Extreme Home Staging Used as Sellers Aim to Attract Florida Home Loan Buyers
As Florida home loan rates rise and buyers are hesitant to enter into the housing market, individuals may walk into a house and hear the following conversation:
“Honey, what a lovely centerpiece!”
“Thanks, dear. It will be sad to say goodbye to this lovely home.”
A sweet exchange between husband and wife? Or an example of actors pretending to live happily in a house on the market? These days, the answer - more and more - is the latter.
We’ve already talked about ways sellers can enhance their home values, but as rates rise and Florida home loans become more scarce, many owners are turning to extreme examples of home staging: using actors to portray families/couples as potential buyers enter the property.
“Staged model homes tend to be sterile and dry - this was a way to put the heartbeat back into the home,” said Jim Garfield, spokesman for Roddan Paolucci Roddan. The Centex program, which its creators call HomeLife, has been used twice so far at Milestone, a 166-house development in Santa Clarita, about 25 miles north of Hollywood.
Amanda Larson, a marketing director for Centex, says the idea came about when she sat down with Roddan’s creative people and worked out an idea to make the visiting-a-model-home experience “more interactive and more memorable.” First-time Florida home loan seekers may be attracted too such a scenario.
Is home staging even needed?
While some experts believe a housing slowdown is in the works, other foresee a soft landing. They don’t favor such phony ways to sell houses.
Barb Schwarz, a staging pioneer and the author of “Home Staging: The Winning Way To Sell Your House For More Money,” says, “The last thing a broker wants to see is people in the house. Home buyers will start talking to the people - and not about the house.”
Schwarz says the whole idea of staging is to focus on the space, to get the potential buyers to mentally move themselves in. No one wants to see another happy family already settled. Either way, sellers will continue to be creative in order to lure in offers for Florida home loans as the market slows down a bit.
