The Psychology of Staging

Posted by Red House Staging

Living Room Before

Living Room Before

Red House Staging helped another seller achieve major success with a quick and profitable sale! For this recent job, Red House was called upon to help a couple, expecting their first child and needing to make a quick sale to move out of the city to be closer to their jobs before the baby arrived. The couple decided to forego using a Realtor®, intending to do the heavy work involved with selling it on their own. FSBO (for sale by owner) properties generally do not sell as fast as homes represented by a Realtor® and therefore they were facing a bigger than normal challenge in this market. They knew they needed help in getting their home up to standard with the surrounding competition on MLS and called Red House for a consultation and assistance with pre-Open House preparation.

Living Room After

Living Room After

Red House’s capable head stager, Tracy Griffin, had to use her expert skills not only in staging the property but also leading the nervous, comforted-by-clutter, homeowner through the staging process. The woman of the home was most comfortable surrounded by clutter and having her possessions off-balance. She was also soothed by eccentric items placed throughout her home, not to mention tons of competing patterns in the carpets, throws and pillows. Tracy had to put on her psychologist hat and assist the homeowners through the process of “letting go” of some long-held habits in order to create balance and flow in their staged home. Luckily, the seller’s spouse supported Tracy in this endeavor and was a great source of comfort to his wife as items were packed away and reconfigured throughout the home.

The most important task of staging is to maximize the equity of a home.

This concept was needed to convince the homeowners to paint the exterior of their home, which was purple. The argument the client used for keeping the purple exterior was “that it helped maintain the character of the neighborhood”. While the purple color may have appealed to their neighbors, it lacks the broad appeal needed to reach a wide demographic of buyers and Tracy reminded the sellers that since they are moving, it is not their job to please the neighbors but rather to maximize their profit on the sale of their home. Once everyone was on the same page with this concept, the home’s exterior was painted a lovely neutral shade of grey that still complimented the neighboring homes but presented much better for marketing purposes.

Inside the home there was another painting issue to resolve. The clients had an office with dark, olive green walls. Because time was of the essence and the sellers’ budget did not allow for hiring professionals to come in and repaint, Tracy suggested that the clients purchase an enormous mirror and hang it opposite the window in the room. This added much needed, immediate light to the room for only $50. It was a much less expensive solution both in time and money for the homeowners. Mirrors are a great means to open up a small space as well as brighten a dark one. However, if the room is significant, i.e. a master bedroom, painting would be the preferred technique to lighten and create spaciousness.

For the website the sellers built to market the property, they took very technical photos. For example, one photo’s purpose was to show how deep the home was to potential buyers. Though this photo did show the house’s depth, it did not present as visually appealing to the eye. Tracy convinced the sellers to take new pictures that instead showed the emotional appeal of the home to potential buyers. Homes are purchased on emotion and therefore the marketing photos must be emotionally “delicious” to the buyer’s eye. So instead , Tracy had the sellers take a photo of the home’s lovely living room fireplace, newly staged, where you can imagine yourself pulling up a chair on a cold evening or drinking coffee on a bright Sunday morning. It is important to remember that by staging a home, you are setting the property up as a product that is selling a lifestyle to potential buyers.

So, after some hand-holding and psychological steering, the home was staged by the sellers themselves, based on the extensive list of action items and advice provided by Red House and it went on the market on a recent, Friday morning in May. The owner received thirty-five calls that morning and four offers by Sunday. Incredible! The sellers greatly decreased the time the home was on the market (barely a weekend!) as well as their bottom line by professionally staging the home and making some difficult, but wise, decisions about how they presented it.
Please check back with us in the near future. More RHS tales and tips are coming and we are excited to share them with you. As always, your comments are welcome and appreciated. Have a wonderful day.

The Red House Staging Team