SINGAPORE HOME STAGING INSIDER TIPS
7 Local Experts Reveal Insider Secrets & Bust Common Myths
Every home seller dreams of getting the maximum possible price when they put their property up for sale.
While engaging a skilled property agent is crucial, savvy sellers know that there’s another powerful tool at their disposal: home staging.
Home staging, also known as interior home styling, is the process of preparing a property to make it as appealing as possible to potential buyers (less so for rental properties). It involves strategically decluttering, arranging furniture, and adding decorative touches to highlight the property’s best features and create an inviting atmosphere.
In recent years, home staging has gained significant popularity and acceptance in Singapore. More and more sellers are recognizing its value and seeking out professional staging services for their residential and commercial properties.
However, despite the growing demand, many sellers still have limited knowledge or misconceptions about home staging. Some view it as an unnecessary expense, while others believe it’s only about decluttering and depersonalizing the space.
Even some property agents aren’t fully informed about the power of staging and how it can benefit their clients.
To shed light on this often misunderstood topic, I reached out to 7 of Singapore’s top home staging experts. These professionals have kindly agreed to share their insights and expertise in this post.
They’ll be debunking the most common myths about home staging and revealing industry secrets that can give sellers a competitive edge. Whether you’re a first-time seller or a seasoned property investor, you can expect to walk away with valuable takeaways.
But before we dive into their expert advice, let’s first explore why first impressions are so crucial when marketing your property for sale.
THE POWER OF FIRST IMPRESSIONS IN REAL ESTATE
Picture this: You step into a stunning showflat for a new launch condo. The elegant interior design, luxurious furnishings, and carefully curated accessories all work together to create an inviting atmosphere that immediately captures your attention. You can’t help but imagine yourself living in this beautiful space.
This is no coincidence. Property developers invest heavily in creating showflats that leave a lasting impression on potential buyers. They understand that first impressions can make or break a sale.
The same principle applies when selling your own property. Just like you would dress to impress for a first date, your home needs to look its best to capture the hearts of potential buyers.
Architectural Digest compiled a list of top home staging statistics that underscore the power of first impressions in real estate. While these statistics are based on the US market, they are highly relevant to the Singapore context as well.
PRIORITY
The living room is identified as the highest priority room to stage for buyers (39%).
VIEWING
40% of homebuyers were more willing to visit a staged home they saw online.
EXTREMELY IMPORTANT
Younger generations, including 48% of Generation Z buyers and 40% of millennial buyers, consider staging extremely or very important.
These numbers reveal that staging not only influences buyers’ perceptions but also their actions. A well-staged living room can make a powerful first impression, while strategic online staging can entice more buyers to schedule a viewing.
Moreover, the importance of staging is increasingly recognized by younger generations of buyers. As Generation Z and millennials enter the property market in greater numbers, catering to their preferences through effective staging will become even more crucial.
As a seller, you have one chance to make a positive first impression. Every detail matters, from the curb appeal to the entryway to the overall ambience of your home.
Leaving things to chance is a risky gamble. Even small flaws or areas of neglect can turn off potential buyers and hinder your chances of a successful sale.
That’s where home staging comes in. By strategically preparing your property to appeal to buyers’ senses and emotions, you can create a powerful first impression that sets your home apart from the competition.
In the following sections, our panel of expert home stagers will share their top tips and insights for making your property irresistible to buyers. Get ready to learn the secrets of staging success!
THE 7 LOCAL HOME STAGING EXPERTS
Now let’s move to the highlight of this post.
I posed the following 3 questions to our panel of 7 local staging experts.
Q1: Biggest misconception about home staging?
Q2: Three most important accessories for home staging?
Q3: What do you always seek to improve first?
ARETE CULTURE
www.areteculture.com
www.facebook.com/areteculturehomemaker
www.instagram.com/areteculture
Caroline Chin Gelyer is the Founder & Creative Director of the award-winning Arete Culture Group.
