Property Staging: Transforming Your Home for Today’s Real Estate Market

Hi, guys! Naomi Findlay here. Good to see you.

Today, we’re going to talk about how to transform your property to make sure it sells for the highest possible price in the shortest possible time.

Let’s get started.

Let’s talk about how to transform your property to maximize your return on investment and make sure that your property meets the mark in today’s real estate market.

All around the world the real estate markets are a little different, but one thing goes without saying, one thing is a no-brainer.

There are pretty much three to four main things that effect how well a property sells:

• Location
• Price point
• Your agent and the way they market it
• Presentation of your property

It’s really, really important that you do everything you can to control those things that you can have an influence on.

Obviously, you – without doubt – have a massive influence on the way you present your property for sale.

Today, I want to talk to you about a few of the things that you need to consider straight up, the no-brainers, to make sure that your property presentation is second to none.

One thing that they’ve noticed over the last 10 years in real estate is things have started to change a little.

No longer are people happy with substandard properties.

Most people are willing to pay a premium price for a property that presents well and a property that there’s little to no work to do on. Let’s get talking about what you really need to be thinking about when you’re presenting your house for sale.

The number one thing is I want you to think about what the highlights are of your property.

• What are the amazing things that maybe were the things that made you want to buy it?
• What are the things that all of your friends comment on when they come into your property?
• Is it the view?
• Is it the street appeal?
• Is it the floor plan?
• Is it the light-filled nature of the property?

What are the things that everyone comments on that are amazing at your place and what are the things that drew you to buy that property?

Once you’ve done this, write a list of what I call the “highlights” of your property.

Now we also need to think about what the low-lights of your property are.

I want you to think about, if you had an opportunity, what are the things that you would change about your property? What are the things that your best friend that doesn’t have the filter walks into the house and says,

“You know what? I love your house. But if I could change anything, it would be…”

It might be that your driveway is difficult to get out of. It might be that your neighbors are really close. It might be that you don’t have a massive yard. It could be that your kitchen bench isn’t quite as functional as it should be.

Most properties do have a few low-lights.

The reason I ask you to do this isn’t so you get pessimistic about how to sell your property for the most money in the shortest possible time. It’s so that we can then engage what is so important when selling your property.

When you go to start thinking about how to get your property ready from a presentation perspective, the main thing I want you to do is look at your list of highlights and look at your list of low-lights, or less positive points.

Work out a way that you can maximize the highlights in your property and minimize the impact of the low-lights in your property.

For an example, if you have an amazing view, you’d want to get people to the point where they get to enjoy your view and stand there for the longest possible time. Effectively, you’d want the shortest possible distance between the front door and that view.

If in the same property, for example, you had a really, really tiny fourth bedroom that maybe could only double as a cot room or a study, you’d want to make sure that that room was not the first room that they saw.

You’d want them to see the highlights for the maximum amount of time before viewing something that maybe isn’t the most positive aspect of your home.

Once you’ve made your highlights list and your low-lights list, there’s also a couple of other things that research shows us are really big factors when people are viewing your home on whether they buy it or they don’t buy it.

Let’s go over those.

Research shows us (and research has been detailed with quite powerful numbers and statistics) that smell is one of the biggest factors that effects people’s decision whether to view a property for a second time, make an offer or cross it off their list.

Make sure there are no strong odors.

Not even any strong good odors. No really strong odors, especially bad odors, in your property. Without a doubt, it will absolutely distract the buyer from the highlights that you’re wanting to expose them to.

Minimize your clutter.

By clutter, I mean the things that are maybe really important to you, that are part of everyday life, but certainly don’t contribute to the emphasizing or the drawing attention to the highlights of your property. I want you to minimize them.

There are lots of different ways you can do this and there’s a lot of other videos that we have that we can show you how to do that. We’ll make sure that, over time, we’ll put plenty of links on the website so that you have an opportunity to get some help with that.

Light has a massive impact on how a buyer views your property.

A dark house often feels cold and a dark house often feels quite imposing in a really negative manner. It’s really important that you work hard on getting as much light into that property as you can.

Obviously, for us antipodeans, if it’s a strong westerly, horribly intense heat that’s going to bring the light in through the windows on an afternoon open home, we’ll maybe look at other ways to do it.

But regardless of how you get that light into your space, you really need to make sure that your home feels light-filled and it feels welcoming to anyone that comes to inspect the property.

The last thing that I want to talk to you about in regard to how to transform your property goes back to those highlights and those low-lights.

Remember I was saying about how it’s really important to get the buyer to the highlights first and that it’s really important to showcase those highlights of your property.

One of the ways you can do that is with placement of your furniture.

How we live in a house is really different to how we sell a house. That’s not saying we live in them incorrectly, it’s just saying that there are different needs of furniture, of placement, and of styling, when we go to see a property.

It’s really important that you think about the traffic in your property when someone is inspecting it.

For example, if you have the amazing view that I was talking about earlier.

If you have this amazing view but the way that you lived in your property, you needed to walk around an absolutely huge, imposing corner lounge that had a recliner, a chaise, and a pile of furniture to get to that view, that is not ideal furniture placement.

Ideal furniture placement would be furniture that allowed you to walk through as the crow flies, so to speak, in the shortest possible manner and the quickest possible time to get to that highlight.

Furniture placement, if done well, would then also make sure that people wanted to stay in that spot, stay at that highlight location where they’re enjoying that view for as long as they possibly can.

Just to wrap it up:

Firm believer presentation is one of the key factors that will transform your property to make sure you sell in the shortest possible time frame for the largest amount of money.

The things that you need to check off your list and really objectively look at your property for are clutter, smell, light and placement.

The best thing you can do to guide yourself through this is to write your list of your highlights and your low-lights.

If you’re struggling to do that, make sure you get someone objective or a professional in to help you with that. Many agents and, of course, home stagers or presale property stylists are more than happy to have input into these things.

But you know what?

If you’re struggling with a bit of that, why don’t you click on the link below and head over to our crash course and our free 30 tips to help you increase your property value, which will certainly help you make sure you meet the market in today’s amazing real estate industry.

Get to it. Throw us your email address and we’ll get out a pile of tips for you straight to your inbox.

Thanks for listening, guys. I’ll talk to you again soon.

– Naomi