Property styling for sale (also known as home staging or house styling) has become a large industry. This is due partly to home improvement shows, as well as a proven record of quality stylist’s ability to help vendors achieve a faster sale for a better price. As many new companies have popped up on the market there is a plethora of options to choose from. So how do you choose the right stylist to help sell your most valuable financial asset?
Ask to see their work. Stylists should be attaching a portfolio of their work when presenting you with a quote or proposal. Or alternatively look on their website or Facebook page. It is important to look through photos of their work and make sure that they are not only furnishing a room, but also really creating that “wow” impact. Also ask if they could pass on links to properties they have styled listed on realestate.com or domain.com
Ask to see their return on investment and other figures. Stylists should be able to tell you the clearance rate on properties they have styled for sale, average time on market, average price over reserve of properties they have styled for sale, percentage of properties that have sold before auction and other information that shows the impact their work has on outcome of sale.
Making a decision based purely on price could seriously effect the presentation of the home and therefore buyer interest and final sale price.
Things to check and compare when viewing stylist’s work:
- Quality Furniture: be wary of stylists who offer too good to be true prices, as these companies will often produced sub-par quality work and cut corners in order to reduce their expenses to meet the quoted amount. This will be obvious in the quality of furniture and accessories installed.
- Quality Detail: cheap stylists often produce poorly styled “thrown together” work with a lack of detail and careful planning. Poorly styled homes do the opposite of what is intended, as the styling distracts the buyer from seeing the potential in the home. Check to see if the stylists have ironed bed sheets, and produced detailed planning in accessory arrangements.
- Cohesive Style: every room in the house should tie in and connect to those around them in some way. If they don’t, the entire house will look disjointed. The overall feeling of the property should be one of balance and consistency. Having a range of styles of furniture throughout the house or worse, in the same room, will create a mixed match look that will clash. Check the stylists work and make sure that one theme or style is presented throughout the room. Examples of poor styling include when two or more different styles and colour palettes are presented in the same room such as, Scandinavian style mixed with modern industrial style.Mixing timber furniture with chrome furniture as well as mixing birch and dark timber tones are examples of poorly planned and thought our styling.
- A Range of Styles: an experienced stylist should be able to style using a range of different themes and techniques and apply them appropriately to the style and period of the home and potential buyer demographic. When looking at stylists work it is important that they provide a range of different styling examples to suit various types of homes from classic contemporary to coastal style.
At Home Moving Planners we place an emphasis on not just showing potential buyers what type of furniture can fit in the property, but how they could see themselves living in the property. We like to find a balance between showing functionality of the space as well as letting the room elicit an emotional response out of the buyer, as they envision themselves living in the property. This is achieved through careful furniture selection as well as expertly chosen accessories and artwork
It is these small details that will make your property stand out in this competitive market to other styled and non-styled properties. We work with current trends in the industry and research your target market (downsizers, first home buyers etc) when creating our styling plan for the property.