CHICAGO — Could reality television design shows be distorting home buyers’ perception of what market-ready homes look like? A survey conducted by the National Association of Realtors® last year found that more than half of real estate agents — 55% — blamed TV home design shows for giving buyers unrealistic expectations about how homes should look, according to NAR’s 2023 Profile of Home Staging.
The reality may be that not every home has perfectly creased pillows or draped throws. And home buyers may be judging properties based on their appearance, including the condition of furnishings and wall colors. About 80% of buyer’s agents said that home staging helps their clients better visualize living in a home, and a third even said it helped increase the home’s value between 1% and 10% when compared to similar homes that weren’t staged, according to the NAR survey.
Buyers are definitely judging the looks of a home, said Debbie Boggs, co-founder of the Staging Studio, who spoke at the session “Staging Strategies That Sell” in November during NAR NXT, The Realtor® Experience, in Boston.
“If you’re not getting any showings, it’s probably because buyers are rejecting the price or rejecting your photos,” Boggs said. “If you’re getting showings but no offers — the home likely is disappointing buyers. And if you’re getting offers that fall through before closing, the home is likely failing to create an emotional connection — the buyers are just not in love with the house.”
In all these scenarios, don’t reduce the price — increase the property’s appeal, Boggs said. She pointed to the ways home stagers can help real estate professionals market a home to create a stronger emotional connection with buyers. “Staging is all about perception,” Boggs said.
Here are some ways to raise the property’s perception through home staging:
Perceived size: “Clutter can make a home feel smaller,” Boggs said. Also, vacant spaces can feel smaller than staged rooms, she added. Vacant space also prevents buyers from envisioning how furniture could fit in an area.
Perceived value: Match and outfit the home’s style to its price point, Boggs said. “A multimillion-dollar home filled with college furniture or folding chairs and tables” doesn’t match and is an “equity eater that brings the home’s value down,” she said. Boggs advised furnishing the home a level above the home’s value so there’s no perceived decrease in its value based on how it’s decorated.
Countering perceived negatives: Nearly a quarter of real estate professionals surveyed said that staging can help potential home buyers look past property faults, according to NAR’s staging survey. Boggs said that staging can help reduce bad views from windows, drawing the focus to other elements within the home’s interior instead.
She showed an example of a home’s open floor plan covered in black-and-white checkered marble flooring. “It was overwhelming to buyers,” she said. Her staging team used rugs to reduce the amount of visible floor space as well as “giving perspective on how to use the open floor plan” by zoning the areas.
Staging is “not just plunking down furniture but using staging strategies to show what are the most important assets of the house,” Boggs said.
Perceived condition: “What buyers see on the surface can affect their impression of the entire house,” Boggs said. Dirty vents and light switch plates can send a message that the house is not well-maintained. Also, if the home features outdated wallpaper, carpeting and lighting, the entire house can then feel outdated. Boggs provided an example of how they staged a living room that hadn’t been changed in decades by painting over the wallpaper, swapping in an $88 chandelier, adding rugs over the dated carpet and staging the space with modern furniture to change the entire look and feel of the space.
Perceived lifestyle: “You want life to feel like it will be perfect in this home,” Boggs said. This means the laundry room is perfectly clean, with no cleaning supplies or laundry ever left out. Also, she suggests “the primary bedroom has lots of symmetry, with matching lamps, nightstands and matching pillows to bring harmony and balance.”
Boggs also likes to put a mirror in the entryway of every home she stages: “Buyers literally see themselves in this home as they are coming in and out.”
© 2024 National Association of Realtors® (NAR)
