Ready to Fast-track the Sale of Your Hamptons Home Amidst a Sea of Discriminating Buyers and Divergent Tastes? Then It's Time to Consider Working With a Stager

Selling a home in the Hamptons is by no means a slam-dunk endeavor. Fickle buyers and ever-changing wants, needs, and tastes can leave even the best Hamptons home devoid of the perfect new owner.

If you plan on selling your Hamptons home and hope to steer clear of it lingering on the market, it's worth your time and marketing dollars to consider working with a stager.

What’s a stager, you ask?

Part artist, part puzzle solver, stagers help ready a home for sale well beyond simple upgrades and touch-ups. 

They take drab, cluttered abodes, and fill them with light and space.

They add symmetry and style to neglected rooms and off-kilter nooks.

Most importantly, they transform tough-to-sell homes into ones with mass appeal. Top stagers use their design talents to change underperforming listings into in-demand properties producing interested buyers and quick sales.

While it might sound too good to be true, professional stagers can make a significant impact on the purchase of your home. Though they don't come cheap—the best stagers charge fees of up to $5,000 or more—if you want your home to fulfill its sales potential, staging is well worth the investment. In fact, the best staged homes can command well above their asking price.

Let's take an even deeper dive into the benefits of staging and explore five reasons to work with a stager when selling your Hamptons home.

You Gain a Specific Level of Expertise

Perhaps the most critical element that a professional stager brings to the table is their expertise.

​​​​​​​First, it's a stager's job to understand current trends in home selling and design. They have a good grasp of what buyers are looking for and what particular set of aesthetics will make a home attractive.

Stagers see past a home's individual components and bring them together into a single, cohesive package. 

For example, the longer you live in a house, the more apt you are to personalize its individual spaces. There’s nothing wrong with that—except when it comes time to sell.

Many buyers have trouble detaching the home from its current occupants. Personal touches such as furniture, paint colors, or room setups can make it difficult to see the house as their future home. Critiques like "not a fan of this color" or "the furniture is too big for this room" are more common than we'd like to admit during home tours.

Staging your home helps cut through that narrow view.

Stagers create a home that is a blank slate. Neutral wall colors and art that brighten and expand a home's interior. Properly sized (not to mention matching) furniture that provides individual rooms with a sense of cohesion. Injections of specific design elements that set off a home's unique attributes or its more underappreciated selling points.

​​​​​​​A home that flows from one room to the next, with a consistent design theme and is free from clutter, is easier to sell than one where the occupant appears not ready to let go.

You Gain a New Perspective

Speaking of letting go, there are many reasons for selling a home. Upgrading, downsizing, relocating, or growing tired of the same space and wanting something new. Regardless of the need to sell your Hamptons home, no doubt you've developed an emotional connection to it. That connection, however, can cloud your judgment in how best to present your house when it comes time to market it.

Yes, stagers have specific knowledge and expertise, but they can also view a house with an independent eye. This is particularly vital if you hope to show the property's versatility and mass appeal.

That spare room you always used as a makeshift office might prove more useful as a nursery or fitness area.

The afterthought of a den that was a catchall for clutter might have a starring role as a theater room.

Large unused spaces in bedrooms or hallways that collected nothing more than dust might shine as reading or study nooks.

The point being, if you live in a house long enough, and especially if you’ve come to love it, you overlook its potential, perfectly happy with what it already provides. To sell a home and sell it quickly, you’ll need buyers to recognize the potential the home has for them.

Stagers see past these emotions and can transform spaces into displays of what could be, versus what already is. In return, you get an infinitely more marketable home.

You Gain a House That Stands Apart

The Hamptons real estate market is something special. Grand seaside estates and magnificent enclaves surrounded by lots of acreage, the homes here are as unique as many of their owners.

While this unique aesthetic is one of the area's greatest attributes, it can prove to be a burden when it comes time to sell. The housing market might be distinct, but it's also highly competitive. When putting your home on the market, you’ll need it to stand apart from other houses—many of which are vying for the same finicky buyers.

It's here where staging truly proves its value. In addition to the cohesion and eye-catching versatility staging provides, it also helps a home show incredibly well. 

Buyers gravitate to immaculate, well-cared-for houses. Ones that possess a definite wow factor immediately upon stepping foot on the property. Staging trades lived-in for livability. It paints the image of a home so exceptional and valued that a new buyer will strive to continue on that legacy.

In addition, staging not only enhances a home's best attributes but also serves to mask many of its flaws. Low ceilings, tight nooks, less than desirable upgrades—whatever the shortcomings, staging can divert attention away from these undesirable elements. Partner with a particularly skilled stager and they can turn these negatives into positives.

Beyond merely showing well on their own, staged houses universally show better than those that bypassed professional staging. Working with a stager ensures that no detail is overlooked and that your luxury home indeed looks luxurious. When it comes time to make a decision, given a choice between two multi-million dollar homes, a Hamptons buyer will choose the one that looks and feels most like a multi-million dollar home.

You Gain a Little Extra Help

No doubt, moving can be extremely stressful. Not only are you attempting to sell your current home, but you're also more than likely trying to move into a new one. Staging your existing home allows you to get a jump start on that next adventure and helps you let go of the previous one.

When the staging process begins, it promotes swift decluttering and packing of your contents, allowing the stager to bring in new pieces while you move the old ones out. 

This seamless transition has the added benefit of getting the house prepped sooner—ready for home tours and open houses. The earlier you can get people in the door, the more likely you are to sell your home faster.

Admittedly, staging can be inconvenient for a time; there's a lot of moving parts when it comes to turning over a home's contents and reestablishing its look. The best stagers, though, remove a lot of the burden for you and will provide you space and time to get your stuff out before readying your home for the market.

Just don't delay too long. An unstaged home doesn't sell—or at least doesn't sell quickly.

You Gain a Home That Sells

How can we be so confident with that previous statement? Let's finish up with a few numbers, shall we? 

According to a 2019 survey of roughly 900 real estate agents across the United States, a little over half suggested that staging helps lift a home's overall value.

67% of agents surveyed stated that staging allowed sellers to capture a higher sales price, even if just some portions of the house were staged.

83% noted that staging a home ensures that it sells much faster—on average, up to a week faster—versus not staging.

Take out all the emotions associated with selling your Hamptons home and it all comes down to numbers. Your goal is to sell your home for the most money in the least amount of time. 

While staging can be an inconvenience and require additional upfront costs, the fact remains that the process does work.

In a real estate market as competitive as the Hamptons, and with buyer expectations now higher than ever, the question isn't when do you plan on staging your home. The question is, why haven't you done so already? 

Are you considering making the Hamptons your home away from home? Or maybe even your permanent address? Reach out. We're dedicated to helping you find your perfect piece of Hamptons luxury real estate.