Los Angeles Home Staging is Literally Becoming More Like Interior Design-on-Demand
Broker's Caravan takes you into the Hollywood Hills and deposits you on the front porch of a hillside home. Instantly, you feel the magic of a light-filled space with that famous LA sun pouring through floor-to-ceiling windows. A white boucle sofa curves sinuously atop a wool Moroccan rug. Statement chairs in a trendy jewel tone demand your attention, while a high personality cocktail table piled with chunky fashion books anchors the room. You've just been seduced by the latest growing trend in real estate -- the staged home that actually feels like a full-fledged interior designer's work. You ask yourself, "Wait, this is staging?"
Yes, Los Angeles, the home of trendsetting influencers, is once again a leading example of the growing trend in home staging for real estate: a form of concierge service, and a more curated approach that bears little -- if any -- resemblance to staging even as recently as five years ago. So what happened to the boxy white sofas and matching club chairs centered around a white orchid-topped coffee table? The Postmodern trend that's currently sweeping interior design has taken hold in home staging as well. And it's set to revolutionize how realtors present properties.
Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, Houzz, YouTube and design-related social media have been steadily flooding our senses in the past few years with an overload of images showing highly curated interior spaces that celebrate a 1970s and 1980s Postmodern aesthetic. Even big box retailers like Design Within Reach, Crate and Barrel, West Elm and CB2 have jumped on the Postmodern train. So it stands to reason that home stagers (basically interior designers with short attention spans) have been clamoring for all the curved velvet and white boucle they can get their hands on. And it's showing up at open houses and on Caravan.
Edgy art? Yes, please. Exuberant color? Why, yes! An eclectic mix of styles to rival an Elle Decor cover photo? Yes, even that. Eager buyers are requesting buyout quotes on the full inventory of a staged home -- down to every last lamp and rug -- for the full turnkey move-in experience (at a price point far less than if they hired an interior designer). An added benefit? The fact that the home is already furnished and designed without any supply chain issues or long lead times. It's literally design-on-demand and buyers are snapping it up.
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) published in its 2021 Profile of Home Staging that 82% of buyers' agents said staging made it easier for a buyer to visualize the property as a future home. In a metropolitan area like LA, home staging is now the norm, given the compelling evidence that staging not only pays for itself, but provides additional benefit to the seller and shortens days on market.
With these new and exciting design directions in home staging, there's no limit to where the industry will go next. Stay tuned. Your local stager may just surprise you on your next project!