How to make buyers fall in love with your home

As a seller, your aim is to have potential buyers fall in love with your house. Not only will this make them want to buy it, but a report conducted by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in 2013 found that 44 per cent of buyers have paid more when they felt an emotional connection with a house.

Falling in love with a house can also remove considerations that might otherwise become barriers. “If you’ve made an emotional connection, it reduces the importance of practicalities like the house being a little further out than they wanted or needing a bit of work,” says Kylie Harding from Styled to Sell. “If you’ve engaged emotionally in a house, then those things become doable and you will overlook them.”

“You need to appeal to the heartstrings to open the purse strings,” adds Harding.

Here’s how you can get the emotions flowing:

First, you have to fall out of love

When you’re asking someone else to fall in love with your house, it’s important that first you fall out of love with it. This helps you become more realistic about the pros and cons, styling and price. “Get an emotional detachment from the property you’re selling,” advises Harding. “Taking down any photos or other personal collections opens up the chance for someone else to connect with the house and imagine themselves in it.”
 

Picture your ideal buyer

Talk to your agent about who the ideal buyer for your home will be, and then set up the house for the lifestyle that buyer would be looking for. For example, “If you’re in a school zone, show that there’s room for a desk in the child’s bedroom, to appeal to the practicalities and lifestyle elements,” says Harding. “And if you have an outdoor entertaining area it’s really important to have that set up, particularly later in the year when people are thinking about hosting Christmas.”

You need to do the thinking for them, and put little clues around to show how the lifestyle could be at this house. If you’re near good bike tracks, put bikes in the garage to put that thought into their minds. “You want triggers that create a connection of how they’ll live in this new place,” suggests Harding.
 

Pull at the children’s heart strings

Where there are happy kids, there are happy parents. If your home will appeal to families, set up the second and third bedrooms for the young ones – even if you don’t have any kids yourself. This can help parents picture their family living there, and it can also put the kids in the position of influencers. “Children’s rooms are becoming more and more important, so that the kids fall in love,” says Harding. “If the children are excited about moving there and are fighting over which bedroom they’ll have, then mum and dad will be very happy.”
 

Don’t over style

While your house should be clean and neat, with thought to its styling and presentation, this isn’t a magazine photo-shoot. If you want people to feel an emotional connection with the house, you need to show them that they can feel at home and relaxed there. “You don’t want people feeling they can’t touch things or move anything out of place,” says Harding. “Put a few kids’ toys around in the bedrooms, and do those sorts of things that engage buyers.”
 

Use old-school tricks

All the classic tricks you’ve heard, like playing music, creating a flow of opened rooms and having the open fireplace roaring, are good bases to remember. These little tricks help to create a homely, relaxed feel that potential buyers will connect with.