There’s a couple of ways to answer this question, according to Watt Realty CEO Justin Watt in a recent video.
“Ideally if I could have fully renovated houses that were fully staged, looking amazing, that’s obviously the ultimate,” Justin said. “But it’s not the reality of life. People still need to live in their homes and do what they need to do day to day.”
So what can the ‘real life’ seller to do stage their home?
The commonly held belief that you should de-clutter and de-personalise can be taken too far, Justin cautions.
“I’ve seen a lot of houses where they’ve had advice and they’ve stripped it out, they’ve said get your family photos off the wall,” he said.
“Obviously if you have too much furniture you want to de-clutter it but I’m not a believer in stripping your house out.”
And there’s a good reason for that belief. The people who buy your home are likely to be a younger version of you. Showing them how you live in your home can actually help them imagine themselves moving into your home at a similar stage of life to when you did.
“What I’ve found over the years is the people that are buying are actually a younger slightly different version of the people that are selling,” Justin explained. “So presenting the home as they live in it would really actually attract that same kind of profile of person.”
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