We sold a second home in 2021. Our son had lived in the house for the past five years while he went to school. During this time we did extensive renovation (over $100k invested). When he moved out, he took virtually everything with him leaving us with a ‘bare’ house. We purchased furniture and decorating (some new, some second hand) to stage the home. This was bought just to stage the house. We believe we can apply staging expenses to the Cost Basis if we hire a home stager, but can we apply staging expenses for furniture, decorating, a fully functional kitchen, linens, etc that we purchased in order to facilitate the sale of the house? Does it matter if the buyers had purchased all the house contents including furniture, decorating, comforters, pillows, linens, towels, TVs, plates and utensils, area rugs - basically everything in the ‘fully move-in ready home’ except food and clothing.
