Just my 2 cents…. I was totally against staging AND putting in some extra work (painting, actually redid the kitchen floor), but I really think we recouped our money many times over in the sale. Of course it’s hard (impossible?) to know that it saved us money in the end, because we don’t have two identical houses to sell.
Regarding the staging, I wanted to buy my house once I saw it staged! I think it makes it easier for a buyer to envision living there. It’s hard to visualize your furniture in a place that’s empty.
Regarding redoing the kitchen floor, which was the most expensive thing we did ($2000? as I recall). I’m now convinced that many, many buyers don’t walk in and say, “His kitchen floor needs replacing. I can do that the way I want it for $2000, so I’ll just offer $2000 less”. They say, “I’m walking away and looking for a place that has a perfect kitchen floor, or I’m offer 25K less”.
I agree that it’s psychologically hard to pull the trigger on repairs and staging when you’re walking away from the house. The logic side of the brain, says, “what’s the point?”.
