Tuesday, August 14, 2012

How Does Home Staging Work

According to surveys conducted by realtors, home staging helps people sell houses faster/earlier than they would have been able to without home staging. Home staging can almost reduce the listing time of your house by half! It has also been demonstrated that sellers can earn about 10 to 15% more by staging their house before they sell it, than they would if the house was empty. All this, by only taking a little effort to make your house look a little more presentable and attractive. How cool is that? Home staging is one of the surest ways to get the best deal for your house.

Home Staging - How Does It Work?

Home staging is regarded as an unfair practice at times. It is held as 'trickery'. However, home staging is quite equivalent to you wearing a nice dress on a date, or you buying a bouquet of flowers for your date! It's not that you don't look nice in jeans, it's not that your date would mind if you didn't buy her flowers; but these small things matter, don't they? Home staging is the practice of preparing your house before potential buyers come to see it. Home staging involves making your house look attractive enough for people to want to buy it. There are several home staging tricks that you may be aware of, but do you know why and how it works? Here are a few ideas on how it works.

'I' Seek to Identify
One of the most important thing playing on the buyer's mind while buying a new house is - they are trying to catch hold of something they can relate too. You may step into the best furnished and most expensive house and not like it, because you feel disconnected and foreign, because the house doesn't feel like 'home'. On the other hand, you might just step into a very modest house and fall in love with it instantly. It isn't about the money, it isn't about how expensive or cheap the place is, or how big or small the house is; it is about the buyer being able to identify with the house. This is one of the reasons why home staging works and how it works too.

Clean is Compulsory!
Home staging focuses on thorough cleaning of the house. Why this works in making your house sell quicker and for a better price is because a house with stains and cobwebs is a complete turn-off. However, a neat and clean house is going to make the buyer feel pleasant. It is going to send the message across that you have really taken good care of the house while you were living in it. A clean house goes on to make the buyer believe in the price you quote. If you are asking for a certain amount, it is necessary your house looks worth the amount; one of the ways to ensure that is to present buyers with a clean house.

Embellishment and Emphasis
Though secondary, this is a very important aspect of home staging. Pause and think for a moment; why do we wrap gifts and presents in an attractive gift wrap paper? Why do we decorate a gift with ribbons? Why does a bouquet at the florist look much more attractive and appealing than a bouquet of handpicked flowers? In spite of what we like to believe, we all like it when someone makes us feel pampered. Home staging works to make your house look so attractive that a buyer feels like he/she must own it. One of the approaches of home staging is to embellish the house and to emphasize its features - a good garden, a nice balcony, whatever it may be. People may have an association with a certain feature of the house. Home staging works by showing people what they want to see!

What YOU Thought When You Bought
Do you remember your visit to your house as a buyer? What was it about the house that appealed to you the most? Was it the garden? The patio? The bay window? The kitchen? More than anything, I guess it was about the feeling that you belonged there. You could see your children rolling in the bed in their room. You could see yourself lying on the couch with your wife, watching the rain pour outside your window. You could envision your dog playing in the backyard. Home staging banks on such memories, and tries to recreate the atmosphere. This is why it works.

Home staging definitely works wonders to improve your chances of selling your house. What's more, if done cleverly, home staging can help you earn a little more than you expected! Now that you know how home staging works, I hope you are able to get a good bargain out of your deal.

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