Impeccable interior styling is crucial if you want to have buyers falling head over heels with your property. So, that equals neutrals only, plus forking out the equivalent of a year’s mortgage to have the pros prettify your pad, right? Well, before you start prepping your home for sale, let us bust a few myths around what you should and shouldn’t do when it comes to property styling.
1) Stay Away From Colour
Colour is too risky, they said. Brights will polarise buyers, they said. Better stick to beige on beige, they said. And… is anybody yawning yet? The ‘no colour’ rule is primarily devised to ensure that your property styling won’t offend – yet on the flipside, the playing-it-safe approach likely won’t have buyers feeling much of, er, anything. If the goal is to have potential buyers throwing money at you, you’ll need to tug at their heartstrings a little first. So forget keeping everyone on side – all you need is one buyer who LOVES your home (although two will work too if you fancy a hearty bidding war) to get a sale over the line at the right price. Clever use of colour is a great way to do this – and integrated in the right way, it definitely works. Research what hues are trending and which neutral shades they’ll work back well with – for example at the moment, blush pink paired with grey are having a moment – and incorporate these into your soft furnishings. Or, add a few bouquets to brighten things up – because, well, who doesn’t like flowers.
2) You Must Style The Whole Property
This would be lovely, yes. Real life, however, comes with pesky things like finite funds and time constraints (we know), so often sellers aren’t able to style their entire home from back to front – and that is totally fine. We promise. If this is you, narrow your focus to the key rooms most likely to influence buyers – that is, the kitchen and living areas. If you decide to call in a little help on the property styling front, Furnish & Finish can work with you to use existing furniture, and/or focus on key rooms – and still deliver a powerful result.
3) Stylists Cost A Bomb
Outsourcing your property styling to the pros doesn’t have to come with unfathomable costs. Granted, you will have to hand over something (we know – why don’t more people accept the bartering system these days?!), but this is an investment that is well worth it come auction day. A 3-bedroom home in Normanhurst, NSW, for example, recently sold for 200k above the asking price following a styling session by Furnish & Finish.
4) Styling Is Only For Ugly Properties
A common misconception is that property styling is reserved for a certain breed of home going to market – think those of the green shag carpets, lino on the kitchen floor variety. Having it styled may seem unnecessary if you think your property is sitting pretty enough already (and, er, most of us generally do like our interiors, because we chose that cute Scandi couch ourselves, right?! Even if we did have to go with the IKEA variety rather than its original antique store-find cousin). But in the current market, all properties do require a degree of styling – not just the ugly ones. Simple and elegant tweaks will ensure your interiors have a cohesive look that is tailored to both the style of your property and the likely demographic of the purchaser, ensuring it will attract a wide market of would-be buyers.
Have more questions? Give our interior stylists a call and we’d be happy to share some more tips.
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