If you had to hazard a guess at what this room is supposed to be, what would you say? It’s located to the left of the stairway in a center hall colonial…
This room is a Dining Room, living an alternate life as a Billiard Room.
And when I listed this home in the West End of Hartford last summer, this room was very confusing to buyers.
At the open house I hosted, about 70 people came through and I would say a little less than half of them realized that this was the formal dining room for the home. I had to keep telling everyone that it was the dining room, even though it had the telltale built-in corner cabinet and the butler’s pantry was located directly off of it. (There was also a very large flat screen TV on the wall opposite the front windows)
This was my first major experience with the theory that buyers are very unimaginative. Most need to be shown the intended purpose for a room because they will not make the leap themselves.
As a seller, what does this mean for you? You’ll want to strongly consider staging your rooms for their intended purpose, if at all possible. If you don’t, you’re giving buyers a reason to consider another home over yours because they will think your home is lacking something, which it really is not.
I know this sounds odd, but it’s true. I can’t tell you how many homes I’ve shown to buyers where I have to tell them what a room is supposed to be because it’s being used for something else.
So no more dining rooms used as office space, formal living rooms used as kids play rooms, and (full) bedrooms used as closets.
It might seem like a difficult change, but it will hopefully only be for a short timeframe.
What did we end up doing with the Billiard Room/Dining Room? Well, we left it the way it was because of our inability to find a storage place for the pool table. But I did put a sign up on it that said “This is the Dining Room” to help frame people’s mindsets. The house ended up selling in 8 days.
Did the house sell because of my little sign? Of course not! But it did remove a mental barrier for buyers.
Happy staging!