by Jeanette Joy Fisher
Wouldn't it be nice to have Roger Hazard's design team from
"Sell This House" come visit for a weekend?
Many "redecorators" and designers offer "Staging Homes" services
from $250 to $5,000. These services usually give good advice, some help with the
actual work involved, and others even move in new furniture for you.
However, using Design Psychology strategies will help you make
the right choices on what is necessary to stage your home for a top-dollar sale.
Residential Design Psychology encompasses your entire home
setting, from the fist sighting, whether your home is a condominium, single
family home, or a manufactured home. Design Psychology, based on years of
research on how our environments affect our emotions, helps stage homes with the
buyers' emotions in mind. Also, this interior decorating system uses the
underlying physiological response to design details-- how our senses react to
colors, patterns, textures, and furnishings, to entice a buyer to REALLY want
your home.
Home buyers make their ultimate home selection based on their
emotional reactions to the properties they visit. The way their brains interpret
what they see, hear, touch, smell, and even taste causes them to feel connected
to the home they choose. Buyers may think they make a choice based on economics,
but even this decision is based on the way they feel because they're getting a
deal.
You, as a home seller, have two initial choices.
1. Sell
your home as a bargain to investors or bargain shoppers with limited income, or
2. Sell
your home for top dollar to your target market.
To prepare your home to sell to investors and bargain shoppers,
all you need to do is look for a real estate agent who does a lot of
advertising. This agent will list your home under market value. Then sit back
and allow the agent to sell your home for a rock-bottom price. Don't be
surprised when you get many offers for lower than your asking price right away.
If you want to work a little, or perhaps a lot, you can sell
your home for top dollar. Explore ways to create a buyers' dream home. Because
buyers let their emotions rule their decisions, stage your home for your
specific buyer profile. Learn how certain colors, textures, and even plants help
attract buyers who will spend more money on your home. Get busy removing
clutter, packing memorabilia, staging, and sell your home for top dollar. Don't
be surprised when you get many offers for more than your asking price right
away.
You may be able to assemble your own team of friends to help you
clear out your crowded rooms, paint, and spiff up your gardens. Who needs Roger
Hazard's team when you've got a few good friends and Design Psychology?
Jeanette Fisher, Design Psychology Professor, is the author of "Sell Your Home
for Top Dollar--FAST! Interior Design Psychology Secrets for Optimum Selling in
Any Market," and other real estate and interior design books. For more
information on staging your home for sale, visit
http://sellfast.info/ For more on Design Psychology, visit http://www.designpsych.com/