Based in Singapore and Malaysia, the Group currently owns and operates Arete Culture, an interior decorating firm specialising in fast and fuss-free home makeovers; Arete Culture Outdoor Living, a retail arm of furniture and furnishings for the tropics; and Atelier by Arete, the Group’s latest creative endeavour offering full service interior design and standalone home customisation services.
Arete Culture has completed over 750 home makeovers in Southeast Asia.
Q1. BIGGEST MISCONCEPTION ABOUT HOME STAGING?
That home staging is merely about cleaning and taking away your personal belongings to allow buyers to visualise themselves in the space. In reality, stripping a home of personal touches can often leave a space feeling cold and unwelcoming.
You want to avoid the ‘showroom’ effect and instead ensure that your home properly reflects its potential by emphasising positive features and downplaying any negative ones.
Investing in the right kind of soft furnishings and personal touches is, in a lot of cases, essential to making a house feel warm and sophisticated. A fresh coat of paint and a reconfiguration of furniture are also useful.
Q2. THREE MOST IMPORTANT ACCESSORIES FOR HOME STAGING?
A. SCENT
Experiencing a home involves all your senses. Many people overlook how powerful home fragrances can be, but think about your favourite hotels or spas and you can often tie them to a specific scent.
B. AMBIENT LIGHT
Lighting a home correctly immediately creates a cosy ambience at home. I always recommend using a combination of table lamps, task lighting, dimmers and even candles (or electric candles) to create a soothing glow at home.
C. CARPETS
A tactile experience underfoot always creates a warm and welcoming experience, but visually can also create a striking first impression.
I prefer using abstract carpets in neutral colours with reflective or metallic accents to allow a space to look larger, or a large rug in a geometric pattern if you have older furniture.
Q3. WHAT DO YOU ALWAYS SEEK TO IMPROVE FIRST?
In general, we always look for ways to improve the spatial flow of a home, making it feel bigger and brighter.
When potential homeowners look at a space, they want to envision how they can live there, and having a home look its biggest, cleanest, and airiest will help them do that. Sometimes this can be done with a simple paint or even wallpaper job.
It also often entails reconfiguring furniture and possibly investing or renting key furniture pieces.
EXPATS FURNITURE RENTAL PTE LTD
www.efr.com.sg
www.instagram.com/expatsfurniturerental
Rachelle Bermudez has over 12 years of experience in the Interior Design industry. She possesses a Degree in Business Administration, majoring in Management, and a Specialist Diploma in Interior and Landscape Design.
A go-getter and adventure-seeker who is willing to go to great lengths for her career, she continuously explores different parts of the world to understand the different cultures and designs around us.
Rachelle is currently the Sales and Design Manager of Expats Furniture Rental Pte Ltd.
Q1. BIGGEST MISCONCEPTION ABOUT HOME STAGING?
It is expensive.
Home staging is an investment. According to statistics, homes that are staged can be sold faster than those that are not.
Q2. THREE MOST IMPORTANT ACCESSORIES FOR HOME STAGING?
Accessories play a very important role in completing and playing off the design.
This is where we add the finishing touches and create the desired textures, shapes, and colours to complete the décor. Skipping this very important final step is like getting dressed up without putting on jewellery or shoes!
A. LAMPS
Light plays an important role in setting the mood and ambience for a living space. Adding lamps to a unit with bad lighting will make a big difference!
B. PLANTS & FLOWERS
Humans tend to be drawn to environments that have supported human life. Responding and reacting to nature is part of our genetic makeup. This is called Biophilia.
Using plants and flowers throughout the home can add much-needed colour to rooms dominated by neutral shades. While you do not need to overdo it with plants and flowers on every surface, every room in the home can be elevated with flowers.
C. CARPETS
Carpets help to soften the area and make the room more cozy.
Q3. WHAT DO YOU ALWAYS SEEK TO IMPROVE FIRST?
