Working the room
By Ray Wood
In 1901, three Philadelphia architects founded a journal dedicated to architecture. Their combined passion and ideas for residential design evolved to become House & Garden Magazine. Over time, the design and layout of the magazine has changed just as the homes and buildings featured within its pages are constantly changing to reflect our needs and the latest look or trend. Form and function are central to the architects theme but there is far more to property than that.
When you look at the beautiful photos in magazines like House & Garden we see delicious images of kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms and living rooms that catch our attention. We see surfaces, textures and colors. We are drawn to some more than others and fold the corner of a page we like for our ‘one day' house.
If you're selling a property soon then it would pay to take a leaf out of one of these beautiful magazines and work your room to boost buyer appeal. The clever thing about this is that your efforts pay off well before your buyer steps inside your front door.
More than ever before, images are the savvy marketer's weapon of choice. Consider the tremendously rapid growth of networking websites like Facebook and Flickr. These sites would not exist if we couldn't upload images to share.
Today we can create stunning high quality images of our homes for a very minor investment. Buyers see images on real estate websites, magazines, newspapers and signs, in fact wherever you see a property advertised for sale, there is an image of the property as well.
So this is where the marketing magic starts because a great image of your property is pure gold. A poor image will cost you money in less buyer interest. Because your home is competing with every other property for sale in your area and price range, buyers will make a viewing decision based largely, on the image they‘re looking at. They will be asking themselves one question: "Do I see myself in this picture?" There answer will determine your success.
