Home staging catches on in Singapore as it helps clinch sales - The Straits Times

SINGAPORE – A property listing is no longer just limited to welcoming prospective buyers to view a home in its current state online or in person.

Increasingly, it is also an opportunity for an enterprising property agent to pull out all the stops to make the unit stand out to speed up the sale or fetch a higher price.

From decluttering the property to giving it a fresh coat of paint to filling the space with upmarket furniture and plants, home staging – a common practice in the United States – is becoming popular in Singapore, noted market observers.

Mr Stuart Chng, 39, managing partner of Navis, a network of 1,300 real estate agents in Huttons Asia, said: “Home staging has caught on in recent years as video home tours became mainstream in our industry’s marketing approach.

“Buying a home is as much an emotional process as it is a logical one, and thus, stepping into a well-staged home helps bring out heightened interest and the likelihood of better offers.”

Property agents who offer home staging services said they are worth the effort and money put in because the process very often results in a quicker sale and a higher price.

Ms Diana Teow, 38, a property agent with Huttons, said it tends to take longer to market properties without staging. As some buyers are unable to visualise the liveable space of an empty property, filling it with furniture and giving the place a makeover provide suggestions.

She once had a three-bedroom freehold unit at Eng Hoon Mansions in Tiong Bahru listed for three months in 2019. She subsequently advised the owner to demolish the partitions, repaint the walls and fill the property with furnishings. Within three weeks, the 1,593 sq ft apartment was sold at $1.7 million, or $1,070 per sq ft.

Ms Teow said: “The buyer had viewed the unit before it was staged. When he saw the listing of the staged property, he thought it was a different property.

“He found out it was the same property only when he arrived at the venue. He liked the place so much that he made an offer on the same day.”

Ms Judy Koh, a chef and the former owner of that unit, recalled that her property was in “very bad condition” when it was returned to her as her tenant had sublet it to others. “Home staging certainly helped to make the house look more welcoming, homely and inviting to potential buyers,” she said.

Ms Teow also adopted the same strategy for a four-bedroom Housing Board flat at SkyTerrace@Dawson. At that time, the development had reached the end of the mandatory five-year minimum occupation period and there were many sale listings. The unit was sold in three weeks in January 2021 for $835,000.

Ms Teow, who joined the real estate industry in 2010, started staging homes in 2014, after seeing how popular the practice is in the US.

“I felt that some homes here needed a bit of help to beautify them. I started buying vases, artificial flowers, candles, paintings, lamps, plants to spruce up these homes,” she said.

After getting good response from buyers and seeing how more property agents had also started decorating their properties, Ms Teow decided to take things further by changing the furnishings to accentuate the features of some homes.

She charges a commission of between 2 per cent and 2.5 per cent of the sale price. In most cases, unless the home needs a major overhaul, she will foot the home-staging costs.

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