Decorating the Home to Appeal to the Buyer

It’s important to remember with staging that you’re not decorating the home to appeal to you, the seller, but to the prospective buyer. When working with a stager, you have to learn to set aside your own aesthetic preferences and ask yourself how a buyer might see the home. Imagining who those buyers might be can help your stager make decisions about which direction to take the interior design.

Staging for the Right Generation of Buyers

So who are the buyers? Can you know? It depends on local market conditions and trends. A common scenario is when Baby Boomers looking to downsize or move into a condo living situation finally decide to put their family home on the market. Often these homes are in need of updating, and frequently the buyers for these homes are younger generations (i.e. Millennials) looking to upgrade from their first house or buy for the first time.

If home hunters in your market are younger, it makes a lot of sense to work with a stager who understands what younger buyers are looking for in a home. In fact, if you’re interviewing stagers, it can be an excellent idea to ask them specifically for examples of how they’ve staged homes to attract younger buyers. Furniture, window treatments, and design accents (or lack thereof) are all a big factor in how younger buyers judge a home. The last thing you want Millennial buyers to think is, “Oh, no, this looks just like my parents’ house.”

Make no mistake, there will be a lot of inventory on the real estate market from Baby Boomers over the next 15 years. If you want yours to stand out, try and look at your home with an objective eye and see if it looks outdated compared to newer construction on the market. Don’t stage for yourself... stage for the generation buying your home.

Staging Tips

Trulia offers staging tips, because they preach that staging a house helps buyers imagine themselves living in it.

Here are a few of their tips:

  1. Get rid of the clutter. Instead of putting personal items in a closet, box them up away from the view of potential buyers.
  2. Brighten the room by opening your blinds and update your light fixtures.
  3. Don’t have the time or money to stage to whole house?... focus on the important rooms first.
  4. Remove nearly half of your furniture, because when your house looks bigger, it will appeal more to buyers.
  5. Don’t forget the curb appeal, because if you neglect the outside, then you won’t attract buyers to the inside.
  6. Add finishing touches of fresh flowers, folded towels, and a bowl of fresh fruit.

>I’d be happy to work with you to find a stager who can help make your home as appealing as possible. I work with my clients to ensure their home sells for the best possible price. Contact me at: 928-308-0101