Selling a lake home can present certain challenges and opportunities that you may not find with a house away from the water. Staging can help tremendously to secure the highest price for your home and also help to sell it more quickly.
Staging your lake home provides a unique opportunity to tie in elements of your home with the lake or, at a minimum, put the lake on the forefront of a potential buyer’s mind relative to other properties in the area.
Outdoor Staging
The exterior or a home should showcase the fact that along with the house, the buyer will be purchasing the chance to take full advantage of the lake nearby. One of the best ways you can do this is to put some kind of boat either by your dock, or on your beach, depending on how you gain access to the lake.
While any kind of boat will do, from a kayak to a pleasure boat, it is important to take into account what the rest of the neighborhood is like. If everyone else has nice looking boats moored to their docks, you probably want something similar, even if you don’t own one, you may want to think about renting one for the period of time that the house will be shown.
Family/Living Room
here is a good chance that one of the main living areas in your home will have a very nice view of the water. Position your furniture to make that view the focal point of the room.
If you have more than one room with large windows and an excellent view, you don’t necessarily need to do the same thing with each of them. Potential buyers know that they need to be able to put a TV somewhere, and they’ll also want some level of privacy at night as well.
While it may be tempting to go with a nautical theme in a lake house, you might consider alternative design motifs that are less overstated. There is certainly nothing wrong with a few nautical-themed pieces throughout the house, unless you know for certain that your potential buyers are very water sports-minded, sticking with a theme that showcases the lake is a safer strategy.
Kitchen
If your kitchen has windows that face the lake, be sure to completely open up the curtains or blinds, letting buyers know that they have a great view waiting for them every time they use the kitchen.
For a kitchen that opens up into a dining or living area, display a few fresh fruit items or a small bouquet of flowers on the table. You won’t need anything elaborate, just a small bowl of fruit or a small bouquet of freshly picked flowers is all you need.
The important thing is to help convey the feeling of freshness to someone looking at the home, you want to try and convey the feeling that the home is vibrant and welcoming.
Bedrooms
Staging a bedroom in a lake house is a lot like staging one in any other house – you really want to maximize the appearance of space. This means a bed, a couple of pieces of furniture, and not much else on the floor.
People want to know that they are going to have plenty of space in their bedroom and what you are giving them is the maximum amount of space possible.
When the buyer moves in, they know that their items are going to take up more space than what you have in the bedroom, which is its so important to convey the appearance of space within the home, even in small areas.
Bathrooms
As opposed to the rest of the house, a bathroom may be a great place to put up a few nautical motifs. Toothbrush holders, hand towels, soap dishes, boat pictures or anything that can provide a pop of color and give a bathroom a little bit of character.
When someone walks through a house, the last thing they want to see is a bathroom that lacks cleanliness or character. If it’s messy or uninteresting, that thought could start to creep into their mind about the rest of the house. That’s not the lasting impression that you want to leave a potential buyer.