If All We’re Buying Are Bricks and Mortar

Over lunch last week, a Realtor partner and dear friend was talking with me about a recent blog about staging entry areas.  In keeping with the purpose of “to be continued”, this friend added another insight that also makes a good case for home staging so let’s continue that conversation together. 

If all we're buying are bricks and mortar, just about any house will do.  Instead, we are buying emotion, dreams, and possibilities. 

Think about it - in buying emotion, dreams, and possibilities, we want to imagine our best selves in those spaces.  We want to envision comfort and care; laughter and joy; simplicity and ease.  We want to write more chapters of our life story as we add our character into the story of this house. 

In buying emotion, dreams and possibilities there are also things we do not want.  We do not want someone else’s messiness.  We do not want to repair, replace or upgrade someone else’s problems.  We do not want stress or complication.  We do not want to have to look past the clutter and confusion of someone else’s lifestyle.

Home staging helps proactive realtors and savvy sellers bring out the emotion, dreams and possibilities of their listed house.  In its simplest terms, home staging involves making sure your house is cleaned, groomed and properly outfitted.  Home staging accentuates the home’s best features.  Home staging provides a nice, easy and consistent use of space and movement.  A professionally staged house appeals to as many buyers as possible. 

Regardless of the size or price range of a house, my objective is to find the possibilities in that house.  I am looking for unique features and finding possible ways to accentuate them for the potential buyer.  I am analyzing those unusual spaces that buyers find difficult to understand upon first glance and creating possible functional uses for those spaces.  In the end, my mission is to help the potential buyer see how they could dwell in the possibilities of this house!

When I stage a house, I make sure that it is ready for its “first date” with each prospective buyer walking in the door.  And the results speak for themselves.

As my friend said so eloquently, we buy emotions, dreams and possibilities.  And I could not agree more.

Dwell in possibilities 

Cindy

Staging Living Rooms and Family Rooms – Focal Points and Flow

Focal points and flow are key elements of staging each and every house.  In many houses, the living room and/or family room contains one or more focal points as well as benefit or suffer from flow.  Focal points and flow are also where professional home stagers earn their fees.  It is where the art and magic of home staging is most obvious and valued.

Focal points are permanent elements that make this house unique and distinct from the other homes on the market in this price range. 

·         Does this house have a great view? 
·         Is there a fireplace and how can we draw the buyer’s attention to this unique feature of this house? 
·         Are there any other architectural features (such as built-in cabinets, ceiling beams, and French doors) that we want to highlight?

Once the house’s focal points are identified, the home staging task is to show off the house’s potential by drawing the potential buyer’s attention to them.  And this is where my creativity, experience, resources and inventory can be invested in helping sell the house quicker and for the highest price possible.

Flow generally refers to the even pace in which one moves from space-to-space and room-to-room in a house.  The flow of a house can be a subtle characteristic of a house if done well but can be jarringly obvious if not done well.

·         Do the rooms and space feel connected? 

·         Is there a choppy and broken feeling as you move from room-to-room? 

·         Does the eye flow across a room or are there things like furniture placement, colors or clutter that get in the way? 

·         Are the colors consistent from room-to-room?

While poor flow is obvious, I believe that creating an even pace with movement from space-to-space takes the experience and expertise of a professional home stager.  Building subtle flow is a clear example of the art of home staging.

Check out our website for examples of how we transformed living rooms and dining rooms through the magic of focal points and flow - http://www.transitions-home-staging.com/Living-Room---Family-Room-1.html.   

With a professionally staged house, buyers imagine living in that house and making it their home.  A buyer will imagine their best selves living in the home.   

Isn’t this why we staged the home in the first place? 

Remember to dwell in possibilities! 

Cindy