3 Staging Mistakes That Could Be Costing You Thousands
- wildkindinteriors
- Apr 11
- 4 min read
Whether you’re flipping a single property or growing a portfolio, one thing’s for sure: first impressions count. And you only get 7 seconds to make one. Yup, that’s right! 7 seconds!
And how do we know that?
Research in psychology and neuroscience has shown that our brains are hardwired to make rapid evaluations, often before we’re even aware of them.
In 2006, a Princeton University study found that people form impressions about a person’s trustworthiness within just 100 milliseconds of seeing their face.
What’s more, additional research indicates that these initial impressions are incredibly difficult to change. Once we’ve formed, our brain looks for information that confirms that first judgement.
What’s this got to do with property? You may be thinking.
In social and environmental psychology, it’s widely accepted that within 7 to 10 seconds, people form opinions not just about people, but about places and experiences too.
In other words: what someone sees, hears, and feels in the first moments inside a property massively influences how they perceive its value, long before they’ve looked at square footage or EPC ratings.
Now you better understand that the way you present your property directly affects how quickly it sells and the price it achieves, here’s 3 common staging for sale mistakes that I regularly see, and how you can avoid them.
1. Staging Without Your Buyer in Mind
The mistake: Designing the space based on your own taste.
Or worse… forgetting the end buyer altogether. I speak regularly on the property networking circuit on the property circuit - my favourite topic being how great design will make developers more money, faster.
In every presentation I deliver, this is the thing I come back to time and time again.Client Avatars!
In a nutshell, a client avatar is a profile of your ideal buyer, tenant, or guest.
Taking the time to define this clearly is essential if you want to design and present a property that truly resonates with your target audience and ultimately helps you achieve a faster sale at the best possible price.
Why it’s costly: Buyers make emotional decisions.
We know this from the scientific research already discussed.
If your styling doesn’t connect with the right type of buyer for your development (families, young professionals, downsizers etc), they’ll struggle to picture themselves living there and that usually means fewer offers, lower offers, or longer time on market.
And I know what you’re thinking! “There’s more than one buyer type for my property.” Yes, that may well be true, and it is sometimes necessary to create more than one avatar.
The skill then is to create a scheme that appeals to both. And that does not mean grey, white or magnolia walls. You’ll have to do better than that!
The fix: Design with your target buyer in mind. At WildKind Interiors, we use both buyer profiling and colour psychology to style homes with purpose so buyers feel like they belong the moment they walk in.
2. Ignoring Empty Rooms
The mistake: Leaving rooms empty to ‘save money’.
Why it’s costly: Empty rooms feel cold and lifeless.
According to a recent RightMove survey, 9/10 buyers struggle to visualise scale and purpose. I imagine you’ll find it very difficult to understand why this figure is so high.
I get it! You’ve lived and breathed your development for months, even years. It’s going to be amazing. How can others not see the same as you do?
Well, I hate to say it but they can’t because they don’t care about it in the same way that you do.
They’ve not invested their own time and money, love, care and attention into the development. All they care about are their own wants and needs, and that for them, is whether or not they can imagine themselves living there.
Plain and simple. People buy with emotion and so if you’re unable to create a beautifully presented property, that invokes a positive emotional connection with your target buyer, you’ve lost them at the start.
If you lose them at the start, you’ll find it hard to hold their attention (see point 1).
The fix: Every space should have a strong purpose and be well proportioned with strategically placed furniture.
If you stage some rooms and not all, you may well create buyer disappointment when viewers are moving from one room to the next.
3. Skimping on Photography After You’ve Staged
The mistake: You’ve invested a significant amount in staging your property for sale, but the agent uses disappointing photography to showcase it.
Why it’s costly: Your online listing is your shop window.
If the photos don’t stop the scroll, no one books a viewing and fewer viewings = fewer offers. I can’t stress enough how important decent photography is.
Those wide angle lens photos, with all the colour bleached out of the room? Awful.
Remember the facts about first impressions. This is true for photography just as much as it’s true for in person viewings.
The fix: Always pair staging with professional photography.
It’s a small extra investment that massively boosts your property’s visibility and value perception online. Not only that, but your photography is your marketing.
You can use it time and again in the future to showcase your portfolio to potential clients and lenders.
Great photography, just like great staging, is an investment that will pay dividends.
The Good News? These Are Easy to Fix.
When you get the basics right; design with your buyer in mind, stage every space with purpose, and present it all professionally you give yourself the best possible chance.
At WildKind Interiors, we don’t just make properties look good, we make them feel irresistible to the people most likely to buy (or rent) them.
That’s what gets you the highest value results in the fastest possible timeframe. And I presume you want that, don’t you?
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