Properly styling and staging your apartment is a complicated process. But when done well, it can help owners sell the unit quickly and at a price they can feel good about. At Furniture Fitouts, our staging and styling specialists regularly work with our clients to help them accomplish this. Given our extensive experience with the issue, we thought we would take a moment to share some insight from our years of staging apartments for sale.
With that in mind, here are three important steps to take when styling your apartment for a quick sale:
1. Depersonalise the Space
This is one of the most important things that apartment owners get wrong when trying to sell. It’s easy to convince yourself that your personal mementos such as photographs are a nice touch, but in reality they’re distracting. Prospective buyers are only likely to spend a few minutes looking around your apartment before moving on to the next available unit. Any time they spend looking at photos is going to pull them away from actually noting the apartment’s selling points.
Ideally, you want those viewing your apartment to pleasantly imagine themselves living in it. This makes it important to remove personal mementos that hint at another person’s life in the space. The trick is to make the apartment as cosy and inviting as possible without personalising the space. If you’re struggling with how to achieve this, our staging and styling specialists can help.
2. Know the Space’s Shortcomings
In terms of flaws, this could be anything from a bit of mouldy grout between tiles in the bathroom, a cracked window or even something like too much clutter in one of the rooms. Potential buyers can’t help but fixate on flaws like this, and the slightest downside could prompt them to try and negotiate your asking price down. And to be fair, some flaws could even lead them to move on to the next potential apartment.
It’s not always easy to identify an apartment’s flaws – especially if you legitimately love the space and can’t imagine why anyone would have a different reaction to it. But knowing the potential pitfalls of your apartment will help you stage it properly, so that there aren’t any glaring issues that buyers are bound to pick up on.
3. Make it Look Liveable
This is particularly important if the apartment is currently empty. It’s easy to assume that an empty unit at a desirable location is like a blank canvas: potential buyers can paint whatever picture they desire. But this is rarely how it works.
In reality, those who are viewing the apartment can usually do with a little bit of help in imagining what their life in that space could be like. If the apartment is currently vacant, consider hiring furniture to fit it out during the viewing stage. This goes a long way toward enhancing its perceived value. But most importantly, staging your apartment can help you sell it faster – and often at a higher price.
If you’re in the process of selling an apartment in Perth, get in touch with the experts at Furniture Fitouts. We’ll help ensure that your space is primed and ready to impress potential buyers.