How to Style Your Home to Attract More Buyers

Getting your home ready for sale can feel overwhelming, especially when you’re trying to work out what actually makes a difference to buyers. Should you replace furniture? Add styling? Or just work with what you’ve got?

To help simplify the process, we spoke with Alison Leeder from Leeder Interiors, who has styled hundreds of homes for sale across Melbourne. Her approach is practical, achievable, and focused on what really helps a property feel more spacious, inviting and appealing to buyers.

In this Q&A, Alison shares her go-to styling advice for choosing the right furniture and colour palettes to simple, budget-friendly changes that can elevate your home before it hits the market.

Can you talk about the right furniture vs wrong furniture?

When a property is presented beautifully for sale, the furniture scale and colour is often the reason.  The room won't be overly full of furniture and there will be lots of space around the items.  You want possible buyers to not feel overwhelmed by the furniture. Furniture that has clean lines and in lighter and brighter colours will elevate the space.  Using big, dark pieces of furniture can make spaces feel heavy.  If this can't be avoided, add light cushions and throws, expansive lighter coloured floor rugs to living spaces to enliven them.  For dark dining furniture, adding a light table runner and a large vase with greenery will lighten it. The living room at 207b/173 The Boulevard, Ivanhoe East is a great example of minimal styling.

What’s your biggest tip/or tips for staging a property?

My biggest tip for styling a property is to keep the furniture to a minimum but keep enough so people can still use it as a reference for scale.  Having some furniture in a room is better than nothing.  Remove lots of small pieces of furniture, like side tables and bookcases.  Try to retain larger pieces so the space doesn't feel too busy or full.  Remember, how you live in a home day to day is very different to how you present a house for sale.  Also, rearranging furniture so it feels more open is another way to change the space massively and make it feel more welcoming and have more flow.  Avoid having furniture cut across rooms where walk ways are. 20 Winterhill Link, Bundoora is a good example of simply styled study.  

How to do you choose a colour palette for a property?

Choosing a colour palette for a property is very dependent on the property.  However, after years of styling, and hundreds of properties later, I've found the majority of homes suit a blue or green palette.  A modern space with brighter whites will suit either blue or green accents.  Older properties, with lots of timber elements and paint colours in beige/cream tones, will benefit from green accents. Green will freshen up the space and make it feel lighter and brighter.

If budget is a big concern, what are your priority recommendations when staging?

If you can't change your furniture and hiring isn't an option, add some additional lighting to the space.  Adding table and floor lamps, will make a space feel more inviting and homely, more so coming into the cooler winter months.  Another small addition you can make is to add greenery.  Adding some fresh greenery (just some nice foliage or branches) to vases and placing throughout the home, will freshen up otherwise plain spaces. 

 

What’s the biggest mistake you see people make when presenting their homes for sale?

The biggest mistake I see people having lots of small pieces of furniture everywhere and having too many small pieces of art on the walls.  It makes the space feel busy and cluttered.  It can be visually overwhelming when you want possible buyers to focus on the space.  Having fewer larger pieces on the walls is better than having lots of small art hung everywhere. 

Styling your home for sale doesn’t have to be complicated or costly but it does need to be considered. As Alison highlights, creating space, keeping things simple, and focusing on light, flow and balance can have a powerful impact on how buyers perceive your home. With the right approach, even small changes can help elevate your property and ultimately influence your result. If you're selling or just want to improve your property, Miles Concierge can assist. Our Managed Services Team will prepare a no-obligation and cost-free quote based on your specific requirements. For more styling tips read our other article Styling and Decorating Your Home With Alison Leeder.