What can clients expect from a home stager?
A lot of first-time clients won’t know what to expect from a home stager. For occupied homes in particular, it can seem like an invasive process. The best way to put a new client at ease is to be completely upfront with them.
Explaining the Home Staging Process
On her weekly radio show, Melissa Marro, owner of Rave Home Staging, explains our process. First, our occupied home specialist goes to the house, makes recommendations, takes notes and pictures, and provides the client with a written report within 48 hours.
While visiting the house, our stager will look at factors like architecture, demographics, local amenities, and the age of the house. Together, these determine WHAT kind of people are most likely to buy and HOW they’re going to live in the house.
All that’s left to do is see what the client already has and what we need to bring in. That’s it. Now, we’ve set up the home for the most-likely buyer to fall absolutely in love with it.
Not sure how to talk about your process? Check out our Train the Trainer class on communication and telling your story.
Courting Millennial Buyers
You may need to get creative with what you bring into a home, especially with a growing pool of millennial buyers. The styles that appealed to the house’s original Baby Boomer or Generation X owners won’t have the same effect on millennials.
What do millennials look for in a house? Quality of life.
They tend to prioritize money for travel and socially conscious spending over owning large, luxurious properties. If they can live within walking or biking distance of the shops, restaurants, and entertainment they like—which means they can socialize mostly outside of the house—they’ll opt for a smaller home. They’re generally under 30 and have no kids or very young kids, so they aren’t too worried about school zones yet.
Many came of age during The Great Recession and have been saddled with student debt. This means few are willing to go into debt to own a house, and most will save up to make a down payment. It also means a lot of them live with hand-me-down furniture and simple IKEA furnishings.
Reflect the Buyer’s Lifestyle
When you’re staging a house, you need to create a space the buyer can see themselves in. For millennials, that means more industrial fixtures and refurbished items that mix wood and metal. It means making the most of a small floorplan. It means showing how to utilize the kitchen space the way millennials use kitchens—trendy cookbooks for trying new recipes, seating for casual dinners with friends, small succulents and herbs growing in the windows.
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