Duke University Study on Home Staging, by Andrea Angott, PhD
The goal of this survey was to determine which principles of staging are widely agreed upon as being important. We were also interested in what kinds of theories people have about why certain principles are important.
Ultimately, our goal is to empirically test some of these principles in a controlled, scientific way in a real-life setting. So, for example, we might see how people react to a house (in terms of emotional response, or perceived sale value) when the house is furnished versus empty.
As far as we know, staging principles haven’t yet received empirical testing. Rather, they most likely evolved over years of experience and practice, and very experienced practitioners develop an intuition about staging. But, it is probably the case that some staging “rules” are more effective than others in terms of changing buyer perception and behavior. Also, some rules likely give you more “bang for your buck” in terms of cost effectiveness. This is what we are trying to determine. As psychologists, we are also interested in the psychology behind effective staging principles, on both emotional and cognitive levels.
A few participants commented that our survey was too black-and-white, and that staging is an art that can’t be captured in a handful of rules. While we recognize the artistry of staging, scientific testing invariably requires simplification, and we feel that our findings will be useful despite the necessary simplification.
Sincerely,
Andrea Angott, Ph.D.
Duke University
andrea.angott@duke.edu
