Style your way to a top sale

Real Estate

Team MONEYME|19 July 2022| 2-minute read

There’s a process of elimination that comes with buying a property. For many it’s ruthless. The first cull happens online.

Keen buyers surf the web mid-week deciding which properties they’ll visit on their Saturday morning in the precious hours before brunch.

Styling can be the difference that lands a property on somebody’s shortlist.

For Alon Beran, senior sales consultant at St Leonards’s Little Real Estate, it’s not a matter of whether you style, but how. “It’s a no-brainer, I do it for every property,” he said.

“We’re not selling empty rooms, we’re selling a feeling, an emotion, and an attachment to something. This is somebody’s home that they’re moving into, you can’t connect with walls and floors,” he said.

Strategic styling

The benefits of styling are undisputed in the industry but how do you decide what goes where? Property type, demographics, and cost all play a part. 

Canberra Hive agent, Bree Prince works with different stylists depending on a client’s budget, and the look of the property.

“If you were looking at something that was a brand new, modern, very expensive home, then potentially we’d go for one of our more expensive stylists because they have pieces that would complement that property,” she said.

Prince remembers being struck by the impact of styling when she bought her very own home. 

“I bought a house that’s got a huge open-plan space. I walked in, and the furniture was just big, it was beautiful furniture. It gave me a sense of ‘wow, this is a really special property’,” she said. 

For Bushby Property Groups’ George Bushby it’s the styling that helps guide buyers about how they would live in the home. 

“We had a property at on St John Street in Launceston where I think the furniture really helped give the home soul and personality, rather than it just being a very bland, blank canvas,” he said. 

Property styling leads to a higher sales price

The emotional connection forged through styling can help bring about a higher sales price.

“The way people buy property is they look at it logically and they buy it emotionally,” said Beron. 

A survey of LJ Hooker agents found that 98% of agents believe that styling your property to sell can help achieve a higher sales price.

In October, Beran sold a property in Bellevue Hill, NSW that surpassed its price guide because of styling. “I went in there and it was empty rooms,” he said. 

“So we painted it, we carpeted it, we styled it fully, we had a price guide on it that started at $1.1. The price then went up to $1.15, after we got an offer on it, and it then ended up selling at auction for $1.5 because we had seven registered bidders for it.”

Prince said the cost of styling will pay off in spades for vendors. “You’re going to get back two or three times at the other end,” she said.

Style your next property with the help of ListReady.