Taking Home Staging to the Next Level: Lifestyle Merchandising

Did you know that home staging is all about "lifestyle merchandising"? Yes, when you are selling your home, you are actually merchandising a lifestyle to potential buyers.

Recently I graduated from an advanced staging course given by Staging and Redesign and Matthew Finlason, host of HGTV's "The Stagers". It was an intense, two-day course attended by only a handful of New York City area home stagers.

What I learned will be put to good use and will differentiate me from most of the other stagers out there:

• Casting a "wide net" with staging in order to attract the broad range of buyers is a thing of the past.

• Crafting a "perfect lure" to attract the right buyer with staging represents a paradigm shift.
• While it's fine to neutralize a home of its occupant's personality, don't sterilize it.
• Home staging is now known as Target Staging.
• Before you stage, it's important to first learn the demographics of the potential buyer (age, income, marital status, etc.).
• It's also important to focus on the psychographics of the buyer (the industry they're in, their leisure time activities and interests, the profile of retailers in the area which will be an indicator of the profile of the residents).
• Stage this buyer's dream house with colors, shapes, textures, objects and artwork that will make them emotionally connect with the space.

• Stage in order to "tell stories" based upon the buyer's profile.

• Staging is "lifestyle merchandising" and "dialing in the buyer".
• Stage to create a life that buyers can aspire to and relate to.
• Stage so that your company aesthetic shines through, but that every staging doesn't look like every other staging you do or others do.

© Copyright 2011 Designed to Appeal, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

About the Author: Donna Dazzo is president and owner of Designed to Appeal, a home staging company serving New York City and the Hamptons. Designed to Appeal helps homeowners and real estate agents sell homes quickly and profitably, by expertly creating an environment that buyers want to live in. Designed to Appeal also helps homeowners not looking to sell with interior redesign, which involves using mostly what the homeowner already has. Donna writes frequently on home staging and interior decorating and design topics.

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