There’s lots of talk around Home Staging and Styling these days, but what exactly is it?
You can hire a home stylist to come into your home for an assessment. They can either give you advice about what to do with your current furniture & décor and you then complete this yourself or they can have your furniture removed & stored, either fully or partially and implant hired & staged furniture so that the home looks its absolute best for both photo’s and inspections. You can choose a set amount of time for the furniture & décor to remain or just pay week by week.
Staged homes work particularly well if you are trying to sell an empty home. Sometimes an empty home can be even harder to sell than one with ugly furniture. They tend to be soulless and any design faults seem magnified.
And don’t forget the exterior staging is vital too, after all it is what buyers will first see from the street. Beautiful gates, front fences, front doors, gate & door hardware, garden art, outdoor entertaining etc etc. You get the picture!
A great stylist can minimize any faults and maximize the homes best assets all with furniture and decor.
A lot of the time the initial cost of staging is returned tenfold because you will receive higher offers for the property.
It truly can make the difference you need and some stylists are pure magicians!
Our Selling Houses Australia Adventure Is The Perfect Example
As mentioned earlier I believe that presentation is absolutely crucial.
R & R Property were involved with an episode of Selling Houses Australia on Foxtel’s Lifestyle Channel and this is the perfect example of what a massive difference presentation of your property can make.
What happened…..
The owners had purchased it because it was a good solid brick & tile, 2 storey home, spacious enough for a family, in a great location in town. The home also had a lovely outlook and a generous sized fenced yard.
Because of work commitments, a relatively short time in, the owners had to move to another location, so rented the property out. After having been settled into their new location for some time, they decided to buy there and therefore placed the original property on the market.
The market had taken a bit of a dip, plus the property had been tenanted continuously during this time so that the owners could cover their mortgage and rent at the new location. They also didn’t want to spend much money unless necessary, so very little updates or major maintenance had been completed. It was looking more than a little tired. All of this and the property market in our area was taking a backward step so the owners were faced with making a loss on this sale. They still wanted to sell, to enable them to purchase in their new area though.
As a side note we had presented the owners with an offer within the first couple of weeks of being on market of the same sum as what they themselves had paid for the property. Because it was new to the market and they had outlaid some money on it already they declined the offer. Big mistake, as I said before sometimes an offer straight away, from buyers who have been looking for a while is the best offer you are going to get.
Anyway back to the makeover. As the selling agents we had continuous access issues, never being able to show the property quickly and easily and the presentation varied from tenancy to tenancy. All the while no maintenance was being completed, unless it was an urgent repair.
Selling Houses Australia came in and after assessing the property and the current tenant very graciously vacated for them, they proceeded with a makeover on the home.
It was mostly all cosmetic, such as; painting walls/ceilings/timber doors, replacing shag pile carpet, spray painting the “timber look” laminate kitchen cupboards and replacing the benchtops. All of this cosmetic makeover was completed in whites and neutral tones. The extensive back deck area was repaired and exterior trim colours on the home were changed from Mission Brown to Black. The single car garage at the rear of the home was attractively screened off from the deck and the house. The rest was styling. Beautiful furniture, soft furnishings, light fittings, art and decor were placed in the home, again all in whites with just selective pops of colour throughout. Outdoor furniture and flower filled planters were added to the back deck area to create an outdoor room.
What a difference it made! The house looked beautiful, clean and stylish. And nothing beats that fresh paint smell for saying “recently renovated!”
We had new professional photography completed, loaded it up on the internet and from that we had an offer accepted within the next day or so and it was sold a short time later. The purchaser loved the property for all the aforementioned reasons why the previous owners did, plus it presented as neat and tidy with nothing much to do.
We achieved the fastest sale in the history of Selling Houses Australia’s 9 season reign at the time, on a house that had sat on & off the market for years with no sale.
A combination of the power of presentation as well as immediate access to a vacant or owner occupied property.
Wow – what a difference!
