Inquiring home sellers want to know: How do people decide which home to buy? Do they use their heads, or their hearts? We've heard time and time again that first impressions are crucial. But why is that so? What parts do reason and emotion play in making choices? Buying a home is a very complex decision, with many variables to consider and options to weigh, like size, price, floor plans, schools, neighborhood, and state of repair. The list of choices is long. It can be, actually, overwhelming, even paralyzing.
Author Jonah Lehrer writes in his book How We Decide that the human brain is unequipped to deal with a large number of choices at once. Many brain scientists think that we can only deal with between four and nine distinct pieces of information at a time. When we try to choose between that many options using only our logical brain, we can get stuck trying to decide between several good alternatives. This is where our emotions, our intuition, our "gut instinct", can step in and break up the logjam. Without emotions, decisions can be impossible.
When buyers first see a property, they have an emotional reaction to it, whether that reaction is strongly positive, strongly negative, or even bored. Those feelings will guide their whole process of deciding whether to buy the home. While the logical brain is trying valiantly to sort out all the home's pros and cons, the emotion centers are generating feelings that drive the buyers' behavior. Incidentally, the "emotional brain" generally has a better idea of what the buyers want than their rational brain does.
One of the primary values of home staging is that it answers the buyers' need for factual information about the home (Is the home in good repair? Will my furniture fit? What would I use that room for?), at the same time it engages their emotions. It makes a great first impression more likely, and it gives them plenty of information about the home. Home staging is marketing to both head and heart.
Here's a case study: This little home in Sanford, Florida, had been on the market vacant for three months, with persistent comments that buyers thought it was too small. The Realtor suggested that the owner have it staged, and they called in Gloria Home Staging to do the honors. Here are a couple of the rooms, vacant:
Adding furniture showed what they would hold, and also made them come to life:
The home sold a month after it was reintroduced to the market staged. If you are selling a home in Central Florida, call us at Gloria Home Staging. We'll be glad to help buyers decide on your home.
www.GloriaHomeStaging.com 407-695-0023
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