Space planning – Home Staging helps the potential buyer to visualize how the house will look like when there’s furniture.
ESCO LEASING
Felicia Koh is an experienced and innovative interior designer who focuses on putting art and science to work. She loves good design, not just for its own sake but for what it can do for people.
Interior design is not just a career for Felicia – it’s a passion of 32 years. Her motivation for good designs is the ability to improve individual lives through tiny changes on a massive scale.
Design doesn’t come out of a need for prettiness but out of the necessity to give form to one’s work. She desires to help clients understand their work by finding a visual language. Her work is based on discussion and insight. It is important to her that the goal is reached together. Design happens when communication gets structured and condensed.
That is why she likes to collaborate with professionals from different fields, be it local or global.
Felicia loves meeting interesting and eclectic people and enjoys the variety of experiences that a design career provides. Her design firm, Gallery 278, does more than decorate—its services extend to ones such as furniture leasing to break budget limitations that often hinder the desired look.
Q1. BIGGEST MISCONCEPTION ABOUT HOME STAGING?
One of the biggest misconceptions about home staging is that it is an unnecessary expense. However, not many owners understand that prospective buyers literally give the first 10 seconds to firm up the best first impression when they walk into the development.
Home staging helps to highlight the home’s features. It exponentially reduces a property’s time on the market, buyers find it easier to visualize a staged property, and it increases the dollar value offered.
Plus, we help with interior layout advice, and we give a discounted rate off our furniture rental rates when you let us know it will be used for staging purposes.
Q2. THREE MOST IMPORTANT ACCESSORIES FOR HOME STAGING?
We hand-pick furnishings from our in-house inventory that will complement each home giving it individuality. We design and space plan to create a seamless journey from room to room that is appealing and inviting to potential buyers. We call this, the poem of space. The rhythm and rhyme are created to have a flow of aesthetic appeal and organic feel.
A. DINING TABLE
Boat or eclipse-shaped dining tables may be unconventional, and a refreshing look can really help to add alternating rhythm to the overall scheme of the space compared to the usual rectangular tables.
Our rounded or chamfered edge dining tables have been popular with home staging (and are kid-friendly, too)!
B. BED
A fully dressed bed in the master bedroom also helps create a cosy and homey feel. Dress it up in clean linens and it really makes a big difference to the room with luxurious bedding, Designers Guild accent pillows and bed sashes are my favourites!
C. PLANTS
We can lease almost anything, including plants. Potted plants and softscapes add a touch of greenery and nature to the home—plants and foliage are always welcome accessories for an understated yet luxuriously spectacular home.
Q3. WHAT DO YOU ALWAYS SEEK TO IMPROVE FIRST?
As space is premium in Singapore, we always seek to make it look spacious yet full of possibilities with multi-functional furniture that creates a pleasing expression! We have a flexible leasing scheme with a diverse inventory that can complement your existing antique vases or artworks.
There is also an in-house alterations and carpentry team that can collaborate with you on custom pieces for any ‘nooks or crannies’ that create a value-added fine ambience to your property.
Come and chat with our home stylists to integrate the affective and aesthetic experience of converting your property into a poetically-inspired space. Let these subtle changes speak loudly the musicality of the created design in your projects.
HUGGYHOMEY
huggyhomey.com
www.facebook.com/huggyhomey
www.instagram.com/huggyhomey
linktr.ee/nicole.pang
Nicole Pang nosedived into the advertising world 20 years ago and created campaigns that went from tapping into social behaviours to exceeding KPIs for major clients.
It was an enchanting journey to win numerous awards from renowned shows, including a Gold EFFIE, the most prestigious award show for marketing effectiveness.
For her love of interiors, she is the founder and creative director of HuggyHomey, a premium property staging and interior design company.
Q1. BIGGEST MISCONCEPTION ABOUT HOME STAGING?
Many sellers kick-start the sale of their homes or new properties, making certain critical decisions. Yet they deem home staging as optional. Typically, sellers consider the sale of their homes more from their own point of view and that is understandable.
