Don’t List Your Home Naked As The Day It Was Built
Be honest, how appealing and engaging is an image of an empty room, or a series of empty rooms, when you’re looking to buy your new home? The honest answer is not very appealing at all. So why do sellers do it? Because they make three fundamental errors of judgement that end up costing them time and money.
Three Fundamental Errors To Avoid
- People don’t buy bricks and mortar they buy a home, a lifestyle and a future – show it to them: this is the purpose of home staging, to maximise the appeal and perceived value of your property to your potential buyer.
- Overestimating the imagination of potential buyers to ‘see the potential’ of your property, is a nice idea but rarely works in practice. Apparently, only 10% of the population have the ability to imagine and visualise what your property could look like furnished; that means that 90% of people don’t.
- Underestimating the negative impact of a vacant home. If the property is newly built a vacant listing isn’t unusual. Whilst many people may be overwhelmed or underwhelmed with the space (unless they’ve been to the Developer’s show home) they accept it as the norm. When an established home is a vacant listing the potential buyer senses or sees potential problems that could work to their advantage or turn them off the property.
“Vacant Doesn’t Make It”
Barb Schwarz, The Creator of Home Staging
What a potential buyer sees is every imperfection – without furnishings, every crack, scuff and minor maintenance issue is glaringly obvious. The Potential Buyer starts to compile a mental ‘to-do’ list to ‘make things right’. This is when your property becomes less attractive and appealing when compared to the competition.
What a potential buyer senses is potential leverage. A vacant listing could indicate one of the following:
- The end of a relationship and the decision to sell the former family home, (doesn’t create a great vibe, especially for the first home buyer).
- A re-location where the Owners have already moved and are selling their former family home.
- The repossession of the property.
The bottom line is that their perception will have a negative impact on your bottom line because whatever the truth is, your potential buyers know a mortgage is being paid on a property that no-one is currently living in. They conclude that there must be an added pressure to sell, and they are more than willing to use that leverage to their advantage.
So think very carefully before you list your property ‘naked as the day it was built’. You may think you’re saving money in staging and styling, but the reality is you’re telegraphing the fact that for financial reasons you need to sell this property quickly. You’re also placing yourself at a disadvantage when it comes to maximising the appeal of your property; 90% of the population lack the imagination required to picture what it could be like as their home. Staging and styling your vacant property makes sense: in all other aspects of life we recognise the need to ‘dress for success’, selling your home is no different.
