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Your living room could be the most important room to stage in your home when you are trying to sell. In the National Association of Realtors report “2025 Profile of Home Staging” 37% of buyers’ agents reported that staging the living room was the most important. The primary bedroom (34%) and kitchen (23%) came next.
Whether or not buyers are working with a lender, they have a critical eye for the homes they tour. Staging the rooms in your home can help impress buyers.
Key Takeaways
- Home staging, often done by a full-service realtor or third-party service, involves preparing your home to appeal to a large pool of prospective buyers.
- Buyers’ agents report that the living room is the most important room to stage, followed by the primary bedroom and kitchen.
- Staged homes resulted in offers increased between 1% and 5%, according to 17% of buyers agents.
What Is Home Staging?
Home staging is a professional service that involves arranging your home to make it appealing to buyers. Ideally, the result will allow them to imagine themselves living in the home.
The median cost of home staging performed by a staging service was $1,500 or $500 when performed by the seller’s real estate agent.
What Buyers Want to See
Buyers want to see a staged living room, but what is the ideal visual presentation? Nearly half of agents (48%) reported that buyers want to see homes that look they were staged on television shows, according to the National Association of Realtors report.
How Staging Can Impact the Sale
Staging can be a useful tool, but how does it actually affect the sale of a home? More than half of buyers’ agents (60%) observed that staging impacted how buyers view a home most of the time.
While 41% of agents found that staging had no impact on the amount offered for homes, 17% found that staged homes had offers 1% to 5% higher compared to similar homes that had not been staged.
Staged homes also might spend less time on the market; 30% of agents saw a slight decrease in the time on the market for staged homes.
Tip
If you are selling your home, you might also be in the market to buy. While you get your current home ready for sale, you can also evaluate the best mortgage lenders to help you get the loan you need to purchase a home.
The Bottom Line
Staging your home, starting with the living room, can help make it more appealing to buyers. It could potentially impact the dollar value of the offers you receive and the time the home spends on the market.
