One of the questions we are often asked by sellers keen to maximise their home selling price is whether they should get professional home styling (aka home staging) before their sales and marketing campaign begins. Read on to find out everything you need to know.
What is home styling?
Home styling or home staging involves making a home as attractive as possible to potential buyers by highlighting its features and downplaying any potential weaknesses. For example:
- Hiring display furniture or strategically rearranging the positioning of existing furniture.
- Decluttering to give the home a more spacious feel
- Adding plants, artwork, lighting or other accessories to enhance the interior décor.
The potential benefits of home styling
When done well, home styling:
- Creates a great first impression to potential buyers.
There’s an old saying that you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression, so creating a ‘wow’ factor is important in establishing an emotional connection between the home you’re selling and potential buyers as soon as possible. - Makes an entire home, or specific spaces within it, appear larger, brighter, and more inviting.
This will be particularly important for potential buyers. They will be able to picture themselves living comfortably in it. It’s less important for investors, as they will be looking at your home purely from a financial perspective in terms of the rental yield it is likely to generate at a given selling price. - Can maximise your selling price.
This is obviously the major reason why some home sellers choose to stage their homes. It’s important to understand that when you are selling your home, you’re competing with other properties with comparable features in your area. You want to make your property stand out from the crowd as much as possible, and home styling can help you to do that so you get the maximum selling price. - Can make your home sell faster.
This isn’t so much of an issue in the ‘hot’ property market that we’ve experienced in the Greater Springfield area over the past few years, but it is a consideration when market conditions are quieter.
Key home styling considerations
Before you decide whether or not to do home styling:
- Talk to an experienced real estate agent in your area
A professional like one of our professional team at Purple Cow Real Estate will be able to give you insights on their experiences selling homes in the Greater Springfield region and the potential difference that styling can make. - Do a cost-benefit analysis
This is crucial. There is obviously a cost involved in staging or styling any home. For the exercise to be worthwhile, the potential benefits need to outweigh the cost, ideally by as much as possible. Once again, it’s important to get advice from an experienced local real estate professional.
Home styling FAQs
- How much does home styling cost?
Home styling costs depend on a range of factors, including the extent of home styling done, the size of the home, and how long the staging is done for if you have furniture hire costs. Prices can range from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars based on these variables. - How much does home styling increase your selling price?
Once again, this depends on a range of factors, including the extent of home styling done, as well as the skills of your real estate agent. It’s important to understand that there’s no guarantee that staging will increase your selling price, but in our experience, a well-styled home will get you a higher selling price.
Home styling tips
- Do a cost-benefit analysis to ensure that you don’t spend too much (or too little to make an impact).
- Use the services of a home styling professional.
- Get your home staging done before your property’s listing is prepared so impacting visuals and video can be included in all of your online and print marketing materials.
How our Purple Cow team can help you
We help our clients to get the best possible selling prices. Figures from realestate.com.au show that we generate an average of $73,000 extra for our home-selling clients than competing agencies in the region.
If you are thinking about selling your property in the Greater Springfield area and want some expert advice on home styling or any other real estate marketing and sales tips, then contact us today for an obligation-free chat.
