The ultimate goal with home staging is to evoke a mood that home buyers can relate to, but these days, potential buyers are getting smarter. More often than not they see through staging tricks and can tell when there are tricks in place to make a house seem more appealing. Let’s dive into some tricks that we’ve all seen in open homes that just don’t work if you want to convincingly market your home.
Taking Shortcuts with ‘Minimalist’ Staging
Minimalism is a design trend that utilises blank or empty space in an area, and only places necessary or functional items in a room. This can look very sleek if done properly, but true minimalism isn’t as easy as many home stagers think. What happens a lot is that stagers will take shortcuts and place less furniture or fewer items in a room. This has a tendency to look more like a room is unfinished and can be off-putting to potential buyers. It can also highlight flaws within the room that would otherwise be overlooked when staging is done well.
Although home staging never aims to purposely disguise flaws from potential buyers, the goal is always to make it look like the house is liveable despite small flaws.
If you are going for a minimalist look, try to use monochromatic colours or sleek, straight lines with furniture in order to achieve it. You can achieve minimalism without taking shortcuts or putting less furniture than average in a room, and this way it can be much more effective.
Excessive Bathroom Décor
Bathrooms are generally a room for functionality, and while it is extremely important to have a beautiful and clean bathroom, the way to go about this is not through décor and accessorising. If you think about bathrooms in most homes, the décor is usually lead by the function: decorative soaps, towels, and showerheads. There isn’t much place for ornamental accessorising in a bathroom, and it can be distracting for viewers when they see these. Transparency is key when staging bathrooms. This, however, does not mean that you shouldn’t take your bathroom heavily into consideration when selling your home. If you think your bathroom might not be up to scratch, you may want to consider what the return on investment of renovating or upgrading your bathroom’s features will be once you sell.
Strong Perfumes
We’ve all been to an open home where we are greeted with the smell of freshly baked cookies or a luscious rose garden to entice us inside – when the objects of the identified scent are nowhere to be seen. Perfumes and deodorisers are a common staging trick used when selling homes, but it is one that is not so often successful.
Strong scents, more often than not, will have negative effects on many people. It can be overwhelming to walk into a home with a strong odour in the air – whether it is a pungent floral scent, or the sickly-sweet smell of baking. Furthermore, what some people may find enticing and delicious to smell, might cause other people to turn their noses up
Of course, it is important to present a nice smelling home when people come to view it. A way to go about this safely is to let fresh air in and perfume the home naturally, or spray a neutral scented room spray, just a touch though – lemongrass, and cucumber are safe scents.
The key here is to make sure you are using perfumes to freshen up the house for the right reasons, and not trying to disguise the smell of dampness, mould or stale cooking odours. If that’s the case, you may have bigger issues than staging when it comes to selling.
If you’re looking for someone who knows the ins and outs of Wellington home staging, and can stage your home exceedingly well, look no further. At HomeStaged, we are experts in staging homes for modern buyers. Contact us today to talk about your staging needs!
Article Contributed by Megan Hand Home Staged Wellington.
For all of your staging needs head to www.homestaged.co.nz or check them out on Facebook & Instagram
Smell of freshly baked cookies is a total cliche. Everyone knows it’s a way to attract buyers and that trick is no doubt bound to fail. These kind of things should be avoided so the buyer don’t get the feeling like they are being misled. I love your article btw. It is very helpful!
Great Articles, If you are doing home staging by yourself.
Great article. Well written!