According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR) new Profile of Home Staging, staging is likely to have a significant positive impact on your home sale.
We’ve all seen homes that languish on the market week after week, or even for months at a time, without generating much interest from home buyers. While this is sometimes caused by poor pricing or a weak local market, it’s often due to an outdated home design or awkward floorplan that turns off buyers as soon as they walk in the door. If you’re thinking about selling your Fairfield CT home, it’s important to understand what buyers are looking for and how you can make your home as appealing as possible for them. That’s where home staging can help.
According to the 2021 Profile of Home Staging compiled by the National Association of Realtors, appealing to today’s buyers — and getting top dollar for your home sale — may be about more than updated HVAC and curb appeal. Find out how home staging can contribute to a more effective and efficient process — and how it may even increase the profitability of your home sale.
Section 1: Home Staging: Buyer’s Agent Perspective
According to the Profile, a whopping 82% of buyers agents said that home staging made it easier for buyers to “visualize the property as a future home.” Why is it so difficult for buyers to use their imagination in this way without home staging?
Often, when faced with an empty room, it’s difficult for people to determine the scale and size of the space and estimate how it will look when filled. When faced with an overly crowded room or one that is set up differently than they would arrange it, it’s even more challenging for buyers to picture their own furnishings and accessories there. By presenting a home decorated according to the taste and style of local homebuyers, a home stager can help them picture themselves in the space and imagine your home as their new home.
In addition, 23% of buyer’s agents said that home staging increased the sale price of a home from one to five percent, while 26% said that it increased the sale price by even more than that. A five percent increase on the current median single-family home value of $295,300 translates into almost $15,000 in additional value. While your mileage may vary, that’s still a significant incentive to explore home staging as an option for making your home’s marketing more effective.
Section 2: Home Staging: Seller’s Agent Perspective
On the seller side, listing agents backed up the potential for higher sale prices cited by buyer’s agents in NAR’s report, with 23% estimating an increased value of one to five percent and 29% seeing even higher increases in sale prices. These potential price increases far outweigh the costs associated with most staging services.
In addition, 53% of listing agents found that home staging helped to reduce the time a home spends on the market. This effect could help to explain the higher home sale price as well since the longer a home sits on the market the more likely it is to garner tougher negotiations and a lower-priced offer from potential buyers or to experience a seller-requested price reduction.
In cases where only a portion of the home was staged, the most commonly staged rooms included:
● Living room (90%)
● Kitchen (80%)
● Owner’s Suite (78%)
● Dining Room (69%)
● Bathroom (56%)
While only 39% staged a home office, this type of staging is likely to increase as more buyers take advantage of post-COVID work-from-home options and look for larger homes to accommodate multiple home offices.
In addition, 37% of staging projects included outdoor spaces. These, too, have become increasingly important during the COVID-era real estate market, with many buyers favoring more outdoor living and entertaining options.
Section 3: How TV Shows Influenced Buyers
One interesting factor that was identified by NAR in the Profile was the fact that 63% of buyer agents said that their buyers believed that the homes they see during their search should look like those on TV shows. This indicates that, however unrealistic that expectation might be, buyers are clearly influenced by all of the HGTV-viewing that often happens before the beginning of a home search, giving them little tolerance for less-than-perfect home decor.
Even more buyers (68%) were disappointed when entering real-life homes if they didn’t live up to the buyers’ expectations. Clearly, then, home staging can help to ensure that buyers have a favorable first impression of your listing, helping it to stack up against others in your market.
Section 4: Buyer Expectations
According to NAR’s Profile, buyers have a good grasp of the number of homes they’ll need to see before they find the right one. Most buyers correctly expected to see 15 homes through virtual tours and 10 homes through in-person visits. That translates to a lot of competition for the attention and interest of buyers in your area.
While fewer than 40% of buyers knew what to expect from the home buying and financing process, more than 80% knew exactly where they wanted to live and 76% had a clear idea of what they wanted in an “ideal” home. By tapping into buyers’ preferences and preconceived ideas, home staging helps translate their expectations into your space, increasing the likelihood that buyers will see your home as the one they’ve been looking for.
If you’re considering home selling in Fairfield CT and all across Fairfield County CT and want to increase your home’s appeal, home staging may make it easier to for potential buyers to picture themselves in your home. Contact me to connect with a market-proven home stager who’ll help you stage a vacant home or transform your current home so that it looks its best. Let’s chat!