Home Staging Demonstrates Highest and Best Use
Of the many statistically proven reasons to stage your home for sale, the most compelling is a fundamental real estate principle – highest and best use. How you live in your home may be comfortable and practical, but that does not always sync up with the target buyer’s dream home, and how they see themselves living.
A window seat may well be a practical place to lay out files, and an open desk right there is probably a good and convenient spot (Better beside the stairs than a Harry Potter closet tucked underneath!) Buyers want room; they want value. They usually want just a bit more than their budget allows. That’s why home staging can be so valuable.With home staging, we set a mood, and suggest a lifestyle. After staging, the foyer is a comfortable, stylish spot to wait, or gaze out of the window and dream on a rainy afternoon waiting for Thing One and Thing Two to show up.
In the foyer section below, a plain wall becomes a welcome when a roll-top desk is replaced by a piece of art, lamp, a small intriguing sculpture and a curious set of drawers. There’s nothing wrong with a roll-top desk, right there, to have a place to put all the stuff you walk into the house with – mail, keys, spare screws for things – it’s just that there’s another option that looks more like a magazine and how we’d all like to think we live.
When we stage a living room, we find a focal point; sometimes that’s the view through some dramatic large windows but more often it’s the mantel (think: hearth and home). While the soft leather arm chair does tie in with bricked fireplace, the sofa is dated and the coffee table is generic. By using updated Arts and Crafts style tables we emphasize the rectangular lines in the hearth and offer some counterpoint to the upper leaded glass windows. The pale palette is updated and while, timeless, it is definitely the style “today”.
As you can see, home staging anywhere, but particularly in Chicagoland, is about the possibilities a house offers. What kind of life could you lead here? This property had terrific light, beautiful architectural detailing and great space. We sought out the highest and best use for each space and then presented that concept in as universally appealing a way as possible.
For more on preparing your house for sale in Naperville
and the Western suburbs of Chicago, call us at 815-530-3566. We’d love to talk to you.
