Home office staging has become one of the most important of all property enhancement strategies. The increasing popularity of working from home and telecommuting has made a home office one of the most desired items on an average prospective buyer’s wish list. Having a dedicated home office space might add more value to your home than a small bedroom, depending on the setup of your home and the target buyer demographic. If you already have a home office, it is crucial to stage it to sell, by making the most of its functionality and usefulness to appeal to any interested buyer.
This guide explains how to improve the look and feel of a residential office space in order to increase its value to prospective buyers.
Home Office Staging Issues
The typical problems involved with the vast majority of home offices include being messy and disorganized. This haphazard appearance is a real turn-off to buyers who do not want to be reminded of their own cluttered professional spaces. Additionally, home offices are often relegated to less-desirable areas of the residence, such as the basement, the attic or even the garage.
Sometimes, the office area is shared with another functional space, such as a playroom or guest bedroom. These multipurpose rooms are huge deterrents to buyer interest, since they scream out that the home is just too small to fit in all the features that the present owner truly needs.
Office Home Staging Solutions
Staging a home office is actually very easy to do, when compared to many other rooms in the house. Here are some of my personal recommendations for home staging tips which work great in the home office environment:
Declutter the room. Remove mostly everything. Do not allow the office to become an extra closet or storage space. Instead, only keep the bare minimum of fixtures needed for actual work and arrange these furnishings to make the most of space and function.
Depersonalize the room by removing most of the photos and memorabilia which are so common in home office rooms.
Do not allow papers to accumulate on the desktop, but instead keep everything neatly filed away in drawers or cabinets.
Having a single bookshelf full of nice hardcovers will be an asset. Having hundreds or thousands of assorted books and CDs all over the room will be a horror show.
Make sure to dust everything, especially around the computer. Also, hide all the wiring for the computer and other electronics in the room.
Do not allow the rooms to look like it is all business and no pleasure. Soften it up a bit with a nice area rug, a plush chair, some art and a few well chosen accessories, to increase aesthetic appeal.
Home Office Staging Techniques
Home offices are truly a great way to stage a room in virtually any house or apartment. More and more buyers really need a home office and would love to see one already set up in the homes that they are considering purchasing. If you can locate the home office in a room with a nice scenic view, it will be a bonus. People report liking to work in a room which offers a beautiful natural view, to balance to trials and tribulations of the workday.
To learn more about setting up a home office in your house, or staging an existing residential office, consider meeting with a professional home stager or performing some of the many easy staging techniques common to DIY property staging.
