Just as entrepreneurs need to know the preferences of their customers, homeowners who are planning on selling their home have to learn the same about their prospective buyers. By doing some simple research, you will soon conclude that Millennials, those born between 1981 and 1996, currently represent a major portion of the buyers’ group.
If you are not keen on undertaking any major renovation projects, such as bringing down walls or putting new up to affect the room number, then you have to think in terms of smaller yet significant ventures. Millennials indeed have distinct tastes but values and aesthetics change throughout different generations so it’s just a matter of a few tweaks in the right direction.
Defining home staging
When homeowners decide to sell or rent their property, they often resort to home staging. This means that they arrange their home in a manner which could make it more attractive to future buyers or tenants. Your home turns into a well-prepared stage upon which the act of property-viewing and hopefully, contract signing, will take place.
What sellers want to accomplish is the best possible first impression and for the buyers to create a type of bond with the house by being able to imagine themselves in that space. Millennials are not alone in their wish to find a house which would fit their needs both in practical and aesthetic aspects. With that in mind, let’s go through a house room by room to see what can be done to make it more captivating for a Millennial.
Kitchen as the center of the house
One thing that hasn’t changed much from generation to generation is the importance of the kitchen as a center towards family members gravitate. Its prime visitors used to be family members, while nowadays friends and acquaintances are more than welcome but regardless, it has remained one of the crucial parts of the house. As for Millennials, they prefer bright colors so a dash of fresh paint on the walls will be an economical and effective move.
If you have a bar with a few chairs, then you are in luck since this is one of the features which gregarious Millennial values. As for appliances, being highly environmentally conscious, they always opt for energy-saving ones. However, if you are on a budget and changing your stove isn’t an option, you can show your eco-friendly side and make a mini indoor garden. They would love the idea of planting their own food and eating healthy, and not to mention that it would give the kitchen additional charm.
Related: When is the best time to buy or sell a home?
Living room as a space for leisure
For Millennials, this room serves most often as a leisure room, a place to relax, read or have philosophical conversations. This is the reason they prefer simplicity – it would be perfect if white and gray could dominate the space but the most important thing to do throw away any clutter, clear up the room since they love open spaces and get rid of fragile ballet figurines and your grandmother’s crocheted decorations.
So, when it comes to art, they dislike flamboyant art pieces and prefer simple 2D posters as well as geometric elements and adding a few will not seriously wound your budget. As for the furniture, if you don’t mind spending a few bucks, you could find used wooden furniture over Facebook at more than decent prices. There are also pieces made of reclaimed lumber, that is, wood salvaged from old structures, and both of these options would strike a chord with this generation of environmentalists.
Spare room as a home office
Having a room that is already intended for working is a dream come true since many Millennials either work from home or run their own small businesses. The home office concept has grown into a lifestyle trend and since they spend a lot of time there, staging it just the right can be what would tip the scale to your advantage. As a prerequisite, the room needs to be tidy and clean, as well as well-lit.
What’s also essential is that the room mustn’t feel claustrophobic so, for starters, get rid of furniture and leave one table to dominate the room. And on the table, put a laptop and stationary orderly waiting to be used, accompanied by a carelessly open planner. To top it off, add a comfortable chair, some house plans and enough room for them to fill it with their gadgets. Enterprising millennials would have no problem imagining themselves in such a working environment.
Bedroom as an oasis of peace
In terms of bedroom requirements, what they want is a simple and clean space so make sure you scrub it and remove personal belongings since they will not enjoy the view on your socks. You should consider leaving just the bare necessities such as a bed, a closet, a nightstand and a mirror for the room for it to seem more spacious.
To get them to love the place, try a few simple and inexpensive tricks such as pastel colors on the walls, as well as organic cotton sheets and pillowcases to appeal to their eco-friendly side. Also, if you haven’t already, you should change the old regular light bulbs with LED or CFL light bulbs and impress them with those energy-efficient alternatives which will consequently cut down your energy consumption.
In closing
Millennials are first and foremost, a tech-savvy generation who is finding ways to use technology so it isn’t as detrimental to the environment as it was. The concept of consumerism is unsavory to most of them, and they aim at minimalism as a method of saving resources which means that when it comes to home staging, the less furniture and trinkets there are, the better. They prefer recycled materials, used furniture with a history to it and since they dislike clutter in general, they enjoy open and bright rooms.
These nature-lovers will be more dazzled by a mini indoor garden with some carrots and onions planted for personal use than an expensive and fragile vase dominating your living room. Think of it this way: since they are all about cutting costs, staging the house to fit their standards will not put a strain on your budget and it might even get you to think more on the topic of efficient energy usage. What you might also discover along the way is that you are actually having fun instead of worrying about how the house looks.
