Home Staging: Say NO to Empty Rooms. Learn WHY
5 reasons it’s a bad idea to leave rooms empty when showing your house:
1. People don’t buy houses, they buy homes.
2. It’s hard to understand how large a room is when there’s nothing in it as a reference point.
3. People can’t visualize how furniture will fit in an empty space and if they’re unsure, they don’t buy.
4. When a room is empty prospective buyers focus on negative details instead of falling in love with the overall space. Instead of looking at the flow of one room to another, they get bogged down in questions like: Is the drywall smooth? Will those bumps in the carpet come out? How come the closet doesn’t have a hanging bar yet? Why doesn’t that molding fit perfectly? How come the light switch is in the middle of the wall?
5. When a house or even a few rooms are empty prospective buyers can get distracted from looking at the house. Instead of focusing on whether this is the home for them, they may be busy wondering: Is this a divorce? Have they left town? Are they selling because they have money problems? This train of thought will take them where you, as a vendor, don’t want them to go! They’ll start thinking, “maybe I can put in a low ball offer since the seller might be desperate.”
June 8th, 2007 at 9:27 am
To achieve the greatest possible outcome a home should always be presented at its best the first time around. So don’t be lazy, find a home stager and get top dollar for your home! Or at least do it yourself - decorate your house, make it more appealing to buyers.
June 12th, 2007 at 4:58 am
My 2 cents: spruce up your house to make it look less like home, and more like what a prospective buyer wants to see. Check into a hotel for the night to let home stagers do their thing.
June 13th, 2007 at 4:05 am
Of course, it’s true, but some buyers may prefer empty rooms and open area
June 14th, 2007 at 9:43 am
I don’t think you’re quite right. I believe that people buy “houses” with the purpose of turning it into a “home” by personalizing it… they do not wanna buy someone else’s “home”. They want it to be their own… But empty places usually make one think that the place is TOO big to live in, so I also think empty rooms make no good.
June 14th, 2007 at 10:27 am
I always tell people that they want each space to have only one function, but that it does have to have a function. No empty rooms or rooms that look clearly unused, either!