To think I can stage an empty flat with absolutely no experience

[Canistageit]

I am having to sell a flat for a deceased relative. The money is not coming to me and there is no benefit to me but i am happy to help as the people inheriting are the best. I’ve been quoted a fortune for putting furniture and curtains etc in it to make it look better and easier to sell. I have no doubt the person who has quoted would make it look amazing but the estate cannot afford to pay this much surely I can do this myself with a little time and buying some things new but getting some things from charity shops. If you agree then please help by adding anything you think I should buy, if you don’t please tell me so I can write it off as a silly idea.

I’ve sold two flats with zero staging.

As long as it’s clean and tidy I wouldnt be spending too much on it, professional staging may be useful to large very expensive houses but this doesn’t sound like what you have ?

I don't think you should buy anything.

What's wrong with selling an empty property? Most people don't want other people's stuff, as it's expensive to get rid of.

Also, why wouldn't the people inheriting buy the stuff anyway?

Just clear it completely, give it a deep clean. I love nothing more than an empty premises that I can put my own stamp on.

Is the flat completely empty now or does it have the deceased person's furniture still in? I'd just leave it and sell as is to be honest rather than put a lot of effort and money into staging, unless it's a very valuable flat. Perhaps if there is some furniture you could bring some soft furnishings e.g. clean neutral bedding, cushions etc from your own house for the pictures but I wouldn't go buying things specifically even cheaply if you'll only need to dispose of them again when the flat sells... The number one factor which will make the house sell easily is price IMO, price it realistically and it will shift quickly, whereas all the staging in the world won't make someone pay more than it's worth. Sorry if that's not what you wanted to hear...

Don't bother. Just make sure its clear of whatever is left in it and nice and clean.

Completely empty so we’ve had advice that it’s better if you can to have furniture as people can visualise it. It’s being sold and people inheriting the money.

I’ve sold seven houses and flats, some empty, some inhabited, and never did more than give them a good clean and touch up any scuffed or marked paint. Unless what you’re trying to sell is for some reason very niche and only likely to sell to a very small subset of buyer, or it’s a very difficult market, I wouldn’t bother ‘staging’ it. (The only situation where I saw the point was a neighbour who did up a beautiful derelict Regency house, but his plans changed and he decided to let it rather than live in it. Because the rent was so high, and it was going to be affordable to so few, it made sense to stage it, and as he was out of the country he hired one of those ‘staging’ firms.)

Why does it need staging? Who told you this? It’s much easy to sell an empty flat as everything can be seen easily.
Just make sure that it’s clean and maybe do some small obvious things if there are some but no one needs you to get furniture from charity shop and put it there for a couple of months, you’ll need to remove all of these afterwards.

Don't buy anything until you have had three different agents round to look at it as is, and take their advice.
I did this - was a bit minging before, but kind of okay. To me, it was horrible but I would still have bought it.
I set £500 aside.
I bought off-white emulsion and painted almost everything.
I papered a feature wall in each bedroom with something neutral and less vile.
I replaced two light pendants and the pull string in the bathroom (basic, look at You tube)
I bought paper shades for all rooms.
I bought cleaning things and scrubbed EVERYTHING, incl windows.
I spent money on new fluffy towels, a new washing up bowl, pretty matching cloths / tea towels / scrubbers etc.
I spent about £100 on fake plants at The Range (scarily easy to do) but it meant each room had a green thing.
New doormat.
Emptied the bins to the tip.
Took off the crappy satellite dish and empty hanging baskets.
Bought a pot for the front.
Put fake flowers in kitchen window.

Sold like a FLASH! Yes, I now have a worktop.full of plastic plants but the new hand towels are BRILLIANT for yoga (don't match my bathroom).

Ask an agent before spending anything. They told.me to leave kitchen, bathroom and fake gas fire and just 'freshen'. Was good advice.

everything will be brand new in it and freshly painted but it will be completely empty. Estate agents have all said it sells more quickly if people can see furniture and don’t leave empty rooms if you can avoid it as it makes them look smaller and some people will avoid if they can’t work out where to put their beds etc

It isn't a silly idea, and sorry that you are in the position you are in. Buyers will just see through any "staging", you will waste your money imo Depending what time you have I would do the following

• remove all personal effects, and stuff in storage cupboards
• clean it within an inch of its life, then clean it again !
• work out what you are doing with the furniture and white goods (removing and dismantling furniture can take a long time) make sure this is clear on selling particulars - some people love getting stuff because they have nothing, some hate it. Old furniture puts people off a room, they want to see the size and imagine it with their stuff in,
• tidy the garden (a lot of people want a garden but cannot see through mess if is there)
• if you have the time, then cheap neutral paint, cover obvious cracks etc. and grouting and so on, flooring makes a difference to a room, so if you can do nothing else, make sure it is clean
• Don't worry about curtains etc, they will take them down anyway, and open windows let the light in.
• Pay attention to windows and locks (clean, and put some WD40 on the mechanisms)
• It is my personal bug bear but do not have bare bulbs, any £1 charity shop shade is better

Hope it goes OK, xx

If you must do something, paint it white throughout and replace the carpets with new (cheap) light coloured carpets - same in every room - to make it look bigger.

