You’ve heard of home staging. Just about everybody has. It’s a relatively new industry that’s developed over the past 15 to 20 years to become a global phenomenon. Have you ever wondered just what it is that home stagers do? What are property styling services, anyway?

Home stylists are deeply immersed in the challenges and rewards of the real estate industry. It’s all second nature to us, but not everybody has sold a home recently. Those whose last experience with real estate sales was 20 years ago have not necessarily had the pleasure and satisfaction of watching a property stylist at work.

To put it plainly, property styling is meant to maximise the impact your property has on potential buyers.

We know through extensive and ongoing research that buyers are looking for very specific things in a property. They aren’t just looking for tangible things, either. They are looking for a spacious and user-friendly place to hang their hats. They are also looking for a place that will confirm for themselves and important others that they are succeeding at life. They want a house that will say to anybody passing by, “This is the home of an up-and-coming human being”.

If it sounds to you like a home stylist must have a crystal ball in order to understand what is required to create such impressions, you’re not far from wrong. Home stylists actually depend on science to give them this information. This industry gathers information from many places – from census data, scientific studies, surveys, and even focus groups. This information is then translated into amazingly accurate profiles of the human beings who make up the several real estate buyer segments.

When all is said and done, we know that people in a certain age group or income level will prefer the colour gray over taupe, for example. We will have a very good idea how the people who buy your particular house will spend their holidays – where they will go and how they will relax. We know how many children they are apt to have and how much time they will want to devote to maintenance and upkeep on their yard.

We also know how to translate colour, textures, amenities and the cosmetic props we use to set the stage into “feelings”. Why? It’s because house-buying decisions are driven by feelings. The decision to buy or not to buy your house will be made in the part of the brain that controls emotion. If you want to sell a house, you’ve got to direct your marketing approach to the emotional side of your buyer. This involves so many mystical surprises that we cannot even begin to explain them here – and, besides, all of that is a trade secret. Just pay attention the next time you see a car that strikes your fancy. You’ll see that there’s an invisible emotional thread that ties you to those things you think you cannot live without.

We know buyers pretty well and we tailor our property styling services to appeal to the buyers who will choose your house over all the others – and there are many – on the market today. Our job becomes making your house irresistible to the buyer.

Once the scientific work is done we must make the most of our artistic skills. Just as a colour or a smell can evoke wonderful old memories and feelings of well-being, so can form and function. It’s our job to make small rooms look larger, cavernous rooms feel cosy, and human beings believe that maybe they really can become a gourmet cook, or a wood-working wizard. Perhaps they can even win the battle of teaching their children to put their toys away.

People want to feel empowered and, yes, a house can do that. However, it will need a little help from a friend. That’s where property styling services come in. It’s a home stager’s job to enter your house, take measurements, and determine where and how the traffic flows between rooms. We then remove any obstacle – real or imagined – that might interrupt the smooth, casual, welcoming way in which your house operates. Then we dress it up and furnish it in such a way as to capture the hearts and minds of buyers.

If your house needs a little help from a friend, call Urban Chic Property Styling today.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of Secret Blooms.