Home staging has become an increasingly popular trend for home sellers in Australia and throughout the world. It is used as a marketing tool for a faster sale with a higher return. When done right, property styling can increase the value of your sale by 7.5% – 12.5%. Not bad for a quick cosmetic fix before listing your home!
What is home staging?
Home staging is the styling of your home for the duration of the selling period, with the intention of selling it faster and for more money. This is different to renovating your home for profit or doing interior decorating to match your own taste. This kind of styling is like a makeover for the house, presenting it in the best light to appeal to a wider audience.
Types of home staging:
Home staging can be as big or as little as you’d like to make it. Some houses might already be quite up-to-date and only require a bit of DIY staging or some partial styling. That is, thoughtfully displaying some nice decorative pieces, moving the existing furniture around to maximise the space or buying some new cushions for the lounges or artwork for the walls. None of this needs to be expensive, it can involve a quick trip down to Kmart for some cheap and cheerful pieces that will still make a big visual impact.
Clearing out any clutter or excess furniture is also a good idea. Perhaps you might have a storage locker or access to a friend’s garage during the marketing period to put any big items that you want to keep, but they make the place look a bit too crowded or messy. That way you free up some space to move around key pieces of furniture and you can stage them to maximise the look, feel and functionality of a room.
At the other end of the scale is a full property styling. This is where you enlist the help of the experts who will come to your property, assess what you need and will then turn up armed with their own furniture, wall art, rugs and any other pieces big or small to get your house looking really magazine worthy. This is a more costly option but will also give you a higher return on investment. This option is great if you have an empty house for sale or if your place and furniture is very out-dated or run down.
The benefits of home staging:
When looking at an empty house, a whopping 90% of home buyers cannot visualise themselves living there. That is almost every person who inspects your empty property not being able to imagine themselves there – which doesn’t bode well for a good sale. Placing furniture in the home not only helps a prospective buyer visualise themselves living there it also helps them see how best to use the spaces in the home most effectively.
When staging a home, make sure to do it before the marketing photos are taken. These photos are the first impression anyone will have of your home and as you know, first impressions count. It is these photos that will entice buyers into visiting your open home and hopefully falling in love with the place once they are there.
Probably one of the biggest benefits of staging your home is to give it an inspirational feel. If the interior of a house looks like it should be on the pages of a magazine, people will feel more inspired to live there. Remember, you aren’t just selling a home, you are selling a lifestyle.
Who should use home staging?
A recent survey in the UK revealed that staged homes are sold up to 3x faster than unstaged homes, and for a higher price. But that doesn’t mean that home staging is for everybody. If your home is clearly a knock-down that is aimed towards developers or people looking to build a new home on your block of land, then property styling wouldn’t be the best thing for you. The return on investment in those cases wouldn’t be high enough.
However, it is definitely recommended for sellers with an out-dated property or an empty house.
Have you ever staged a home? Would you consider if the next time you sell?