What is Property Styling?
The concept of property styling or home staging has been around since the 70’s but is relatively new to Australia. Its popularity is growing, not because it’s trendy, but because it’s proven to work.
Property staging’s main aim is to attract as many potential buyers as possible through great styling for great photographs for when putting your house on the market. This will give you “the seller” the competitive edge for the competitive market we have in Real Estate today.
Property styling focuses on the needs of buyers
Property styling
- is driven by market trends, uses solid design principles, and attention to detail
- improves the overall style and aesthetics of the property
- meets the needs and expectations of as many potential buyers as possible
- highlights the strengths of a property and plays down its’ short comings
The value of property styling is undeniable
The most relevant factor in property sales is an appropriate price range relative to size, condition and location.
However, the number one factor that pushes the sold price to the top of the price range is property styling.
These two factors working together will result in faster sales and higher prices.
Facts & Figures
You can simply not afford not to style your property. Research shows:
- the longer on the market, the greater the reduction in sales price
- cost of styling is significantly less than the amount of the “first price reduction”
- effective styling adds thousands of dollars to a sale price, and reduces the time to sell
On average, styled properties compared to non-styled properties
- sell for more (on average 6 – 20% above asking price)
- are on the market for much less time (50 – 90% less time)
- have higher clearance rates at auctions
In general, people buy with emotion, and emotion is largely impacted by visual perception and initial impressions. It therefore makes sense for your property to look it’s best, and be better than others right from the start so it stands out and attracts all the buyers in that price range to your property!
There are many reasons why property styling works so effectively
- good photos – the property stands out from others
- more visit, more inspections – greater competition
- good condition – buyers expect to pay top price
- well maintained – impression of minimal work
- buyers trust everything is in good working order
- attractive to time poor / busy buyers
- rooms look larger – greater perceived value
- the purpose of rooms is clear
- the floor plan is easy to follow
- attention is drawn to “focal points”
- inspections last longer
- buyers have significant positive memories
- buyers are inspired, can imagine living and entertaining in the property, thus have a strong emotional desire to “must buy”
