Mental Simulation: Seeing is Believing

We’ve already learned about the Primacy Effect and how important first impressions are for potential buyers. You can read more about that here.

Today we’ll explore another psychological principle that makes home staging so successful: Mental Simulation. According to psychology, Mental Simulation is the concept of imagining or visualizing scenarios in our minds in an effort to predict or evaluate outcomes. By rehearsing something in your mind before it happens, your brain will naturally fill in the blanks of how you would feel or behave. 

This means while a buyer is at a showing, they use mental simulation to envision:

• Cooking in the kitchen
• Relaxing in the living room
• Hosting guests for a meal in the dining room

While this process naturally helps a buyer start imaging the home as their own, it can be difficult to do in a cluttered or unstaged property. Without the context of thoughtful staging, most buyers will struggle to simulate how their own lives will unfold in each room.

Staging assists the mental simulation process by establishing spaces as beautifully arranged and usable. Once buyers can see themselves living in the home, they’re more likely to make an offer.