Furnishing for Sale

One of the biggest challenges facing sellers these days, especially those with vacant properties is how to cost effectively furnish the home ready for sale.  It is a known fact that vacant properties can generally take much longer to sell and possibly at a discount.  This generally comes about because buyers can't visualise the room sizes and see the potential the property has. 

Not all sellers have the ability to visualise their furniture in the property or the potential of the property, therefore styling a property is about enabling the visual ability of the seller.  Styling a property for sale is not cheating the seller, you are simply helping them to see the property potential through the use of accessories.

Hire furniture is generally high quality modern style furniture and accessories that is targeted at the large modern home, developer and renovated homes.  In many cases, I have clients that are interested, but I know the furniture will look out of place in their home.   So this can leave the seller with few options to help them style their homes successfully for sale. 

Clients are surprised when I discuss the cost of styling their home with hire furniture.  It is not a cheap exercise, but the benefits pay off when you go to sell.  So it comes down to the cost/benefit analysis of investing in hire furniture to style your property.

Average time to sell a property is somewhere between 70-90 days so that is essentially 3 months of hire costs that you need to recover from the sale price.  This is generally not a problem as it is a good investment, but not everyone has the budget to hire furniture for 3 months.

SO WHAT CAN YOU DO?

I believe there are alternatives for sellers to mix and match with purchased and hire furniture options.  In some cases it is much cheaper to hire certain items and purchase others. Oh I hear you say "what do I do with the purchased items".  I'll deal with that later.  The reason I suggest purchased items, is that it presents a cost effective solution to styling and furnishing your home ready for sale.  There are a range of well prices furniture shops such as Ikea, Furniture Spot, Fantastic Furniture etc.  Each one presents different cost options and price ranges.

NOW you don't have to style the whole house, you just need to style the main areas, such as Master Bedroom, Living and Dining.   In addition to these areas, you can consider an additional bedroom and the lounge/theatre area set up as a second living / kids retreat.  AND if you can the alfresco/pergola area.

I heard you earlier "what do I do with it once I sell the property"   You can sell it with the house, or you could place an advert on Gumtree and sell all items as a package for half price.  You will still have cost effectively furnished your home for sale.

I have a client with a small 44 x 2, that may not sell straight away and therefore the cost of hiring furniture was going to really push their budget over.  Essentially , the hire options would be up around  $2000 per month to rent furniture plus one off costs.  They chose to purchase a range of items with my help, and my final styling for photos and home open.  They invested nearly $$2000.  If they sell the excess items on Gumtree as a package and recover 50% of their initial investment, they will have only invested $1000 for the sale period.  Great options for those on a tight budget.

However, word of caution, this may not work for all properties and can be dependent upon the Sales Campaign.  If you are going to auction, then it maybe worth investing in hire furniture to ensure you have maximise WOW factor for the property.

THE KEY to successfully styling with cheaper ranges of furniture, is ensuring you select items that aren't cheap looking or tacky.  Always keep the colours of the furniture similar and plain, something that would easily be sold on afterwards.

Accessories are another difficult area, as these cover items such as plants, fake flowers, artwork, vases, bowels, table runners, lamps, cushions, rugs etc.  These items are just as important as the furniture itself and can really help add the WOW factor in the room.

Watch my web gallery for the after photos of this property.

Written by Sandy Anderson
http://www.spruceups.com.au/