Tips for Staging Rental Properties

Are you thinking of staging your rental property but don’t quite know where to start? This post will help.

But, first of all, congratulations on your decision to stage the rental. This is easily the best visual marketing technique for rental properties. But most landlords do not know how they can stage a rental property. So, they don’t take advantage of home staging’s power to amplify the impact of their marketing messages.

Mostly, when property owners think of home staging, they do so in connection with selling a home. But home staging is not only for selling houses; you can also use it when trying to find tenants for a vacant rental home, says Cressman Realty & Management. But there are important differences between how you stage a home for sale versus how it is staged for rent.

On the one hand, when you stage a home for sale, the objective is to transform it into the buyer’s image of their dream home. When you stage for rent, on the other hand, you want to create a cozy ambiance that makes the home feel lived in and inviting to renters. What are the important things to keep in mind when staging a rental property?

Find the answers to that question below.

Tips for staging your rental property

1. Do not personalize the rental

Do not stamp your personality on the home through the design choices you make. The goal is not to make the rental attractive from your own perspective, but to make it alluring to a larger audience. Items that personalize the home – pictures, awards, and things that show religious, political, or even sport team affiliations – should be excluded.

2. Clean, declutter, and keep it minimal
Give the entire home a deep clean and polish surfaces that need it – floors, switches, knobs, doors, lighting fixtures, and railings. You should also be careful not to overdo the design. The moment you have the essential items that are needed in a home, stop designing. Your décor items should be few and purposeful.

3. Aerate and deodorize the home
If you cleaned the home thoroughly, those bad odors that linger in hard-to-reach areas would have been removed. Getting rid of odors like the smell of cigarette smoke hanging on walls, carpets, and other surfaces is more difficult but essential. Deodorizing the home will make it easier for anyone to identify with the space.

4. Use widely-accepted colors

Almost everyone has the colors they love or hate, but there is a class of colors that are neither loved nor hated. These are called neutral colors because most people are happy to live in a home painted in one of them. Neutral colors make a home feel brighter and more spacious. They will not conflict with the tenant’s décor.

5. Light up the home
Lighting will help you make the best impression when people view the home online or in person. Firstly, maximize natural lighting; it is cheaper, effective, and healthier. There should be lights at different levels of the home; ambiance, accent, and task lighting. This means including floors lamps and lights at the intermediate levels and overhead lighting.

6. Make a statement with a grand entrance
The front entryway is your chance to generate anticipation in the minds of prospective renters. The color of the front door, lighting around the area, and items that frame the doorway help put visitors in the right frame of mind. The area immediately inside the doorway is also part of what makes up the entryway.

7. Define every space or room in the house

Don’t leave prospective tenants guessing the use of any area in the home. The way you design a space should define its purpose. This will be apparent at first glance if you use the appropriate fittings and furniture. Defining the spaces in the home will help renters get a sense of how to use the various areas in the home.

8. Make the home feel alive
Small things you do can help create the feeling that someone already lives in the home, which is what you want when you stage for rent. Leaving the TV on with the sound muted, laying the dining table with dishes and fruits, having some hot coffee and freshly baked cookies on the kitchen table are few ways to make the home feel alive.

9. Identify and highlight the home’s selling points
The furniture or décor items you use and the way you deploy them must be done with the aim of showcasing the home’s best features. If there are scenic natural environments around the home, make sure they are in view. Create focal points of interest around the home’s unique features.

10. Pay attention to the exterior
Finally, do not neglect the home’s exterior, the landscaping, exterior paint, roof, and outbuildings. Make sure the lawn grass is cut, trees are trimmed, old paint is retouched, and the driveway is washed. If the roof has missing shingles or gutters are damaged and there is moss on the structures, fix these problems.

Article Written By: Camila Evans

Original Article Source Credits: Peak Residential, https://www.peakresidential.com/