Is it worth styling a property for sale?

5 reasons to enlist a professional.

Beginning the journey to sell your home is a big decision. With so many costs and considerations at hand, is it really worth adding the extra expense of property styling to your budget?

Property styling or home staging has emerged as a way to give sellers an advantage when entering the competitive real estate market. It involves a professional coming in with an objective viewpoint to assess the needs of your home and styling it with artwork, furniture and decor items that best present it to prospective buyers. 

If you’re weighing up whether you should spend your precious pennies on hiring a professional, here are 5 reasons why property styling can give you a great return on investment.

1. It creates an emotional response to a property

Viewing an empty house can feel cold and leave a lot to the buyer’s imagination. A professionally styled property takes out the guess work by helping buyers envisage the life they would lead in your house, giving them a clear idea of a space’s functionality and liveability. 

Buying a home is as much an emotional investment as it is a financial one and to commit to a house a buyer has to love it. So if you can evoke a strong emotional connection in your buyer you’ll have a better likelihood of receiving generous offers and having a faster sale.

2. Helps you appeal to a wider audience.

With insider knowledge on how the current real estate market is moving a property stylist can help you reach not only a broader audience but the right audience. They know what works and how to attract target demographics to your property and more feet through the door increases your chances of selling your home with strong competition. 

3. Makes you stand out in a competitive market.

In today’s current climate, where a majority of people are viewing a property online before even considering an in person inspection; it is vital to make an impactful first impression in your listing’s photos. They are your best advertisement and what will drive interest to entice people into your home.

Property stylists have the experience of knowing how a property will be shot by photographers and how to create spaces that will stop people in their tracks. Their design expertise ensures that the key features of your home get highlighted and well represented.

4. Maximises your home’s value and leads to a faster sale.

A survey of real estate agents in one of Australia’s leading networks, LJ Hooker, found that a styled home can raise your sale price by 7.5% - 12.5%. With 87% of those agents confirming that choosing to style your property would earn you a higher price overall, putting you in a more confident position and saving you a price reduction later down the track that can outweigh your initial costs.

The other main factor to deal with when selling your property is the duration of your sale. A successful campaign relies on building great momentum and styling can help drum up engagement to make people take action. 

We’ve seen firsthand how styling can lead to a faster sale when we styled a townhouse property that was able to sell above it’s asking price within a week on the market, while an empty neighbouring townhouse sat on the market for close to a year before selling.

5. Takes the hassle out of doing it yourself and brings in a fresh perspective.

Selling a home can be a stressful ordeal without having to add another consideration to your ever growing lists. Enlisting a professional to style your home can alleviate that mental (and physical!) load, affording you time to focus on other tasks and providing you with reassurance you need in this important time.

Often times it can be hard as an owner to visualise your home in a different light as you have spent years building your own emotional connections to the place. Having a property stylist come in with fresh eyes can help you create a new story to sell to future owners and determine the best approach to showcase your home on the market.

If you’re looking to sell, we’d love to help you out.