Call Us Today: 0428 865 522

How Do You Determine Which Style to Choose?

This is a great question and one we get quite often. Let’s dig in.

For Home Stagers – getting the style right is of paramount importance. It can mean the difference between someone selling their house or not.  After all, these people entrusted us with their livelihoods, which is a responsibility we don’t take lightly.

That’s why we always exercise a fair amount of due diligence and look at each property individually. Every house is unique, and everyone’s situation is different, which means there is no simple answer.

But we can narrow it down to a few key points we look at and take you behind the scenes of how we make this decision.

There are 3 main deciding factors:

1. Location & Style of the House
2. Target Audience
3. ROI for the client

1. Location & Style of the House

The first thing we look at are the fixtures & fittings of the house. This includes the colour & material of the walls, windows, floors, kitchen bench tops, curtains & blinds, etc.

In integrated staging (meaning: the owner still lives in the house) we look at their current furniture as well.

The objective is to match the existing design with the most suitable interior styling.

For example, if we were to stage a traditional, dated house with contemporary furniture, it would result in a very conflicted, inconsistent look.

“There are a lot of different designs & styles we can choose, but it’s really important to never force a style onto a home.” – Phoebe Shorter, Chief Stylist

These are some different styles of properties we’ve staged in the past.

2. Target Audience

Another important consideration before choosing the best interior style is to determine who is the potential buyer.

Their age, cultural background and approximate income are great indicators of their motivating factors & style preferences.

The best way to ascertain what demographic you should be targeting is to consider the following:

• Location of the property
• Price & Type of the property
• Real Estate Agent’s insights & recommendations

As an example, we picked three different styles we’ve done in the past – each for a different target market group.

3. ROI for the Client (Return On Investment)

Let’s talk numbers.

Choosing the right style is not just about visual appearance & aesthetics, but also viability.

As professional Home Stagers, we have the responsibility to ensure that the style we choose is going the give the client the highest possible Return on Investment. That means we need to be able to anticipate the capital gain, deduct home staging costs from the figure and choose the most reasonable option for the seller.

For instance – an older, smaller sized 2-bedroom Queenslander is not the best candidate for the luxe and expensive Hamptons style. The costs of this particular style is likely to outweigh their profit margin, which means choosing ‘Hamptons’ is simply not worth it for the client.

That is one of the reasons why we offer partial & integrated home staging services (integrated staging explained in paragraph 1). To minimise the client’s expense and maximise their ROI.

BONUS: Rapid Questions with Phoebe