How much a prestige stylist can reduce your home's time on market

One area of prestige property that’s absolutely booming is professional styling for sale, with claims that it
can shave up to four weeks off a home’s time on a softening market and add to its price by as much as 20 per cent.

“The average time on market for Sydney homes, on Domain Group data, is 71 days – nearly a month longer than this time last year,” says Sydney agent Ben Collier of The Agency Eastern Suburbs. “So, good styling is absolutely essential to reduce the time it takes to sell – taking up to four weeks off a marketing campaign – and to improve the price paid.”

In Melbourne, Ross Savas, the managing director of Kay & Burton, says he started styling homes 21 years ago. “But now it’s vital, absolutely vital,” he says. “Our market is finite so we’ve spent tens of millions of dollars orchestrating an overseas database and it’s very competitive so you need styling.

“There are a lot of people doing it too now, but you have to choose the right one for your market, your property, your individual style and what you’re trying to achieve. I think for every dollar you invest in styling, you’ll get $2 back.”

For top-of-the-range properties, the price might be as low as $5000 for a single room or smaller property, or closer to $200,000 for the whole house, depending on size, period and aim.

Blue & White Style Co charged around $100,000 to style a house in Randwick including re-upholstering a Regency daybed, moving in a selection of furniture to accentuate the owner’s favourite antique pieces and piano, cleaning, de-cluttering, sorting and even re-organising bookshelves to throw out the old year 12 textbooks.

“We were given carte blanche to give the house more formality and character,” says co-owner Georgie Curran. “In the conversations we had before and afterwards, it sounded as if it added 20 per cent onto the price of the property.

“The people who bought the house ended up buying all the furniture that we’d put in too, and the vendors had us style their next house, which was a joy. It’s about making everything cohesive and selling a lifestyle and a dream.”

MCM House’s founder Charlie Hinckfuss advises that, in a tighter market, when people are so time-poor and busy, it’s critical a stylist shows potential purchasers how they can live in a house – with the furniture company also offering a styling service. “There’s a lot of social media now about transforming property so people want the wow factor you can get from new tiles, a new room flow or even a great painting hung in a different place,” he says.

A three-bedroom home on Moncur Street in Sydney’s Woollahra, which recently sold through Collier, looks so casually glamorous that it feels as if you could just move in without changing a thing.

It had been scheduled for a June 29 auction with a $5.5 million bidding guide, but was snapped up prior.

“Obviously, the location is wonderful – you just walk 100 metres and you’re at the village – but the very stylish look of the house, from an original Victorian terrace to a contemporary home, and quality of the renovation done earlier this year are also attractions,” says Collier.

At the higher end with, say, a $50-million house, people want all the bells and whistles, advises Nicole Langelier, creative director of Design + Diplomacy styling company. “They want to be romanced, and want a performance, an experience of the property,” she says. “Often there’ll be a cocktail party or an event to showcase a property and add extra drama. For elite properties, you’ll go that extra mile.”

In addition, an art consultant can choose and arrange the hire and installation of special artworks from galleries to add further gloss to the home. “We’re getting more and more people selling homes asking us to supply art,” says Art Pharmacy art consultant Hannah Molyneux.

“Good art can make a big impact, can look very impressive and can always draw the eye away from anything they might not like people to pay as much attention to.”

But, at base, there are still so many people who can’t visualise how wonderful a house could potentially be, and in a soft market it’s even more important to show them, agrees Natty Harper, Le Loft creative director.

“As a result, 90 per cent of the properties then sold for more than their asking price, maybe 10 per cent or 15 per cent more. In Kensington [Melbourne] last week a four-bedroom townhouse made 13 per cent more than they were asking. We were all very happy!”

Two homes styled to sell

Toorak

There’s an air of elegance throughout this grand architect-designed four-bedroom home on one of Toorak’s most desirable streets.

The imposing custom-made oak and wrought-iron double doors open on a wide reception hall with oak parquetry floors, a sitting room with a gas fire and a stunning formal dining room.

The rooms look out to north-facing terraces and the large landscaped garden with water features, with the lavish main bedroom with private retreat has a north-facing balcony looking out over the city. It’s being sold by private treaty for $12 million to $13.2 million by Marcus Chiminello of Marshall White Stonnington.

Hamilton

Beautiful period elegance is the hallmark of this 112-year-old six-bedroom home on 4,258sqm of land that has only ever been home to four families.

‘Ruhamah’ is one of Brisbane’s most beautiful Queenslanders, impeccably presented with period features including high pressed-metal ceilings, lead-light windows, chandeliers and hardwood polished floors, two formal dining rooms, two living rooms and a billiard room.

It also has an indoor pool house with a glass-panelled roof and a large spa, as well as a floodlit championship tennis court. The house is for sale by private treaty for $12 million through Queensland Sotheby’s International Realty agent Tyson Clarke.