In order to generate the highest possible offers, it’s essential that homeowners take the fine art of property styling seriously – even in a sellers market.
Selling your home or property is often an emotional and stressful time, and the pressure is enormous for owners to present a space that will attract the attention of buyers. Not only will your home need to appear memorable, warm and inviting, but you also need to stand out from the competition. It’s all about walking the tightrope between showcasing a blank canvas, versus a comfortable home that buyers could potentially envision themselves in – but what’s the point, and how do you get it right?
The Basics Of Property Styling
First things first – it’s important to understand that property styling is not the same as interior design. The role of an interior designer is to help you create a home for you, and design rooms according to your personal taste. In comparison, effective property styling is always neutral, and actually removes any trace of your own taste and style in order to avoid distracting potential home buyers.
Also referred to as property staging, the end goal of property styling is to highlight your home’s unique features and potential, whilst diverting attention away from the flaws and shortcomings. It also allows for top notch property photography, which goes a long way in ensuring that your home stands out online to not only drive inspections – but formal offers to buy.
Although many sellers enlist the services of a professional property stylist, it’s not uncommon to do it yourself. However, the experience of the industry pro’s can offer the following benefits when it comes to showcasing the very best of your property.
Identify Problems – Firstly, a property stylist will identify the non negotiables when it comes to any potential repairs, maintenance or renovations before they get started. While they can work around a home’s unique characteristics, sometimes there are things that can’t be ignored.
Emphasise Space – When it comes to the layout of a room, a stylist will assess the available space, and in turn make sure that the room is assembled to look as big as it possibly can. This may be as simple as rearranging particular furniture, or opting for a particular colour scheme.
Inject Warmth – Cold, stale, and dreary rooms don’t do much when it comes to inspiring potential buyers to envision themselves in your home. A professional property stylist has man tricks under their belt to ensure that a property feels welcoming without being too personal.
Comfort vs Function – Potential buyers should be able to envision themselves not only living in each space, but using each space – and that requires no distractions via the current owners lifestyle preferences. Property styling can help to ensure a room is multidimensional in use.
Boost Aesthetics – Even if the property in question is a renovators dream, it may struggle to bring in the right people if it looks too old or run down. Property styling is all about presenting the potential of a space, and uses colour, textiles and lighting to achieve this.
Online Presentation – While your home may now look great in the flesh after some professional property styling, it also plays an important role in physically getting buyers to you as well via photography used online to market your home.
While almost every home will somehow benefit from professional styling, it may not always be worth the time and money. If potential buyers are only interested in the land in question and plan to knock down the property, styling isn’t likely to bring any reward.
However, if your home is a renovator’s dream or has even been in your family for a number of decades, then property styling can help highlight your home’s potential and breathe new life into the space. While property styling might initially set you back anything between $3000 to $7000, it’s worth it for the return that often brings you in thousands of dollars more than you expected when it comes to signing the contract of sale.
Sourcing A Reputable Property Advisor
A completely free service, Emergency Services Property Advisors provide property advisor services to Police, Fire, Ambulance and S.E.S personnel and their families right across Victoria.
Luke and the team at ESPA are passionate about providing support to some of Australia’s most valued public servants, and aim to provide tangible real estate advice to those in stressful positions with crazy hours at no extra cost to them. Along with key industry insights, ESPA also works with a broad range of service providers linked to the real estate industry such as conveyancers, trades, legal practitioners and mortgage brokers.
If you are an emergency services worker looking to potentially buy or sell property in the future, please get in touch with Emergency Services Property Advisors today to discuss how we can turn your real estate dreams into reality, or call Luke directly on 0414 757 705.
