Home Staging Toronto � Toronto Home Staging Blog

The article below by Rachel Naud was published in the Calgary Herald on November 10, 2011. It touches on a number of very practical points.

Selling your home can be one of the most personal transactions you’ll ever experience.

Think about it, your home is where you make your memories, mark your milestones, celebrate your achievements and learn from your failures.

It’s hard to put a price tag on the place where you built your life.

Yet when it comes to selling your home, homeowners are wise to leave their emotions at the door.

That’s probably the first thing a homeowner needs to know and do before putting up a for-sale sign.

If you want to sell your home for top dollar, home sellers need to have their home “move-in ready,” says Carmen Paradis, a realtor with Re/Max Real Estate Central.

“Buyers want a house they can just move into,” says Paradis.

“They don’t want to have to do anything. People do not want to do the work. They just like to move in and live.”

And although some home sellers may translate this to mean they have to completely renovate their bathrooms and kitchens before putting their home on the market, Maxwell Canyon Creek realtor Joe Samson says this isn’t the case. In fact, sometimes he even advises against it.

“If you’re trying to sell a home that’s below the average selling price, there’s no point in spending $15,000 on a kitchen renovation,” says Samson. “Renovate to what your surroundings are. Don’t get carried away and out-renovate your neighbours.”

He says if a buyer walks into your starter home and sees high-end appliances and granite countertops, they’ll also most likely see a higher price tag.

“If buyers are looking for a house in the $300,000-range and nine out of 10 houses are $300,000 but yours is $350,000 because you have all this beautiful stuff in there, it’s going to take longer to sell, if at all,” says Samson.

“Doing renovations like that will force you to sell higher than your direct competition. You’ll never get your money back.”

Instead, both Paradis and Samson say the biggest investment a homeowner can make to fix up their homes doesn’t cost much at all – paint.

“Paint is biggest thing you can do,” says Paradis. “Sometimes, even if you wash your walls, you can’t get smudges or fingerprints off. Paint fixes that.

“It can also fix odour in the home. Odour turns people off. Especially if the home sellers smoke.”

When it comes to choosing a paint colour, Paradis recommends going with a neutral colour that will appeal to a wide range of buyers. The same rule applies to carpets.

“Some people really like colour but it doesn’t appeal to everyone,” says Paradis. “So let’s say you put in a carpet two or three years ago but it’s purple. You may want to get rid of that.

“Replacing your carpet is one of the most inexpensive things to do but it will give you great bang for your buck. People walk in and it feels fresh and clean and gives you a lot of value because you have more people interested in your house.”

Paradis also recommends fixing all those little projects you have been meaning to get to for years, such as squeaky door handles and loose railings. “It’s the little things that turn people off,” she says. ” It just doesn’t look good.”

Curb appeal is also huge. So if you have chipped paint, an unkept yard and garbage on your lawn, you could scare away potential buyers before they even step in the door.

“If the house looks unkept, quite often people make the decision even before getting out of car,” says Samson.

“They’ll say forget it. I don’t need to see this house.”

Instead, Samson suggests homeowners make the outside of their home look engaging, welcoming and well maintained.

“You want to create an image so people think your house feels like home,” says Samson. “They want to envision themselves living there, not seeing themselves fixing up the outside for two months.”


Independent of market conditions, home staging is a highly effective marketing tool used to maximize the selling price of Toronto area homes and condos.

StagingWorks is the premier Toronto home staging company. We provide a complete range of professional services which include vacant home staging, occupied home staging and condo staging. We have staging packages to accommodate most budgets and serve Toronto, GTA and surrounding areas.

Please visit our home staging portfolio for more samples of our staging projects. Give us some some details on your home and when you’re planning to sell, and get a free home staging estimate. Or, call us for a free estimate at (647) 409-2091 or anne@StagingWorks.ca.

StagingWorks has been voted Toronto’s top home stager by Toronto Life.





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