Some friends of mine have put their house up for sale. In preparation for their first weekend “open house,” along with all the scrubbing and painting and making everything look just so, their real estate agent instructed them to bake cookies. Bribing the potential buyers with cookies? Like Santa? No, it wasn’t about the cookies, exactly. It was about creating the smell of freshly baked cookies to make people feel cozy and homey.
Apparently in London they’re thinking similarly. The London Financial Times ran a story last week about how the scent of a house can affect whether it sells. The article discusses a Proctor and Gamble study in which subjects had strong physiological responses to bad odors, and “relaxed” responses to neutral or good odors. Other tidbits from that article: Apparently heavy smoking in your house will considerably drop its selling price. And one home seller reportedly had such bad breath that the selling agent had to ask him to leave when potential buyers came around.
Read more at FT.com
