Home Staging & Pre-Listing Prep in Thousand Oaks, CA

Ross Realty Group handles home staging and pre-listing preparation for sellers across Thousand Oaks and the Conejo Valley. From decluttering and repairs to full furniture staging and curb appeal — we get your home ready to attract offers before it hits the market. Contact us to schedule a consultation.

Every home is different so we make a plan that's just for you. We start by walking through your home room by room and looking at everything. We think about how buyers will move through your home and what they will see. Then we make a list of things that need to be done.

Some homes need a lot of work like paint or new furniture. Others just need small things like rearranging the furniture or packing away some personal items. We have staged homes in Newbury Park where the living room felt small because of how the furniture was arranged. After we rearranged it the room felt much bigger.

Buyers decide what they think of a home in a few seconds. So we pay a lot of attention to that first impression. We make sure the front of your home looks nice and that the inside feels welcoming.

Our process usually includes five things. First we take care of the outside of your home so it looks nice. Then we go inside and make sure the colors are neutral and the furniture is not too crowded. We take care of any repairs, like leaky faucets or old light fixtures. We add some nice decorations, like artwork or rugs to make your home feel special.

Sellers often tell us that they wish they had lived in their home the way it looked after we staged it.

Most sellers think they need to do a lot of work before they can list their home. They do not need to do as much as they think. They just need a checklist that will help them get their home ready. We walk through this checklist with every client before we start any work.

We start with the front of your home. Buyers decide what they think of a home in a few seconds so we want to make sure the front of your home looks nice. We check the porch light, the house numbers and the front door. We add a welcome mat and trim the bushes.

Inside we go through every room and check for three things: clutter, lighting and smell. We get rid of clutter like things on the countertops or too many books on the shelves. We make sure the lighting is good by changing the bulbs or opening the curtains. We make sure your home smells nice.

We also do a deep clean to make sure everything is spotless. We clean the baseboards, the grout and the windows. Buyers will notice if your home is not clean.

We do not forget the garage. Buyers care about garage space so we make sure it is clean and that there is room for two cars.

The front door is the first thing buyers notice. They decide what they think of a home in a few seconds so we want to make sure the front of your home looks nice. Everything else confirms or changes that first impression.

We see this every week. A seller has a remodeled kitchen, updated bathrooms and all the right features. But the entryway feels tight because there is a big console table and a coat rack blocking the way. The buyer walks in and already thinks the house is too small. They never get over that feeling even when they see the open floor plan around the corner.

So what do buyers notice when they walk into a house? They notice the light, the space, the flow and the smell. It does not matter in what order they notice these things. They hit them before they even look at the square footage of the house. A living room that is not well lit with heavy curtains feels old. A hallway with a lot of family photos feels like someone else's house. That pet smell that you got used to a long time ago? Buyers notice it right away.

Staging helps with all of these things. We open up the sightlines by getting rid of furniture and moving the pieces that stay. We change the dark window treatments for ones that let the natural sunlight from Thousand Oaks come in. In neighborhoods like Newbury Park, where a lot of homes have windows that face west, the right window treatments can make a room feel totally different at a 4 p.m. showing.

We use neutral colors instead of bold ones. We put white towels in the bathrooms. We set the dining table simply to make it feel like a home, not a showroom. These are not random choices. Each one helps buyers not have a reason to say no to the house. That old hallway rug, the magnets on the fridge, the pillows on the couch that do not match — none of these things are a deal-breaker on their own. When you add them up the buyer starts to think that the house is not perfect and they subtract that from their offer. Our job is to get rid of all those things so buyers see the house itself, not the stuff in it.