Home staging works. We know this.

Why does it work? Lots of reasons - it illustrates lifestyle, demonstrates space and potential, gives competitive advantage, differentiates a home and, most importantly, gets the place sold.

How does it do that? By shoring up the value and engaging a buyer's emotions. Jeanette Fisher calls the emotional side of marketing Design Psychology. She writes about it beautifully in her book.

For me, selling a house is about getting it into mint condition, (shoring up the value) and then illustrating the home's assets by triggering emotion.

Engaging emotions...positively... is best accomplished when done subtly, and the way I've found most successful with that is to speak to all 5 of the buyer's senses. Here's a brief example of what I mean:-

Sight

Using soothing colors in relaxing spaces, vibrant colors in action-oriented spaces and strong, exciting accent colors to draw the eye around the room, feature to feature.

Hearing

Gentle wind chimes, bubbling water fountains... things like that do way more for me to mask road noise than the artificial blasting of jazz from a radio. (I hate jazz, btw. That yahoo ad years ago was a come-on!)

Touch

Soft, luxurious throws; rough hewn linens; rippling silks; plush carpets; glowing, polished floors that seem to lead the eye for ever....

Taste

People get hungry touring houses. A cookie, a fun candy, a snack... goes a long way to 'puttin' out the welcome'

Smell

The boiling cinnamon water is old hat now, and seems artificial. And how much bread can one family go through? Put the machine away! However... did you know that one way to make a small house seem bigger is to have a different aroma (from candles, pot pourri, etc.) in each room? Avoid anything really heavy and cloying - like vanilla, patchouli, sandlewood. Look for lavendar, citrus, bergamot, etc. AND BAD SMELLS WILL KILL A DEAL FASTER THAN ANYTHING! If you know that you have a sensitive nose and you don't like stronger, fresh aromas, just neutralize the place with a product like Febreeze Anti-Allergen spray.

When your senses are engaged, you can't help yourself. When I first met my husband, I found myself "falling into him" as I listened to his voice. It was rich, magnetic and totally entrancing. Your senses engage your emotion on a visceral level to the point where you just feel positive, and wonderful, and totally delighted.

Isn't that how you want people to feel about the house you're selling?