STYLING TO SELL – THE H&W WAY
You only have a few minutes to impress.
You want buyers to fall in love, instantly.
You want to evoke that feeling of ‘this is the one’.
You don’t want price to even be part of the conversation.
In today’s cluttered, chaotic, unpredictable and competitive world, your home and property assets need to work harder than ever.
A prospective home needs to speak to the soul, be aspirational and demonstrate a congruence with the lifestyle a potential buyer wants to lead.
We are here to help you create that ‘wow’ moment and help buyers envisage a better more happier life in your home.
We want to make your home memorable amongst the competition and get you the return on investment you have worked so hard for.
Here are some of out tips to help you get sale-ready and create the most desirable home on the listings list.
7 Easy Tweaks To Make Your Home Stand Out
1. Who’s your ideal buyer?
First things first, find out who’s your ideal buyer so you can make sure you are ticking their wish-list boxes. You want to ‘WOW’ so you need to know the non-negotiables and prep your home for the best sales result.
Real estate professionals know who is searching in your area, your street, love your style home and configuration. Every buyer is different however it is not hard to tweak and refresh your home to appeal to that buyer and get you the sale price you have worked so hard for. Decluttering, refreshing and tszujing your home into something that appeals to your ideal buyers can add a few more 00s to your selling price, so adding the effort in really does pay off.
Try to avoid polarising prospective buyers by removing personalised items, injecting more neutral tones, clean lines and subtle accents, helping portray a bit of a blank canvas, that helps prospects visualise how they can make this house into their home.
Your home should be inviting, aspirational and demonstrate how a buyer can live a happier, more stress-free life in it. You don’t want buyers to walk into a room and be fixated on one particular piece of furniture or thing.
2. Stand out
Photographs are the first step in motivating prospects to add your open house to their viewing list.
Stand-out photography makes all the difference and this is an area you really need to invest. Always show unique features of the home, how you use the spaces and what makes your home special.
We know this is obvious but there are so many homes without styled images and it only adds to disappointment when no one shows up.
3. Keep up appearances
Having the most appealing house in the street is always a big tick.
The first thing the buyer sees is curb appeal and how it compares to the other houses. Greenery, flowers, a fresh lick of paint on high traffic areas, new accessories like bench seating, planter arrangements, doorknobs, a welcoming doormat and a house name can really ramp up the home’s appeal.
Make sure your backyard doesn’t disappoint, have an outdoor area that epitomises the Australian dream, of BBQ, sun and fun.
Create a cosy corner and show potential buyers what life could be like if this was their home.
4. The soft touch
When preparing for open houses, consider the lifestyle and colours of each room before deciding how to decorate it. Decorate according to how the room could be used and the emotions you would like to evoke in the space helps buyers get invested.
Tips like, in your bedrooms, add lots of cushions, throws, dressing areas and seating, you want it to be cosy and inviting, yet show that you can have organisation.
In the kitchen, you want to keep it clean and crisp, demonstrating how functional the space is adding food prep zones, coffee nooks, breakfast benches, bar area and show that this space could be the heart to this cooking families home.
If you have multi-functional spaces, show that they can be used for different activities like an office or yoga pace.
Get creative but remember not to clutter, let the home shine and use the soft furnishings to layer up and add more depth to the space.
Adding the soft touches will make your house into a home for your ideal buyers.
5. Bring the indoors out / In
Everyone know that people love homes that come with plenty of outdoor entertaining space, however many forget to make use of it during open houses.
Demonstrate how the outdoor spaces can be used. Offer refreshments, nibbles and potential reading material on your area.
Bringing the outdoors in, is also very important as greenery if food for the soul. Touch up your greenery game and invest in good planters and foliage. It makes so much of a difference.
6. If you have renovated, share the journey
If you have completed renovation over the last few years, share the drawings and journey with potential buyers. They can then see the time, money, quality of materials and details that have been invested in the home. This helps reassure buyers of the quality of the home and gives them a sense of confidence that there will be less surprises.
7. Tell a story
Everyone loves a story, it brings us back to our childhood as we were transported to far away lands with heroes and unicorns. When you are selling your home, you want to sell the lifestyle-dream.
If your home has a history this is priceless and should be clearly demonstrated in old historic pictures or pieces that share a part of the history.
I used to live in one of the original mounted police’s captains cottage in Surry Hills and when people visited I used to also point out the original features, the original wooden wedges to keep the bricks aligned, the old fireplaces and where the horses used to be kept. Now, this was a wonderful story and not all properties have this historic narrative, however find a story that has bought you joy.
Point out that your home was a joyful place to raise kids, that your dining room as been a host to many soirees and that your media room (or makeshift rumpus space) keep the kids entertained for hours so you can have some zen time in your mediation corner.
Do you get my gist? Add some colour, make your potential buys visit memorable and your will always be the one they can’t stop thinking about.
If you don’t know where to start let us help you refresh and transform your space so you can get sale-ready quickly.
We have a few Styling to Live Packages that can help get your started.
1. Declutter and Refresh – declutter, rearrange and maximise your home’s layout, creating more flow and appeal.
Quick and easy with minimal disruption to your day.
2. Style and Stage – Style and curate key pieces of furniture that make your home memorable and a ‘must have’. Transform your home into the one buy’s can’t stop thinking about.
3. Concierge – Let us take over everything for you, from the management of the staging, tradespeople, greenery, cleaners, painters, gardeners, we make the whole sales process easy and stressful–free.
Our packages start from as low as $700 and will help you get the sale price you have been dreaming of.
As always, if you need anything at all, the Hills & West team are here to help.
Enjoy an online consultation and virtual walk-through with our interior stylists and decorators who can help you get started.
Book in a time now to chat through your options.
You can also email us for more information hello@hillsandwest.com
Let’s get creative together. xox
Thanks James… will try and make all consistent, you are right, I am on the hunt for another VA as the last one was sloppy.
No Comments