Top Home Staging Mistakes in Canyon Creek - Austin

While preparing for a Basic Stage Coaching visit in the Canyon Creek subdivision of Austin a few weeks ago, I was looking at some online photos of the listings in the area. It occurred to me that most of the homes on the market all suffered from a lack of Basic Home Staging help. Taking notes, I made some interesting observations. Here’s a list of some of the things I discovered were commonly found in Homes for sale in Canyon Creek:

10. Poor Quality Photos: Dark, blurry photos do not set off please centers in the brain. In fact, they are more likely inspire people to stay away from the home. Note to the REA who took all Portrait Shots: The MLS is set up for optimal resolution of landscape photos. When you use portrait photos, your listing pictures are reduced to a small, blurry mess, with a big, white rectangle around them. If you do not know what I am talking about, send me an email and I can put you in touch with a professional photographer.

9. Lack of Furnishings: Empty rooms do not show well - especially if the empty room is the Formal Living Room, right inside the front door. First Impressions Matter! And there are Two - First Impressions: Outside AND Inside. If you do not have furnishings for the 5th Bedroom - so be it - but might I suggest not including the chair and boxes in the online listing photos?

8. Wall Paper: Do I really need to go into this one? And don't tell me Wall Paper is making a come back... Maybe for Living... but Not for selling. And not in my house! :)

7. Too many Chairs/Stools: One listing photo had no fewer than 11 seats between the bar in the kitchen and the breakfast table. Breakfast tables should be 2 or 4 chairs, and most times The Stage Coach will tell you to take out the barstools entirely.

6. Balloons: Ok - so only 1 listing in Canyon Creek had party ballons in the photo. And when I pulled up the listing on a different website, the home was now vacant. It was so funny, I had to include this in the list!

A few of the listings I saw were marked as "Pending" - with a couple of them showing days on market less than 2 weeks! What was so special about these homes? Let's just say I could only find a single criticism of the fast sellers: a child's room in a dark blue hue. They did have High Quality Photos, Neutral (not necessarily Beige) Paint, Clean and Decluttered rooms...

If you would like to see the rest of the list, or find out what we can do to help your Canyon Creek home show better than your competition, Contact The Stage Coach!