Price matters, naturally. But so does value for money. Professional Home Staging expert, Liesa Jossel of Home Stagers Cape Town, explains how she helped this Cape Town property look its best.
Asking price
This is obviously the most important factor. Any property that goes on the market way under its value will be snapped up. By the same token, a property priced unrealistically high will just sit... and sit. Starting at the right price is key. What you don't want are those embarrassing REDUCED signs.
This luxury Cape Town home was offered to the market over three years, although not continuously. Year 1 and 2 were at a price that the market rejected - too high. In Year 3 it was offered at a more realistic, but still very good price. That's when Home Stagers Cape Town stepped in.
Value for money
Once buyers settle on their desired location, they look at what's the best value for their money. Every square metre has a value. In fact, if you're buying a sectional title property, the value per square metre is usually stated in the online advert. With freehold properties, erf size, building coverage, number of bedrooms etc is key.
But also key is how the spaces are configured.
In this restyle by Home Stagers Cape Town, the owners had built a second floor with a large master bedroom and bathroom and an adjacent pyjama lounge. The new main bedroom has spectacular views of the mountain and the forest. Truly a lovely room to retire to at night.
I don't know for sure but my guess is that they made this addition before having kids. Now they had two children under 10 who didn't want to sleep downstairs far away from mom and dad. So the pyjama lounge was now a makeshift bedroom for the children, and the three lovely large bedrooms downstairs were now a little used guest room, a playroom/dumping room and an office.
Any buyer with small children viewing this property would immediately think: I'm paying for four bedrooms but if my children are going to sleep in the pyjama lounge, I'm only using one bedroom! Not good value for money.
The savvy agent called me in to stage the pyjama room as what it should be - a grown up place for the adults to hang out, and the three bedrooms downstairs as bedrooms.
A place to dine
No matter how small the property, buyers want to see a dedicated space for dining. Even if in reality, we tend to eat TV dinners on our laps, in our minds we imagine ourselves at a table comfortably enjoying a family dinner.
This property had two lounge spaces, but no proper dining area. The ten-seater dining table was in the passage. To fix this, we got rid of one lounge to make room for a beautiful dedicated and spacious dining area, looking out towards the lush forest.
The happy ending - 5 offers ending in SOLD
Within two weeks, the sellers received four offers - all too low in their estimation. There was still lots of traction on the property, though, as the photos were gorgeous and attracted a lot of attention. The sellers were happy to accept the fifth offer.
There's no doubt that the realistic price coupled with the clever restyle gave this property the edge over others in the same price range.
Got a property in Cape Town to sell? Call or mail me for a friendly chat to see how, together, we can sell it faster
Liesa
+27 848432426/ homestagerscapetown@gmail.com