In the wide world of real estate sales, home stagers talk often about staging properties for sale. If you’d never heard the term ‘staging’ used in reference to preparing a home for sale, you might wonder what selling a home has to do with producing a play. The answer to that question is: just about everything.
When you attend a play or a production of any kind, part of the experience is the degree to which you are transported into the activities onstage. The success of any movie, play, or even a book. depends on your willingness to step into the story. Setting the stage to make this easier is a powerful part of the process. Those of us in the professions associated with real estate sales understand that selling a home is also about enticing the prospective buyer to step into the action.
Because professional real estate people understand that buyers won’t buy a house with which they cannot connect emotionally, they spend a good bit of time learning what the buyers want in a house, and then creating it. Until and unless a house can convince the prospective buyers to step into their imaginations and mentally experience living in the home, a sale probably won’t happen. If, on the other hand, buyers can see how it would be for the children to play in the backyard or Dad cooking up his gourmet dinners in the kitchen, sellers are well on their way to a sale.
Home stagers spend lots of time and energy gathering and studying information about home buyers. Through the use of studies, surveys, and focus groups, people in the industry learn constantly about how home buyers feel. When all is said and done, home sales are made on emotional grounds, so it pays to employ the research data to find where the emotional connections exist and use them to the seller’s advantage.
When home stylists set the stage for a home sale they use all those research results to make your home more attractive to qualified buyers. From the colours chosen for the walls, to the fabric used in furnishings, home stagers ‘paint’ an irresistible backdrop that will send the buyer’s imagination into “I could live here” mode.
Of course, part of what a home stylist does involves avoiding design mistakes that can create jarring disconnects between the house and the buyer. Anything that interrupts the buyer’s daydream of living in your home can be a deal breaker. Your stylist will help you identify and eliminate potholes in your real estate road.
If a house is built in the Federation style, that style is a key factor in the staging. There is an entire niche of buyers looking for the specific charm associated with the style. It makes sense to capitalise on the natural materials, exposed beams and built-in features that make a Federation home a Federation home. What doesn’t make sense is to downplay or otherwise minimise those natural qualities.
Focusing upon the home’s most compelling features – an interesting window configuration or a dramatic foyer – are also a key considerations for the home stager. Making the most of such qualities in the home is what a home stager does best and the end result can be the catalyst to one of those ‘happily ever after’ moments that spell big offers and quick sales. Unfortunately, many homeowners have lived in a home for long enough that they no longer see or appreciate the remarkable qualities it possesses. It is for this reason that most sellers employ a home staging professional to help with setting the stage for their sale.
If selling your home is on your mind, now is a great time to discuss the possibilities with a gifted home styling professional. By inviting a house stylist into your home, you can get a feel for what will need to be done to the home by way of repairs and/or renovations. You can talk about furniture styles, and even select your favourite style from among the inventory of furnishings good styling firms always have. Before the visit is over, you will also have a better idea about budget and timing — information that will be critical when the time comes to set the stage for your home sale.
