Same Home. Different Strategy. $190,000 Better Result in Just Six Weeks

13 Mar

Like many sellers, the owners of this home had their property on the market while they were in the process of purchasing their next one.

It’s a fairly common situation. You accept an offer on your current home, line up the purchase of the next property, and the two settlements run alongside each other.

That’s exactly what happened here.

The home went under offer while the owners were still living in it. Like most families, they were doing their best to keep everything tidy for photos and inspections, but presenting a home perfectly while living in it day-to-day is never easy. They accepted the offer and were happy with the result, which allowed them to confidently move forward with buying their next home.

Then, not long before settlement was due, the sale fell over.

Suddenly the property needed to go back on the market.

A different approach the second time

By this stage the owners had already moved into their new home, leaving their previous property vacant.

Rather than relisting it empty, their agent suggested taking the opportunity to present the property differently this time. The recommendation was to stage the home to maximise its appeal to buyers.

That’s where we came in.

Instead of simply placing furniture in the rooms, the focus was on presenting the home in a way that would resonate with the most likely buyer.

In this case, families.

We created clear living zones, styled the bedrooms with purpose, and focused on making the home feel warm, functional and easy to imagine living in. The goal was to help buyers walk through the door and instantly picture their own lives there.

The result

The home sold again.

This time, for $190,000 more than the offer the sellers had accepted just six weeks earlier.

That’s the key point here.

Six weeks earlier, the sellers had accepted an offer they were genuinely happy with. The market hadn’t dramatically changed in that short period. The home itself hadn’t changed either.

But the presentation had.

Same home.
Same market.
Just six weeks apart.

And the difference was $190,000.

Was it all the staging?

Of course, it would be unrealistic to say staging alone created the entire difference. A new campaign means a new group of buyers, and competition between the right buyers can always push prices higher.

But presentation plays a big role in how buyers perceive a property and how strongly they compete for it.

Even if we were conservative and attributed just half of that difference to the improved presentation, that would still represent around $95,000 in additional value.

For a staging investment of a few thousand dollars, that’s roughly a 25x return.

The takeaway

Staging isn’t just about making a property look good in photos.

It’s about presenting the home in a way that helps buyers fully understand the space, connect with it emotionally, and imagine their own lives there.

And sometimes, as this home showed, it can make a very significant difference to the final result.

Adam Delpero