The importance of a home’s online presence cannot be stressed enough in these modern times. If your online photos look like you haven’t touched your home in more than 10 years, you may have eliminated a large portion of your audience.
When I was young, my siblings and I would go through the JCPenney catalog and claim our treasures. We turned EVERY page but blushed and giggled when we came to the intimate clothing section, which was promptly skipped. Back in my day the Penney’s catalog was free. Sure, it was cheap entertainment but a memory I treasure to this day.
Fast forward several years. Although the cost of merchandise has increased exponentially, we still have many free shopping options. Yes, the Penney’s catalog has been replaced with the World Wide Web. Side note: a great benefit to online shopping is that we are saving of a few trees (those JCPenney catalogs were beefy!)
We all know about the power of suggestion through marketing. Our food is ordered based on menu photos, we book a hotel when we see a luxurious spa or an appetizing free continental breakfast, we are influenced to vacation in areas that have photos of beautiful sunsets, heck a good photograph can make an iron skillet look attractive…you get the idea. Marketing!
It's true that the items we purchase never look exactly like the photo but the power of suggestion through photography is essential to marketing and selling a product. Selling a home is no different. Do you view your home as a “product” when selling? If not, now is the time.
You don’t want your house be like the embarrassing pages of the JCPenney catalog that buyers will skip over! Properly staging a home is the best marketing tool out there and professional stagers are the best home marketers. Our goal is to lure buyers to your front door once they see your eye-catching photos.
So if you want to sell quickly, hire a trained home stager to market your home. Make your photos stand out as the most appetizing item on the housing menu! With enough preparation, the dessert you will be served will likely be a top dollar sale…now that is icing on the cake.
Janice Fiola is a certified home stager and redesigner and the owner of Enhancement Home Staging in Monument, Colorado ©