As a home staging expert in the Denver area, I get a lot of questions about why it's so important to stage your home.
Here's some insight into the psychology of a buyer and what motivates them to purchase a home.
Understanding Home Staging
Home staging is marketing. Just like marketing a product, people don’t buy something because it’s for sale, they buy something because they believe it will add value to their lives. In home staging we help create desire for the product you are selling - your home. We also help to position the product by hitting on the emotions of the buyers. We want to create a product that helps to fulfill the dreams, desires and needs of the buyer.
Home staging isn’t just decorating, which is a common misconception. Let’s be clear. Decorating is about designing a personal space for the people that live there. It’s about creating a space that expresses the uniqueness of the people that live there and how they intend to use that space. Decorating essentially emphasizes someone’s style.
Home staging on the other hand is not about decorating at all. Home staging is about preparing and then presenting a house in a way that draws in a buyer to purchase the home. You also want to create enough appeal that the home draws in several buyers and creates demand for this “product”. When you invest in home staging, you’re hoping to yield greater earnings when the home is sold.
What’s wonderful about home staging is that the investment doesn’t need to cost a lot of money. In many cases, you can take the furniture and items you have. The home stager will take your budget and find creative ways to stage your home or provide you with some advice in terms of changing wall colors, rearranging furniture, or removing some personal items from the decor so the buyer can visualize themselves in the space.
The Psychology of the Buyer
Now, let’s take a quick look at the psychology of a potential buyer and how we captivate their attention with home staging:
A potential buyer will on average spend about an hour studying your home. They are there to try and feel out if they can imagine themselves living there. You want buyers to linger. You also want them to feel at home. You also want to have an atmosphere that they fall in love with. When your home is both priced right for them and feels right for them, they will quickly make an offer.
When buyers visit your home, they want to imagine themselves in it. I can’t stress that enough. Your buyers want to linger and imagine their day-to-day lives in that home. They aren’t emotionally invested in your personal things. Therefore, you need to help reinforce this feeling of the buyer imaging how life would look with themselves in it by creating a neutral atmosphere. Your family photos, keepsakes or unique collectibles distract a potential buyer by reminding them that this is still YOUR space. Instead, your goal should be to create a space that encourages buyers to view the house as their future home.
Buyers instantly formulate opinions about sellers immediately when they walk through the door. That includes the good, the bad, and the downright ugly opinions when they see your home. Because of this, it’s important that you that you're present your home in the best possible light. You want to make sure that your home is always neat and organized to reinforce the best first impression. Home staging will make sure that the very first impression is always a positive one.
Remember that when a buyer is visiting your home, they often are running on emotions when they step through the front door. Purchasing a home is a very emotional decision. When a buyer goes to make an offer on a home, they haven’t yet gone through the inspection period, which is a very logical. Instead, they come into the home, walk through your space, and experience everything by the way it looks. It’s a little like when someone purchases a car before they take it to a mechanic to look under the hood. Their initial decision is based on how they feel about the car.
Are you ready for an expert to stage your home in the Denver area? Take a look at our services or visit several of our other posts for more insider tips on how to stage a home yourself.