Home staging would help their target audience, which is the buyers, become inspired about their future home and make a firmer offer.
Q2. THREE MOST IMPORTANT ACCESSORIES FOR HOME STAGING?
A. WALL ART
Wall Art as they create a gallery feel, giving buyers an overall better viewing experience.
B. DESK LAMP
Desk lamps are great for creating that warm glow for the entire room, bringing about positive vibes.
C. CARPET
Just like wall art, carpets enhance buyers’ experiences. They also provide a good background setting for everything within a space. Last but not least, we love to inject scents and plants where we can.
Q3. WHAT DO YOU ALWAYS SEEK TO IMPROVE FIRST?
Interestingly, the first thing is also the most essential element of all homes. That is its overall lighting, which extends from natural to artificial. A good portion of light has the power to attract as well as convey a sense of warmth.
On top of ensuring that the original lightings are in working order, we curate light-enhancing accessories, like lamps, bright decorative and wall art pieces in our staging designs.
SINGAPORE FURNITURE RENTAL
www.singaporefurniturerental.com
www.facebook.com/likeSFR
www.instagram.com/rentwithsfr
Kelvin has been in the interior design/home improvement industry since the beginning of his career. In 2013, Singapore Furniture Rental (SFR) was born as an online furniture rental company.
Today, SFR has established itself as the No. 1 Home Staging company in Singapore, with over 1,000 units staged in the past three years alone.
We pride ourselves on being a one-stop service platform for property agents, homeowners, and developers alike. We offer a wide range of services, including furniture rental, home staging, and even property videos.
Q1. BIGGEST MISCONCEPTION ABOUT HOME STAGING?
Many people are still unfamiliar with home staging. They might have heard of it but have never used the service before. One of the most common misconceptions is that many people thought that only vacant units could be staged. It is definitely easier to stage a vacant unit, but owner-occupied units can also be staged.
Another misconception is that staging is only for photoshoot purposes. In fact, not only is photography included in the home staging package, but the items will also remain in the unit until the property is sold or the lease of staging ends.
We want the buyers to feel as attracted to the unit when they are in the unit itself, as when they are first attracted to the online listing.
Q2. THREE MOST IMPORTANT ACCESSORIES FOR HOME STAGING?
Every staging will include carpets, lamps, and art pieces. In a lot of regular homes, you will not find these accessories.
But when buyers walk into a staged unit with carpets, lamps and art pieces, the staged unit instantly stands out from the rest and looks more welcoming.
Q3. WHAT DO YOU ALWAYS SEEK TO IMPROVE FIRST?
We always look at the living and dining areas first. These two areas are usually the first areas buyers walk into when they visit for viewings. We want to make sure these areas are nicely staged to create a positive first impression. Most buyers decide whether they like the unit in the first 15 seconds of stepping into the property.
Therefore, it is very important to stage the living and dining areas.
TUBEAR
www.tubear.co
www.facebook.com/tubear.co
www.instagram.com/tubear.co
Nicholas Ong is the founder of TUBEAR, a one-stop service provider for property agents’ marketing needs. We offer 3D Virtual Tours, Virtual Staging, Videography, and photography services.
Good visuals sell property faster & we believe in creating good visuals using technology to showcase the potential of all types of properties.
Q1. BIGGEST MISCONCEPTION ABOUT HOME STAGING?
Home staging is an expensive marketing tool, and it costs even more to stage a luxury property.
However, virtual staging is not as expensive as you think. It costs less than traditional home staging while still allowing buyers to visualize living in a space by paying a low, one-time fee per image.
Virtual staging refers to adding realistic, stylish furniture to a listing’s image. It’s quick & easy, and our vast portfolios of furnishings and décor options are not limited to what physical pieces are available to rent. With up-to-date furnishings and accessories, virtual staging is a good option for homes with different layouts & colour schemes.
