Stage Your Success: Open the Door!

We've all seen the horrible photographs of bad MLS listings from funny websites like

Lovely Listings but the fact is, photographs are a huge factor in driving traffic to your house for sale. Furthermore, we believe it is a major responsibility of the listing agent to market the home to the best of their ability and taking good photos is key in good marketing. Look at the success of Pinterest! 

Pinterest is actually getting close to Google in our "entry sources" bringing people to our website!

That is incredible.

Simply standing in the doorway and snapping a photo of each room "as is" without making any attempt to style the photo is really doing your selling attempt (and the client for that matter) an injustice.

Photo styling is all about positioning the "product" in its best visual setting. Since our product is a HOUSE, it can be challenging to bring focus to the features of the house instead of the things inside the house. If a professional photographer is not part of the marketing plan, there are certainly some VERY BASIC tactics that can easily be implemented to ensure that the house photos are the best they be. 

(Did I mention VERY BASIC? And typically free?)

HOUSE STYLING TIP:  Open the Doors

If you really want to take your photos to a higher level, open the doors and let that natural light shine in. Once you get the hang of it, you will notice right away what a crazy difference it makes.

Check it out:....OPEN DOOR

  

Closed door....

 

 Open door.....

 

 Closed door...

And the interesting thing about this one is that it is such a great room but imagine 

the visual impact of having that door open on a sunny day!

Same thing here. Imagine if that door were open, and the wreath were on 

the other side reflecting in the mirror. It would make the space seem so much larger. Ugh! 

And this is a magazine shot! duh

Love this open door from the outside

Even if the weather is snowy outside, it can work! Just need some sun.

White space needs an open door to bring in life and energy.

I want this door to be open so badly.

Inside the house is a great opportunity to shoot with different door angles.

Bad bathroom photos drive me BONKERS!

If you have a toilet shot in any of your photos, I urge you to re-think your options.

Keeping in mind that we are selling the lifestyle, I love how this photo demonstrates the 

functional, organized, awesomeness of the closet! Instead of shooting the closed door and toilet.

Do our closets look like this?

Of course not, but for your listing photo, it would take 20 minutes to style this look.

Perhaps from the outside in?

Or the inside out?

 

Next time you are photographing your rooms, play with the doors and see what you get. 

And remember, what looks good through your eyes may not translate as well through the camera frame, so move things around and show the features of the room instead of the things in the room.

Even a little peek will make a buyer want to see more!

Getting stuck in the "nice house" syndrome.

How to avoid the "nice house syndrome"

These photos are from a NH home and are a great example of how we live in our home differs from how we must market and sell our home. This is a formal dining room which needed to be defined as such.

The "Nice Home Syndrome" is what we at New England Home Staging call it when your home gets showing activity, the Buyer feedback states " Nice House, we're going to keep it on our list and think about it", yet they leave and you never hear from them again. And the most frustrating thing is, the feedback from the showing is ALWAYS GOOD!

How do you know what to fix when your feedback is always good?

We find this is the most common syndrome in our long list of clients needed some fine tuning.

These Sellers have decluttered and depersonalized, they have repaired and conditioned yet still they find themselves without an offer on their home.
How can you improve your home based on the feedback if the Buyer never has any negative remarks or constructive criticism??

Here are a few of the tactics we use to bring quick, inexpensive, solutions to this common dilemma;

• 
  Spatially define each room by the room's original purpose. (Using a pool table in the dining room is great if you are not selling, but when selling- we need to see a dining room setting.)
  
• Know the demography of your Buyer. What will likely be their age, their style, their likes and dislikes? Playing up to their "likes" will surely help them identify with the home. This creates an emotional connection. We have a secret strategy for mastering this. :)
  
• Keep small projects to a MINIMUM. What may be tiny things here and there, add up to " Let's keep it on the list and maybe come back to it after we've seen a few other homes"
  
• Pay CLOSE attention to the last area the Buyer will likely see in the home. This is typically the basement. Often times we make the upstairs fabulous but leave the basement as a dumping ground. A good impression is important however, create a lasting impression by making the basement, or the last area the Buyer sees, complimentary to the best parts of the house.

Give us a call to find out how you can move from the "nice house syndrome" to SOLD.

1-888-778-NEHS