Discover top staging secrets to showcase your home this summer
We spend lots of our time outdoors during Summer, so when staging a home for sale during the warmer months, it's time to let your outside space sing.
We spend lots of our time outdoors during Summer, so when staging a home for sale during the warmer months, it's time to let your outside space sing.
Many of us make some of our favourite memories in our homes during summer.
Long summer afternoons spent playing with the children.
BBQs that descend into family water fights or lovely chats with friends long after the sun sets.
Early morning coffees as you listen to the birds sing.
Flowers with their beautiful display adding vibrant colour and gently beckon bees and insects to buzz around them.
So, when selling a home during the summer months, it makes sense to evoke these same emotions in the buyer's mind too.
We can demonstrate the wonderful summer days enjoyed in your home using staging and props.
Simply follow these tips.
Seating: If you have a sun trap area to sit in your garden, show it off. Make sure you have seating there - sun loungers, table and chairs, or outdoor sofas. Make it seem comfy and inviting with cushions and blankets. Set the table with a jug of iced water and some glasses for photos. Let the condensation gather and slowly drip down the outside of the jug for an irresistible image to capture viewers' attention.
Dining: Alfresco dining? Pizza oven? BBQ? Have everything set up as if you are having a pizza party, BBQ or simply enjoying lunch outdoors. Images will begin to spark the viewers' imagination of their own summer days that they'll be able to enjoy when they buy your home.
Outdoor toys: Keep toys to a minimum. A swing set, a trampoline, and a slide are often 'displayed' in our gardens during summer. But, if you are trying to sell your home, it's essential to show off the outside space, not a Little Tikes catalogue. Having an area for children to play is great to encourage family buyers. But, not everyone will have a family or, indeed, will want a garden filled with toys. So, have separated areas to show seating and playing space. Rather than squeezing all of the toys into a shed or garage whilst you try to sell the house, why not use them as props for staging? It will be a long and stressful summer if your children have no access to the outside space, too, wouldn't it? If there is a wendy house, style that in the same way that you would style your home's interior in the same way. Or set up cricket wickets? Or perhaps football nets and a ball? Think about how you have used your garden; children playing, eating and drinking outdoors. Maybe you have a firepit and could place some skewers close by for the photographs to show that you can toast marshmallows on the fire at the end of a long summer's day when the sun goes down.
Colour: Adding vibrant, colourful fruit in the kitchen always works well. Fill a fruit bowl, ideally with matching fruit - so all apples, or all lemons, for a sophisticated look. Add a pop of colour and create a point of interest for the photos with flowers, both in the garden and inside the property.
As they say, a picture paints a thousand words.
And the point of staging is to tell the story through images.
If you have the best BBQ corner, show it off by setting everything up for a flame-grilled feast.
If you have a sun trap sunbathing spot, have your sun lounger, a book, and maybe even a drink nearby.
If you have a sunny house, let the sunlight bathe the property in the photographs (although the photographer will no doubt have a moan about over-exposure!)
Throw open the bi-fold doors and show you can enjoy a lovely morning coffee in the sun. With nothing but the bird's morning chorus for company as you gather your thoughts for the day ahead.
Using the images to tell the story of all the fabulous times you've had in your home will go a long way to showing what a wonderful life your potential buyer could have in this home too.
People choosing to buy a new home do so because of emotion. The property they purchase tugs on their heartstrings, and you can use your photos to appeal to those emotions. After all, properties are not purchased using logic.
To learn more about how property staging works and how it can maximise the value of your home, get in touch with our expert property team.