Looking to get your listing noticed on the higher end of the market? Condo developers in this segment say they lure affluent buyers with models that feature brand-name goods and high-end finishes.
"You want customers to daydream a little bit. Everyone always buys what they see," Alexander Hovnanian, developer of Nine on the Hudson, a 13-story luxury condo under construction in New Jersey, told The Wall Street Journal. The building’s units will range from about $675,000 to $6 million.
Developers are carefully outfitting models with features such as custom-designed closets, one-of-a-kind artwork, designer light fixtures, and top-notch luxury goods that promote a lavish lifestyle.
Designers do have to make some assumptions when staging luxury units. For example, they’ve found that younger buyers tend to prefer smaller units with pared-down modern furnishings and bright colors. On the other hand, larger units often will include more traditional interiors to attract buyers who are downsizing from a larger home, Highlyann Krasnow, principal at the Design High, an interior design firm based in New York, told The Wall Street Journal.
The idea that staging can make a difference is backed up many agents and brokers outside of the design community. Thirty-one percent of buyer’s agents say that staging a home can increase its value by up to 5 percent, according to a recent survey of nearly 2,000 agents by the National Association of REALTORS®.
Buyers who peruse a staged model unit may be able to make their buying decision faster because it can even evoke feelings of happiness, says Stephen Conroy, an economics professor at the University of San Diego who studies real estate amenities. When buyers can see a unit in person rather than try to visualize it on paper, the experience of seeing and feeling the various finishes offers up “an emotion that’s going to enter into the buying decision,” Conroy told The Wall Street Journal.
Source: “How Developers Sell the Promise of a Luxury Lifestyle,” The Wall Street Journal (Oct. 19, 2017) [Log-in required.]
