Question from Marilyn: How does design psychology help prepare a home for sale?

Answer from Design Psychology Expert Jeanette Fisher

Design psychology helps you with emotions: yours and your prospective buyers. You must learn to love your house at the same time you learn to let go of your home. When you remember why you bought your home in the first place and clean it up with love, your care radiates throughout. Your buyers pick up on the undercurrents in your home; they want to buy happiness and a new lifestyle. You need to let go of your home so that you can be objective about staging your house.

Think of your house as an investment or product for sale and clear your emotions to pack up your personal treasures, which showcase your personality. This means that you create a new setting for your buyers, one that allows them the freedom to visualize their own personal treasures in your rooms.

Understand your target buyers' emotions so that you know what to leave in your home and what you need to take out for staging. Beyond the usual decluttering and super cleaning, stage your home with suggested activities that speak to your buyers' feelings. Home buyers desire to feel happy, relaxed, and smart about their home choice. Therefore, redesign your home with interior design psychology details, such as colors, lighting, patterns, and textures which support the buyers' feelings. Happy colors depend on the selling season; use warm colors in cool climates and cool colors in warm seasons. Balance with relaxed colors like grays and sky blues. Stage "smart" activities like reading and playing chess.

Also, design psychology helps you know, without a lot of agonizing, which colors to paint the exterior. For instance, perhaps you only need to repaint the front door to attract your specific type of buyer. If your property costs less than the average home in your market, you're targeting first-time home buyers. These buyers--typically young and unsophisticated--prefer basic, uncomplicated colors. If you're selling during the coming cool weather, you want to offer a warm haven. Maybe, like 80% of houses, your home is basic tan or cream. In this case, you would choose red or pumpkin color to freshen your front door.

If you're redesigning a kitchen in an upscale home, copper countertops are a warm alternative to cold, busy granite. Often, existing cabinets can be painted. Frosted glass inserts replacing the plain wood doors and new hardware make a huge impact.

Design psychology methods help you makeover your home with the buyer's profile in mind. House buyers pick the home they can't live without, even if it costs more than the house next door. Stage your home to attract your target buyers' emotions and sell your home, fast, for top dollar.

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Copyright © 2006 Jeanette J. Fisher
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