Hmm, I do see what your agents mean but I also tend to think that the sort of person who needs to physically see a bed, a sofa, a table and chairs and so on in the flat in order to 'visualise' that these things would also be there / would fit in if they lived there, probably also wants to see relatively nice new furnishings and would be put off by mismatched or old fashioned charity shop bargains or obviously cheap stuff, so you'd need to spend quite a lot of time scouring for good quality well matched items - all time the flat's not on the market so losing money effectively. And even from charity shops etc I'm sure you will spend a good few £ (especially if you need to buy soft furnishings and decorative items to make it look 'dressed' too). I'm still tempted to say leave it as is and just bang on the market ASAP, plenty of people are well capable of looking at a floor plan and working out where they'll put the bed and so on, if it's a relatively small flat there's an argument leaving it empty can actually make it look bigger...

Depends on the agent, another agent might say don’t bother

you get all sorts of bonkers advice but I’d be thinking an agent advising this might want to recommend a friend to do the staging for a fee.

just do whatever is easier. Realistic pricing is most important. The cost of getting stuff in and out will be an issue too.

You might lose out on a minority terminally unimaginative viewers (the same literal-minded people who appear to be incapable of imagining a bedroom redone as a home office or vice versa), but unless it’s going to be particularly difficult to sell (undesirable area/quirky/ very small/ neighbours’ gardens full of discarded sofas and briars), think of the trouble and expense you’ll save.

I've just sold my flat completely empty. My estate agent didn't say anything about it apart from make sure it's had a good clean!

Someone near me bought a fixer upper at auction, redecorated it and flipped it. This was a 70s property with original kitchen! They staged it with minimal furniture and it turned out they used inflatable double beds for the bedroom - gave an idea of the space a bed would take up without the expense. It sold quickly.

LOL meanwhile on my thread about selling my flat people have told me I should buy a garden table and chairs, a barbecue, plants, new bed sheets, new towels, new kitchen cabinet doors, new kitchen tiles, new curtains and lampshades, artwork for the walls, flowers, cushions, wine and crusty bread (not kidding), a fruit bowl, radiator covers, candles, mirrors, rugs, someone even suggested I completely remodel my kitchen!

I bought my present house completely empty and it took me about a minute to know I wanted to buy it.

When selling, I spent two hours every day before viewings tidying, cleaning, dusting and polishing surfaces so everything was spotless, bright and sparkling. Make sure the surfaces, paintwork, windows and all fittings are clean and shiny.

Ha, yes, selling threads on MN can be a bit bizarre, especially about selling a flat, so many MNetters apparently shudder at the thought of living in anything other than an immaculate detached 5 bed with no neighbours and parking for 100 cars they struggle to see how anything less could be remotely marketable or desirable, so the thought of mismatched tea towels in the pics or the lack of a stunt pineapple tips them into the vapours. Meanwhile some of us old lags are going 'is that a portal to another dimension I see in pic 5 next to the rising damp? Nah don't bother closing that off mate, way too much £, you'll never see a return. Turn it into a feature, you never know you might attract a nice young Satanist couple' 😂😂

Seriously though, if you're going to sell your property 'lived in' aka with furniture and normal stuff in it, there's probably some benefit in sprucing it up just a bit with some nice soft furnishings and 'dressings', especially if you'll have a use for them in your next place (not to the extent you've been told but maybe a few things off that list?). I don't think it really matters to many buyers myself, I think of the things you can change/control, price is by far the most important, followed by it looking fairly clean and smelling normal and not damp or musty, followed by tidyness and lack of clutter, followed a long last by decor and window dressing. But if you're trying to achieve a good price and are prepared to wait it out the window dressing might just tip a buyer over the edge into an offer. There's a world of difference between that though and buying a load of furniture from scratch just to fill an empty flat...

Estate agents will have you jumping through hoops and spending money like water if you let them. It's their job to sell the property, not yours. Make sure it's clean and tell them to get on with it. Also make sure you have a no sale no fee agreement with them.

Make sure its clean.
Has it got carpets / Flooring?

We bought our home empty- I loved seeing the blank slate like that- I always thought it was a plus honestly.I wouldn't waste money on staging.

Don't buy furniture, just fix anything that is broken, deep clean and if you wanted to just paint everything white. A fresh coat of white paint will lift everything & give buyers a shell to work with. Always works wonders as it nakes the house look clean & spacious.

I am house hunting atm & I'd prefer to see an emply shell so I can visualise my things in there. Everything I've seen is too cluttered and so obviously staged that I can't see past the junk.