When Buying Real Estate, Seeing Is Rarely Believing
With home values dropping in the market, sellers are doing everything they can to spruce up their properties to woo potential buyers and hike up asking prices – including paying up to $100,000 or more for home staging services. Beneath all the visual glamor, however, shoddy work can show itself if you know how to look – and hear, smell, touch, and taste.
First Things First: See the Space
The optics of a home matter, of course, and it’s important to look at the home on offer with your own eyes. With more and more sellers turning to virtual staging to boost their home’s web appeal, you’ll want to see the place in person to make sure that reality matches what’s online. A perfect example is in a home’s lighting, which is often manipulated to change the look of a room.
While a walkthrough is great, also be sure to assess the floor plan, and pack a tape measure before you head to an open house. Will your sectional fit in the living room and still leave space for the TV stand? Is that “third bedroom” really an office that won’t fit your full bed? It’s important to remember that your furnishings, and not the ones strategically placed on display, will have to fit comfortably in your new home.
Listen With Both Ears
Keep not just your eyes but also your ears open, as well. Pay attention to the sounds of each room, and open a few windows to assess outside noise levels. You might be there in the middle of a weekday – what might rush hour sound like, if the street is a busy one? Is that a faucet you hear dripping?
Apart from the house itself, listen to your rRealtor and to trusted loved ones. The National Association of Realtors’ 2019 Profile of Home Staging found that 40% of buyers consulted family members when conducting their search, and getting advice from people you trust can make so much more of a difference than fancy art and ritzy furniture.
Never Trust the Freshly Baked Cookie Smell
Staging experts use all kinds of tricks to mask the unsavory odors of a home; everything from an army of air fresheners to baking cookies can cover a multitude of smelly sins. Make sure you survey the home from top to bottom – especially if it has an attic, basement, or outdoor space – to suss out any damp, mildew, sewage, or other unpleasant scents.
Get a Feel for the Home
Take in all the physical sensations of the space. If you’ve still got your shoes on, take them off to see how the carpet feels on your feet. Does the floor feel slanted as you walk? Feel for chips in the kitchen countertops, and open supply closets and storage room doors to look for any splintered wood. Go through your morning routine in the bathroom – does the space feel accessible to you? Your home should be a safe and comfortable space that feels good to live in.
And Yes – Taste Is a Factor
Okay, so maybe don’t eat the fake fruit in that bowl on the kitchen island, but do remember that taste matters in assessing a home. As noted above, you have to be able to visualize your actual possessions in the space, and not the ones staged in front of you.
This is a two-sided coin: on the one hand, you might like the way the professionally arranged furnishings look in the space and forget the size of your own. On the other hand, you may dislike the style that the stagers have picked, and be turned off to what may be a great space for your furniture.
In the end, it’s essential to envision the space as it will look when it’s filled with your things, and not those on display, to decide if it’s right for you.
Lastly, Use That Sixth Sense: Your Intuition
Though the number of things to keep in mind when assessing a home is often overwhelming, it’s important at base level to trust your instincts. If you love the listing online but get a bad vibe on your visit, don’t second-guess yourself. You know better than anyone else which home is going to be the right one for your unique needs.
