone
  • Crushed stone
  • Brick
  • Seashell
  • Gravel
To find good contractor for your driveway, you can either ask our team by email or try to find someone local that worked with neighbors or nearby buildings.

Installation process of any material surface on your driveway

a) Demolition and Excavation – Before anything is done, your contractor will get heavy machinery and scratch off old layer of driveway. They need to go down at least 5-6 inches to insure proper layering before your final layer of material is installed. b) Material Purchase and Delivery – At this point your contract is signed and you already know how the surface will look. Contracting company purchases necessary materials and delivers them to site. Double check if material is correct and not damaged. c) Preparation of Sublevel – Whatever you place as final material, it cannot just be installed directly on top soil. Gravel is the first choice of material that goes down at this stage. Other preferred material is screen sand that can go on top of gravel and works better with stone and bricks. d) Compaction of Ground – To prevent your driveway from moving and changing shapes, all the layers from bottom up have to be properly compacted. Do not leave any spot untouched while doing this or you can get small holes and cracks in driveway after installation. E) Final Installation – This is when all the magic happens. After all preparations and dirty work the final installation is made literally within hours and you can enjoy new driveway. Stone and brick is set up by hand, while other materials require some sort of machinery with manual labor to even out surface.

1. Asphalt

Probably the most used material for road top surfaces as well as driveways is asphalt. This is a mix of gravel and sand that is mixed in and combined by asphalt cement with crude oil. Pros of Asphalt Driveway
  • Very popular and easy to find materials/contractor
  • Completed in 1 day and you can drive on it after
  • Patches and small holes can be fixed fast
Cons of Asphalt Driveway
  • Easy to damage and cracks appear in few years
  • Almost everyone else has same surface
  • Oily surface and chemicals used in mix
Prepared for asphalt driveway will cost you around $5 per square foot to finish. The contractors that take care of entire process from taking out old driveway surface, install subsurface and compact the ground with new asphalt on top, will charge on average $5500 per regular size driveway at single home property.

2. Concrete

What we call concrete is a mixture of Portland cement, aggregate as well as sand with gravel. Suggested thickness of concrete for driveway is 6 inches. The mixture needs to cure without being touched or driven on top for several days. Pros of Concrete Driveway
  • Durable material for large weights
  • Long lifespan if installed properly
  • Winter and summer friendly
Cons of Concrete Driveway
  • Has marks and stains over time
  • Hard to repair without replacement
  • Super hard to DIY
To hire contractors for concrete driveway it will cost around $7-$9 per square foot. This will include site preparation with gravel spread and new concrete installation. They will order full truck of concrete (or several for larger driveways) to pour inside forming. Smoothening and curing is required after installation.

3. Paver Stone

The most luxurious material that you can use to create driveway path with is paver stone. It is made out of natural stone with uneven rough shapes that have different line patterns. Paver stones are very heavy and are perfect for weights on top of them. Almost every city in Europe has roads and walks made out of stone that were installed centuries ago. Pros of Paver Stone Driveway
  • Creative designs can be done
  • Personal looks, can match the house
  • Can replace single stone in minutes
Cons of Paver Stone Driveway
  • Weeds growing through
  • Stone can move over time
  • Most expensive material
There is wide selection of stone that can be purchased for your driveway. On average we recommend settling with $17-$20 per square foot for stone with installation included. Working with this material is very intense labor and we recommend hiring professionals that do this type of work every day.

4. Crushed Stone

Our readers sometimes mistake crushed stone with gravel, but this is not the same material. Crushed stone material is achieved when machine is mechanically crushing larger pieces of unused stone for this specific purpose. It is larger than gravel and can have smooth finish. Crushed stone can also have a mix of colors, which is much pleasant to eyes than gravel. Pros of Crushed Stone Driveway
  • Low maintenance required
  • Fits rural area style
  • Can be reused for other purposes
Cons of Crushed Stone Driveway
  • Gets very hot during summer
  • Can be messy after many drives
  • Hard to remove snow and ice
Buying crushed stone and installing it on your driveway is as easy as it gets. Similar to other rough materials discussed in this post, only small tools like shovels, dolly and buckets are required to spread it on the road. The cost of crushed stone driveway is between $4 and $6 per square foot from professional local contractors that can finish the job in several days.

5. Brick

The same brick we see being used in wall construction can be installed as top driveway surface. Brick is manufactured by compressing clay with plastic mass. It is heated to extreme temperature and dried up to become as solid as you know it. Pros of Brick Driveway
  • Variety of selections in shapes and shades
  • Bricks are recyclable
  • Slip resistant with rough top part
Cons of Brick Driveway
  • Needs regular maintenance
  • Change color over time
  • Old fashion looking
Installing brick on driveway costs $10 per square foot, which is not too far from masonry brick laying as part of the wall. To save money you can use or purchase old brick, that was part of a wall before. Do not mix these two jobs and contact landscaping professionals instead of masonry contractors that work with bricks.

6. Seashell

This material is popular on the coast line where shells can be found near the water. Construction companies use seashells to add in other materials as well as spread them on driveway in rough condition, without adding anything else. It usually comes in white or pearl color and darkens within year because of mixing with sand and dirt. Pros of Seashell Driveway
  • Environmentally friendly
  • Has natural drainage
  • Creates worm vibe of beach house
Cons of Seashell Driveway
  • Break and crack under light weight
  • Sharp and very hard to walk on
  • Gets stuck in shoes and tires
To deliver and spread seashells on driveways costs below $4, which is only slightly more expensive than rough gravel. As you go further from coast line, cost of material increases due to delivery. This material is elegant and very soft. We recommend adding edge lines with darker color landscape material to create visual path.

7. Gravel

This material is used in other construction mixes and underlayment systems. It’s literally fragments and small crushed stones that are put on top of soil. It is easily spread out by hands and anyone can do it. Pros of Gravel Driveway
  • Cheapest of them all
  • Easy DIY Job
  • Can install another material on top
Cons of Gravel Driveway
  • Needs to be graded very often
  • Will mix with dirt and leaves
  • Washes up with heavy rains
It is rough material and can be purchased in bulk (by metric tons or cubic meters). The cost of driveway with gravel should not exceed $3 per square foot, but you can save tons of money by purchasing materials and doings installation by yourself. You do not require specific tools or heavy equipment for the job and delivery of gravel can be arranged directly to your project.

Conclusion

To properly finish any and all of these driveways requires skills and experience. There is no way you can complete any of these projects without heavy equipment and tools that regular home owner’s just store in their garages. Most of those who will read this post will prefer to install asphalt driveway, because of its popularity and low costs. We want to encourage home owners to go for personal preference and what matches your house, rather than getting the most affordable and popular items. Driveway jobs have to be completed fast; otherwise you will need to park elsewhere while the project is running. To not overpay, ask us for quotation sample on material you prefer in specific region where the work need to be done and our team can provide some numbers.

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