Staging can mean everything when you are selling your home. Don’t believe me? Listen to this scenario I recently had when I was showing some buyers condos near Lake Travis.
We enter the first condo of the day. It is located in a building they already love and these buyers know what they are looking for in a condo. There are only four floor plans we are seeing in the building – although we are seeing several units with the same floor plan. The first condo is vacant but supposedly staged with outdated living room furniture and no dining room table. In these small lake front condos, it can be hard to visualize where your dining table will go – and the lack of one in this unit certainly left my buyers puzzled. The master furniture was nice, but the second bedroom seemed too specific with two twin-sized beds. The walls were white throughout the condo and there weren’t many decorations or paintings. Overall, the condo seemed clean and but lacked warmth and the furniture style and layout were not ideal. Being the first condo of the day, my buyers liked this unit and the overall square footage…they aren’t wowed, but it is left on their “list.”
We move on to a few of the other units with different floor plans, but each seem to have a flaw and do not make the “list.” Next, we enter a unit with the same floor plan as the first condo my buyers liked. This unit is occupied and has been professionally decorated. Almost immediately they notice the dining table and they love the placement of it in the condo – it adds value, a whole other room. Right then, they knew they liked this condo better than the first because of the layout….the funny thing is that both units are identical in square footage and floor plan. Both units when bought will be cleared of its furniture and the buyers will bring in their own touches…but already one unit is ‘winning’ over the other because they are showing the buyer where they can place the table. One would think the two units should still be equal, but the psychological effect one dining table has made all the difference in the world to these buyers. As we move throughout the unit, we notice the different placement of the living room furniture and the warm colors throughout. They even forgive a few of the accessories because the overall feel of the unit just felt right to them. Even the bedroom furniture placement made them think more about what they’ll do with the rooms and which family member will spend more time in the secondary bedroom versus the balcony. Again, this is the identical unit to the first, but the staging evoked so much more in these buyers and they were sold.
To top this story off, there was quite a difference between the list prices in the identical condos as well – the second priced higher. That price difference seemed justified to the buyers (though, we did change that up in negotiations of course!) simply because the way that condo made them feel over the other.
So, if you did not think staging made a difference before – I hope you see it now. My clients went from liking a condo but wanting to see more to falling in love with an identical unit, which was priced higher, all because of the staging.
If you are thinking about selling your Austin condo, contact me today and let’s discuss how we can wow the buyers and bring more money to your pockets at closing.
