The immediate answer that comes to mind to answer the "Why stage your home" question is to make it look more attractive to potential buyers, to give them a chance to see not only the way you view your house but the way a professional designer might place your furniture to enhance the interior look and feel.  This is obviously the right answer. 

But there are other not so obvious reasons to stage your home.  All of us use our homes on a daily basis.  And many of us can't necessarily afford a professional designer to arrange everything in the house to get maximum space utilization and comfort from it.  When we put a home up for sale, we no longer want it to be our home.  It is now a house.  It's for sale.  And it has to attract the greatest number of potential buyers who can walk into it and see it as their home.  Until that happens, there is little chance of a sale.

Staging by a professional does several things.  It opens up paths and spaces that may now be occupied by our favorite sculpture, kid's school project, hand-me-downs that we don't want to discard but really have no space for, or paths that should be open but are occupied by that favorite old recliner that feels like heaven but looks like it's been in the family for six generations.

Sometimes the cure is simply to reduce clutter, get rid of some of the last fifteen years of family reunion photos on the hallway walls, remove the artwork we did while we were taking our first art class at the local community college, or picking up throw rugs that have followed us through several houses and just don't quite match the current decor.  It can also be a matter of moving things around to follow basic design principles and guidelines. 

This is no critique of anyone's decorating skills.  It's actually the art of maximizing the visual appeal of your house so that others are able to imagine themselves living comfortably in the house that you are selling.

Back to that not so obvious reasons to stage your home.  I've walked into many homes that look like a museum of family mementos and history.  As soon as I see those things, I stop looking at the house and look at the life and style of the owners of the home.  I believe that buyers do the same.  They are distracted by all the cute and interesting vacation photos, wedding photos, and collections of all sorts of trinkets.  This or any distraction turns them from buyers into visitors.

And the last reason is one that may be at least as important as the others...safety.  The last thing you want a prospective buyer doing is tripping, falling or knocking something over inside your house.  Staging gets rid of clutter and opens up used space.  Having minimum decorations in your house reduces distractions and potential accidents, whether it be tripping or accidental breakage of something precious to you.

When your real estate professional tells you to get certain things off your counters, shelves and out of your rooms, she or he is telling you that you need to eliminate clutter and personalization of your house that might turn a buyer off.  Before you put your house up for sale, go look at a local model home.  It has probably been carefully decorated by a professional designer.  That designer's profession is making the inside of a home look appealing to anyone who walks into it.  Think about how you feel when you see kitchen counters without the latest Ninja pots, blenders and coffee makers.  Also, how do you feel when you see a room with much less furniture than you would place in it?  Also, notice how easy it is to navigate in a staged house.  Does it look larger or smaller because of the decorating?  Lastly, is it safer and less distracting?

Thanks for reading!  Please feel free to add comments or contact me to get more ideas on how to prepare you home to sell.