Another misconception is the thinking that staging cannot be done for an occupied unit and that removing unwanted items is a hassle.
A staged house will stand out above the rest, and better photos will draw a larger group of prospective buyers to view the property and create more interest in offers.
Virtual staging and virtual decluttering can be done without sellers moving a single piece of furniture and do not affect their everyday lives.
Q2. THREE MOST IMPORTANT ACCESSORIES FOR HOME STAGING?
The 3 most important accessories are carpets, art pieces and plants.
These accessories help to bring life to the photo making the property look more inviting.
Q3. WHAT DO YOU ALWAYS SEEK TO IMPROVE FIRST?
The first thing that I will seek to improve will be to declutter the items in the unit.
A cluttered unit does not showcase the potential of the space. Only by decluttering will one be able to see the layout of the house clearly. Therefore, virtual decluttering helps remove the bulky items in the property to showcase its potential.
Thereafter, add in virtual furniture with virtual staging, to visualise the room before moving in actual furniture, it’s a hassle-free method especially for units in which homeowners who have stayed in for many years & difficult to declutter their items.
WTP FURNITURE
wtpstyle.com
www.facebook.com/wtpstyle
www.instagram.com/wtpstyle
Naazli Somjee is a fourth-generation Singaporean and a US graduate with a double degree in economics and psychology. She started her career in private banking but realised after two years that it was not the job for her.
She then joined the WTP in 2010 in a sales position, learning about materials and furniture styles. With time, the role evolved into actually designing pieces and sourcing new products from all over the world.
She is always on the lookout for new trends, material combinations, and design ideas.
Q1. BIGGEST MISCONCEPTION ABOUT HOME STAGING?
The biggest misconception about home staging is that homeowners think staging a home is just tidying up and decorating.
Home staging is not just that. It highlights the features of the property and, probably most importantly, creates an ambience that can connect with the potential buyer so that they can imagine themselves living in it.
Q2. THREE MOST IMPORTANT ACCESSORIES FOR HOME STAGING?
An art piece, a piece of rug and accent cushions.
Q3. WHAT DO YOU ALWAYS SEEK TO IMPROVE FIRST?
The focus is always the first main living area followed closely by the dining area and master bedroom. The idea is you want to create the wow factor as soon as they step into the house.
The goal of staging is to make a home appealing and inviting to as many potential buyers as possible. More than just increase your chances of selling, it is able to increase the value of the sale dramatically.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Home staging is so much more than just tidying up. It’s like giving your property a mini-makeover, highlighting all the best bits and making it feel warm and inviting. It’s not about stripping a place of its character; it’s about letting its best features shine.
Then there’s the magic of the senses. Scents, lighting, and even the textures underfoot can transport someone, making them feel right at home. And let’s not forget the power of a good first impression. The entrance and the living room – those spaces set the tone for the entire visit.
Every home is unique, and that’s the beauty of staging. Tailoring the look and feel to match the property and its potential buyers is key. It’s about making a place stand out in all the right ways.
And at the heart of it all?
Expertise.
I’m deeply appreciative of the tips shared by Arete Culture, Esco Leasing, Expats Furniture Rental, HuggyHomey, Singapore Furniture Rental, Tubear and WTP Furniture.
Each expert’s perspective not only showcases the intricacies of home staging but also its undeniable importance in the real estate market.
Have I staged a property before it went for sale?
Absolutely. Here’s one.
For those on the cusp of selling, these insights offer a roadmap.
Engage with any of these experts, and you’re not just preparing a property for viewing; you’re setting the stage for a successful sale.
WHAT BRINGS YOU HERE TODAY?
Are you wondering what to do in today’s market?
Perhaps you already have a clear mind of what you want to do?
In my blog, I often share stories of the challenges, triumphs, and lessons learned in my work as a real estate agent in Singapore.
Regardless of your situation, you can use me as a sounding board. I’ll provide perspective and clarity from my experience.
