"Imagine Living Here:" How Buyer Emotions Turn Listings into Homes

The importance of 'imagine living here'....

? "I can just see us sitting here, watching a movie with our family.... " ?

I'll admit, I watched Netflix's show, "Owning Manhattan," focusing on owner Ryan Serhant's successful and growing luxury-level real estate agency in New York City. Anyone else see it?

I, of course, loved seeing into their world of real estate and, most of all, the staging! I kept pausing to take it all in!

"One of the easiest ways to know you have a buyer on the hook is when they're imagining living here. When you get these kind of emotions involved, that tells me....you gotta go in." --Ryan Serhant, owner of Serhant Realty, Manhattan, NY.

Have you been with buyers when they are LOVING a house? When they are already imagining themselves living there? Do you do the same thing as Ryan? The emotions are where it's at!?

DID YOU KNOW that in Manhattan (and most places around the country, in fact), they unequivocally STAGE EVERY LISTING!!??

WHY do they bother, you ask?.....

It's an extra hassle, more scheduling, paperwork, maybe time, and of course we all know it takes money!

.....Why? .....because they know it makes SUCH A DIFFERENCE in the emotional connection for buyers, leading to faster sales and a LARGER NET PROFIT!

And in Manhattan, it's SO worth their investment of $20,000 for a vacant staging! (OK, don't worry, that's NOT western PA pricing!)

And, if they have homes that will be occupied when selling, they have a stager go to the house to make it more marketable and get it ready for photos.

Because buyers don't want to see how the sellers live in the house, but rather feel inspired by seeing how THEY could live there.

Ryan's comment on furniture and staging: "It's like the seasoning, you know? Like if you make a great meal.....the seasoning at the end could either really make it or could ruin it."

And why could it "make it or ruin it"? Because of the positive or negative feelings and emotions each room elicits in buyers.

It's that powerful.

Why do you "love" something? That coat. A song. Those trees. That old car your dad and you fixed up. That concert you went to. A good friend. A great book. Think about the emotions you have next time you "love" something, and how powerful that is.

THAT is how you want the prospective buyers to feel when they enter your sellers' house. That's what's going to widen your pool of interested buyers and sell the buyer on it.

Staging a house sets the "emotional-stage," for buyers to have an experience that will create the positive emotions while walking through a house. This is why rooms that just "feel good" to be in are worth the extra effort, time and money it takes to create them.

In every house and every room I stage, whether vacant or occupied, not only am I highlighting the features of each room using design principles with often just their belongings, but I also include small but tasteful emotional connection points to further ramp-up the positive emotions for buyers.

A stack of dishes on a table. A book and blanket on a chair ??. Little bears on a bed in a second bedroom ??. Coffee mugs by a sugar bowl in the kitchen ?.

Which of these pictures of rooms I staged can you "see yourself living in"?

Think the buyers felt the same way? ?

I want to stand out! ?? 724-302-4663 ??

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