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5 reasons it’s a bad idea to leave rooms empty when showing your house:

 
1. People don’t buy houses, they buy homes.
 
2. It’s hard to understand how large a room is when there’s nothing in it as a reference point.
 

3. People can’t visualize how furniture will fit in an empty space and if they’re unsure, they don’t buy.
 
4. When a room is empty prospective buyers focus on negative details instead of falling in love with the overall space. Instead of looking at the flow of one room to another, they get bogged down in questions like: Is the drywall smooth? Will those bumps in the carpet come out? How come the closet doesn’t have a hanging bar yet? Why doesn’t that molding fit perfectly? How come the light switch is in the middle of the wall?
 
5. When a house or even a few rooms are empty prospective buyers can get distracted from looking at the house. Instead of focusing on whether this is the home for them, they may be busy wondering: Is this a divorce? Have they left town? Are they selling because they have money problems? This train of thought will take them where you, as a vendor, don’t want them to go! They’ll start thinking, “maybe I can put in a low ball offer since the seller might be desperate.”
 

Have you ever heard about home staging? Actually I like the British English variant more - House doctoring
 
The goal of staging is to sell a home quickly, and for the most money possible by attracting the most amount of potential buyers. Staging focuses on improving a property to make it appeal to the largest amount of buyers by transforming it into a welcoming, appealing, and attractive product for sale. A STAGED home is a SOLD home.
 
Staging often raises the value of a property by way of reducing the home’s flaws, depersonalizing, decluttering, cleaning, improving condition items, and landscaping. For vacant homes, rental furniture is used to create a living space the buyer could “see” themselves in. Properly executed staging leads the eye to attractive features while minimizing flaws.
 

Home Staging in US

 
Since the 1970s, real estate professionals have used Staging as a marketing tool in the US and Canada. Not until the 1990s did staging became a separate endeavor adopted by professional designers and decorators and home based career seekers. More recently, the trend of do-it-yourself home staging has become widely popular, as many books have been published on the subject. Staging is viewed by some as a necessary step taken prior to selling a home, and many real estate professionals and home sellers alike hire a professional Home Stager to stage their homes prior to sale. Statistics show that it makes a dramatic difference on the amount of days a property is on the market and how much it sells for.

 
Home Staging in UK
 
In Britain Home Staging had been a relatively new concept but the techniques have been televised by Californian home stylist Ann Maurice in the popular television show House Doctor on Five.

1. Make “Less is More” Your Mantra
 

 
A cluttered look comes from too much furniture. People tend to line their walls with furniture–one piece after another. Take a hard look at what you have and ask yourself what you can live without. You really only need two pieces of furniture per wall: A bed and a nightstand, say, or a dresser and a chair.
 
Another rule of thumb: If you don’t use it regularly, lose it. While you’re doing this sometimes painful pruning, remind yourself that every square foot you free up is prime real estate.
 
2. Make a Splash with Color
 

 
Painting is the cheapest, easiest way to give your home a new look. Even if you were weaned on off-white walls, take a chance and test out a quart of paint in a warm, neutral hue (you can always paint over it if you don’t like the effect).
 
If you’re too timid to whip out the paintbrushes, add punch with richly colored accessories, pillows, and throws. Bonus: When seasons change or you’re ready for something new, these couldn’t be simpler to switch out.
 
3. Let the Sun Shine In
 
Window-treatment tips: If windows are narrow, extend curtain rods a foot or so on each side to suggest width. If your ceilings are low, hang rods right at the ceiling line and consider window treatments with vertical stripes to create the illusion of height.

A picture is worth a thousand words:
 

 
Home staging is the process of preparing a home for sale, with the goal of getting the most money in the shortest amount of time possible. Home staging is proven to work - if it didn’t, builders wouldn’t spend thousands of dollars decorating model homes.
 
Most buyers decide in the first 30 seconds whether a house is right for them. That is the time a seller has to capture their interest, and staging your home will help maximize the impact of those seconds to ensure a quick sale!
 
It is crucial to stage your house BEFORE you list, so you can impress buyers the first time they visit. Otherwise, they may not come back a second time.

Want your home to sell fast, but too busy working and raising three children? Stagers help put best face on slow-moving houses. Turn to a home stager, who will rearrange furniture and add flowers and rugs to make your home more appealing to prospective buyers!
 

 
Professional stagers curb clutter, rearrange furniture and perform minor makeovers aimed at boosting sales prices and shaving the time it takes to sell properties.
 
About a quarter of homes nationwide were sold last year after being staged by a professional - up from 10 percent five years ago, according to the International Association of Home Staging Professionals.
 
The trend toward staging has been fueled, in part, by the proliferation of home improvement television shows and the challenge facing sellers seeking to distinguish their houses in a crowded market.
 
The average charge for a consultation is $100 to $300, which pays for a stager to take photos of rooms and compile a report that lists suggested improvements. Costs rise - $5,000 and up for staging multiple rooms and renting furniture for a couple of months - depending on the number of projects undertaken.
 
Remember, you have about three to five seconds to grab buyers, and it’s critical because buyers right now don’t want to do a lot of home improvement work.
 
Homes staged before being listed sold for almost 6 percent more than homes that were listed, staged and then sold, according to a study by stagedhomes.com. Several stagers have noticed a growing willingness among sellers to spend money preparing their home for a sale. The investment, which can range from $86 to paint a room to more than $1,000 to rent and stage furniture - is minuscule compared to the potential drop in a home’s asking price after lingering unsold on the market, stagers say.
 
You can’t afford not to invest. If you don’t, your house is going to sit on the market. The potential return is worth the investment. In a better housing market, sellers could list their homes with unpainted rooms or dingy carpet. No more now. With more competition, you have one chance to make a first impression.