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In today’s overflowing real estate market, home sellers need a psychological edge to ease the home selling process. They need to move on with their lives. They need to find a magic marketing tool that will set their home apart from competing houses for sale on the block. That magic marketing tool is home staging.

On any given day, buyers have a list of properties to visit as long as their arm. When they enter a house for sale, they’re not expecting to find “the one.” They are looking for one reason, any reason, to cross that house off of their list so they can move on to the next. This reason could be anything from a houseful of garish wallpaper to a full ashtray sitting on a counter. NEXT! And off they go………to the next house on the list.

A home stager strives to entice an emotional response to a house. We want the buyer to linger. That all-important positive first impression should continue through the entire house. The tenth impression is just as important as the first.

So how does the home stager achieve this goal? By creating an atmosphere that will cause the buyer to “bond” with the home. Home staging can generate a warm, welcoming ambiance. We present the best-case scenario to show the potential of each room. Any one considering it’s purchase can imagine living there. They connect with the space and start to visualize their own furniture in place. They envision reading a book in front of the fire on a chilly Michigan evening. They see themselves drinking champagne in the jetted tub. They mentally move in. This is precisely the psychological reaction that good home staging will elicit.

In addition to producing a sale, home staging can benefit the seller in other ways as well.

The first step in staging is de-cluttering. This forces the seller to start packing their belongings and eases the moving process once they do sell. Most homeowners have lived in their homes for so long that they no longer see their “stuff”. When the task of packing is at hand, people can look at their treasures with more practicality and objectivity. They are amazed at the things that have been hiding in their house! Donating and disposing of long-unused items can be downright cathartic.

With less clutter on display, the seller’s stress is reduced when a showing is announced. There is much less last-minute tidying up to do and this can decrease some of the anxiety that the homeowner feels.

Perhaps the most beneficial effect of home staging is that it assists the seller in disconnecting from the “home”, which is now a “house” for sale. Selling a home can be painfully emotional. It may, in fact, be an unwelcome necessity if divorce, illness or death are involved. After a home is staged, most personal effects are out of sight and the seller may start to feel less sentimental about leaving the home. It can ease the transition and help the homeowner to move forward with the next chapter of their life. And that’s a good thing.

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Written by Marianne Sweet
Home Sweet Home Staging, (586) 212-8400
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