Dramatic prices earned by well-staged houses

Roasting chickens and perking coffee might create the mood that sells your average family home. However, comforting cooking smells won't do much to impress buyers of your average mansion, or even your basic grand apartment.

The mood to impress buyers of that category of home is created by furnishings and decor which convince that the £1m or so they're about to spend will buy a lifestyle and taste. That end of the market is about style and value for money, with finger lickin' chicken low on the priority list.

This long recognised reality has created a business within the property market. In the US it's called "staging". In the UK they call it "dressing". We don't have a name for it here yet but help is quietly and tastefully at hand for those who want to make the most of their property before selling.

You can have the veneered Dralon moved out and live with borrowed dream antiques, and whatever else it takes to give your place the style you've always aspired to, until a suitable sale is effected.

We're a long way from the US league where, on Sunset Strip, Hollywood, a staged house recently jumped from a half-hearted offer of $1.3m to sell for $1.7m. Four days made all the difference - the length of time it took Sotheby's International Realty to refurnish the house and garden, put pictures on the walls, towels in the bathrooms and appropriate clothes in the wardrobes. Crockery and ornaments were moved in and a window seat was upholstered. The house went on show on a Tuesday and was sold by Thursday.

Staging is biggest and best in those parts of the US where "cash-rich time-poor" buyers dominate the market. In San Francisco, where the property market is the most buoyant in America, staging is big business. The trick is to make houses look stylish but lived-in. A recent staging involved the importation of 40 cases of books into a l920s house, including dog-eared editions. Those in the business swear that an expenditure of $10,000 can add $200,000 to the eventual sale price.

They're at it in London too, where a Notting Hill apartment with an original asking price of £460,000 was recently sold for £512,000 after a couple of "house doctors" had been to work on it.

Isabel Morton, who with partner John Bourke runs Grosvenor Designs here in Dublin, has been involved in makeovers in London. "We did an apartment there not long ago that was quite interesting," she says, "they sent us photos over the Internet - which was difficult because the real colours and lighting weren't apparent until we got there. We found we had to use three coats of paint to get a proper cover job, for instance, and that was just one room. We used a strong orange in the livingroom to give it a lift and did a lot of work in the bathroom where there were appalling aquamarine tiles. Elsewhere we replaced furniture and put in free-standing lighting. It took four days. We left Dublin on Saturday evening and were back on Wednesday and that included shopping for paint and everything else.

"The owner wanted to rent it and the rent immediately went up by £50 per week. The whole thing cost about £2,500 and that included buying paint and furniture and our flights over and back." It involved, she admits, "lots of hard physical labour. Had I known the extent of painting involved I'd have brought someone with me to help."

Edwin Dempsey of Jackson-Stops says it's far easier to sell a house furnished than unfurnished. He sees "things changing", notes that more and more people want a house ready-made inside as well as outside. "Maybe people don't have imagination when it comes to seeing what a house could be like. They don't have the time to exercise it or maybe it's that they want everything already done for them and they want to buy into a lifestyle they aspire to."

His advice is fairly pragmatic. "The wisdoms are obvious," he says. "Period furniture complements the design of a period house so you should consult an antique dealer. For a modern house the vendor should see high-tech design people."

Interior decorator Peter Johnson is often called on to decorate luxury housing developments for sale, but with secondhand property his advice to vendors is to cut down on the clutter before they put their home on view.

"There's no doubt that it's a good idea to work on a house before selling. If a house is presented well, it must add to the price. "Most people have too much stuff and they should extract as much as they can without taking away from the character of the house. Once you have cut down on clutter then maybe you should rethink the rooms. Changing furniture around to different places will make the space more exciting visually, though it might not work as well."

Currently designing a new phase of luxurious apartments and houses at the K Club in Kildare, Johnson says that wealthy buyers are attracted by neat, well ordered rooms with expensive furniture and good lighting. "Neatness is essential and whatever is there, has to be good. Rather than a hotch potch of stuff the furniture has to be well proportioned and have its place."