Looking to sell your home? All we hear these days is how bad the housing market is. How can you give your home that “edge” vs. the other competition out there during these challenging times? While getting buyers to your home is a critical step in the process, ensuring you make a lasting impression after they leave your house is what gets buyers to ultimately purchase your home. How do you do that? Just follow your nose. Scents have a very strong memory trigger for people. “It’s a byproduct of how we’re wired”, according to John Columbo, professor of cognitive psychology at Kansas University.“ The portion of the brain that discerns smell is located directly behind the nose, so there’s almost a direct path from the air to our brains.”
Using scent as a marketing tool to sell your home is based on the emerging field referred to as “scentmosphere”. Scentmosphere recognizes the way a home, an office, a building or a room smells has an immediate and lasting impact on how people perceive the location.
Scent experiences make an impact with potential homebuyers. Potential buyers tend to make the ultimate decision based on emotions, and if the scents in your home make them feel good, the more likely they are to want to buy it. It’s why real estate agents would, in the past, suggest baking cookies. If you or your agent is going to be in your home during showings, lighting a few scented candles in the kitchen and living areas will provide both great fragrance and the warm ambiance of candlelight.
If you won’t be in the home, use home fragrance products. They can easily be placed in most rooms in your home, and can be a subtle way to differentiate your home from the others in the market. Examples of this would be the popular stylish reed diffusers, electric home fragrance products to plug into the wall from Yankee Candle, electric jar and votive warmers from Crazy Mountain, and even small space “car gel refreshers” which work great in closets and in pet areas.
What fragrances should you pick? For the kitchen and living areas, pick familiar welcoming food and spice scents like Biscotti, Buttercream, Cinnamon Spice, and as the weather gets warmer, fruit fragrances like Fruit Slices, Apricot, Pineapple and Sparkling Lemon work well.
For bedrooms and baths, fragrances that suggest clean and open spaces like Clean Cotton, Clean Crisp White, Island Spa and Bonsai Tree are perfect.
Welcoming, warm, clean and fresh- your home will smell so good you may be tempted to keep it! So, when selling your home, sometimes it’s best if you simply “follow your nose”.
For more information go to www.candlemanvalencia.com