Home Staging Checklist

To prep a property to sell or rent

Home Staging Checklist forms work well to get you focused on the right things. When you decide to sell or rent your home, it can be quite overwhelming. This is especially true when you’ve lived in your home for many years. You’re comfortable, you’ve accumulated a great number of things and stuff, and you are so used to your status quo… you aren’t able to see potential pitfalls that your prospective buyers notice right away.

Our Home Staging Checklist is free, easily downloadable and a pdf file, so everyone should be able to easily open it, print it, use it. This is a checklist primarily for the owner-occupied situation: you are the owner, and you’re living in the property while you plan to show it to prospective buyers (or renters). For this reason, you’ll be able to make the small repairs and adjustments that may be needed.

For a more in-depth explanation and additional photos to explain concepts, click where clickable, and visit Home Staging, Home Staging Pictures and Home Staging Interior Design.

Here are some of our top favorite things on the Home Staging Checklist to focus on first:

Front Doors are SOOOO Important!!!

Your front door is THE VERY FIRST IMPRESSION of what to expect on the inside.

Give THE BEST first impression! It’s EASY and CHEAP!!

The front door, trim, and space above and around should be CLEAN (no cobwebs or dirt!). For a budget of less than $100, you can paint the front door and update the door hardware to make it look even more attractive and well-maintained. (“well-maintained and clean” are the minimum first impressions you want to create).

Our FAVORITE front door paint is from Modern Masters, comes in a plastic jar, and comes in lots of different colors. But there are lots of paints that will work well for front doors.

Front Door Hardware

Front door hardware should be clean and new-looking! This is an EASY DIY project you can do yourself. Make sure to measure where the holes are for the screws. For the above handle hardware, we measured the distance between to the top and bottom screws

Clean! Clean! Clean!

We don’t just mean sweep and dust. Deep cleaning is essential to the start of the selling cycle. Deodorize all flooring, remove dust everywhere. Clean fronts of all cabinets, drawers, handles. Clean all fan blades, tops of cabinets and refrigerator. Kitchen appliances and countertops, and bathroom showers/sinks/toilets/bathtubs should be sparkly super clean. Remove carpet stains.

Our favorite cleaning product is the Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. Why? They can often clean up scuff marks on walls, trim, doors allowing us to avoid more costly painting and paint touchups. These sponges are great for cleaning appliances like refrigerators and microwaves, as well as countertops and windowsills. (not good for mirrors, they leave a slight white residue).

AC / Air Conditioning Closet and Vents

Remove every piece of dust from your AC closet, all AC vents, and put in a new AC filter. If you haven’t had your AC coil cleaned in more than 3 years, get it done. It will significantly upgrade the air quality of your home.

If you have the coil cleaned, share this information potential tenants or buyers. It lets them know you are actively maintaining the property.in marketing your home for sale, and let potential buyers know.

For ugly old metal AC vents in the ceiling, paint them white! It’s easy to unscrew them from the ceiling. Take them off, spray paint them outside and when they are dry, screw them back in! And if you have ring of dirt/dust (see photo) that has resulted from dirty filters and coils… vacuum that area of the ceiling really well. You may need to use a dry-brush technique to cover over with some white paint. By using a dry brush with just a tiny bit of white paint you can blend the new white with the old white better. Otherwise, you may need to re-paint the entire ceiling because the white paints won’t match. Over time, ceilings can yellow. Popcorn ceilings are especially problematic as they attract dust, grime.

Make Small Repairs

Do you have a broken microwave handle?? Toilet Running, loud noises, not flushing correctly? Are some fence slats loose or rotting? Do you have a ceiling fan that makes a loud noise? These are all things that can be fixed yourself, or inexpensively by a professional. If you leave them, buyers WILL NOTICE THESE ISSUES!

Fix the small inexpensive things. If you don’t have the money to install the new roof you know you need… that’s okay. Make sure you’re honest and disclose it to your potential buyer, negotiate your asking price if need be. But don’t let the small repairs go without being fixed. These are items that will bring you more return for the small investment.

Remove...

Refrigerator magnets (yes, remove EVERY ONE OF THEM!)
Everything off of all flat surfaces including countertops, tables
Family photos off all walls, shelves, flat surfaces etc. Yes, ALL of them!
All fake flower arrangements, and all but 1-2 potted plant per room
Smaller pieces of furniture and wall hangings and accessories especially near front door
Wall art/ wall hangings except on 1 wall per room… bare walls are good!

Box Stuff Up

If you are selling or renting, and there is current occupant items still inside the property… BOX STUFF UP! Why? Prospective buyers or renters want to see that who’s living there now, is actively moving out.

Grab some boxes and start packing up non-essential items like books, family photos and knick-knacks!

Looking for some great tips and guidance on how to get it done with less stress, more productivity and organization? Check out this article at moving.com.