According to Wikipedia, home staging is the act of preparing a private residence for sale in the real estate marketplace. The goal of staging is to make a home appealing to the highest number of potential buyers, thereby selling a property more swiftly and for more money.
But home staging is also about emotion. It’s how a house makes us feel. It’s more than just cleaning, decluttering and decorating. It’s about creating emotional connections. Staging can make your home appear larger, brighter, cleaner and even warmer, allowing buyers to picture themselves living there.
And although cleaning, decluttering, and depersonalizing are an important part of the overall staging process, the final step of staging is where the magic happens. It’s when you show the prospective buyers how great it will be to live in the house by adding accessories that will create emotional connections. Subtle touches such as a tray with a bottle of wine and two wine glasses near a patio with a stunning view or an open book with a coffee mug near a beautiful fireplace. Home purchases are filled with emotion. Adding emotional illusions will promote positive feeling that buyers will associate with the home.
According to the National Association of Realtors 2017 Profile of Home Staging, 77% of buyers’ agents said staging a home made it easier for a buyer to visualize the property as a future home and about one-third of buyer’s agents said that staging a home increased the dollar value offered between one and five percent compared to other similar homes on the market that are not staged.