Once upon a time, way back when, when you went to sell your home, it would be traditionally void of furniture and any other personal items, as people had already moved out, or still filled with their belongings, just tidied up. Some of us might even remember such a period. However, times have changed. Styling a home for sale is now big (and big business), across the entire world.
What is home staging?
Home staging is carefully styling the interior of a home before selling it. The interior style of a home can make the property itself more appealing to potential buyers, even if they don’t receive the furniture and stylistic touches when they purchase the home itself!
It is now used globally as a marketing tool to attract not only more home sales but to drive the price of the property. To put it bluntly, if you don’t style your home before letting potential buyers in, you could be cheating yourself out of a sale or extra cash in the bank.
The beginnings of home staging
Home staging first came into the public eye in 1972. Barb Schwartz, the inventor of home staging, is a real estate and interior design specialist, who gave birth to the notion more than 40 years ago now. A Washington resident, Barb, transitioned from interior design over to real estate and realised quickly the potential that carefully cultivated interior design could have when selling a home. She came up with what is known as “The Home Staging” concept.
Barb went on to be wildly successful, teaching people in her home staging classes since 1985, with over one million real estate professionals participating in the program. She introduced many different concepts to the game such as Staging to Sell and Staging to Live and has won many awards for her efforts.
She is seen as completely transforming an industry and a true pioneer.
However, of course, it took a while for these ideas to trickle down into the little old land of Oz: the idea caught on a little later. However by the 1990s, and definitely by the early 2000s, home staging had become a familiar concept to most in the industry.
Why you should pay attention to home staging?
Home staging to you might seem like a bit of a foreign concept. “Why should I spend money to style my home?” you might think. However, the benefits of home staging are known and proven. That’s why it is now so prevalent.
While you can do home styling yourself, it can take a lot of time to get things right. Plus, if you don’t have any experience in interior design then you can easily miss the mark and turn potential buyers off. This is why home staging specialist companies have cropped up around the country.
You can either ask for recommendations for a home staging service from your real estate agent when selling your home or take the initiative and engage the services of one that you find yourself. Often you will find a better service outside of your real estate’s recommendations – maybe they offer a more boutique service, better customer care, or are simply less expensive than the suggested choices.
Home staging should be an integral part of selling your home to ensure you have the best chances of not only selling but of maximising the returns on your investment, too. Make sure that you check out home staging services to see what is on offer. Ask for a portfolio to see just what the company can do for your ready to sell home.
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