Boost Your Home Sales: How Scents Can Make Your Real Estate Stand Out

We know that each time you discuss a new listing with a potential seller, you are peppered with broad strategy questions that might sound something like this:

• How do you sell a house successfully?
• Can you help get my home ready to sell?
• How fast can you sell my home?

We know that these questions are tough to answer and defy a simple answer. The sell strategy for any successful listing is multi-faceted and relies on several diverse tasks that come together to influence a buyer’s decision. There is no one thing. The silver bullet of real estate transactions does not exist. You need a complete toolbox with sharpened equipment.

We also know that residential real estate brokerage is rapidly changing. Sellers in the United States have historically paid among the highest residential sales commissions in the developed world. The vise-like grip that the National Association of Realtors has had on the business made a 6% split commission the norm, and it is now gone. A settlement of an antitrust lawsuit brought against the NAR this year has changed the landscape forever.

The settlement reached included $400 million in damages, some of which will be paid to eligible residential sellers. Plus, more importantly, a rewrite of the NAR’s rules for brokerage commissions has been negotiated into the settlement. While the money goes mostly to lawyers, the rewritten rules will change the business. In short, beginning in July 2024, the commission structure (the seller agent and buyer agent split) will not be disclosed on multiple listing services and buy-side commissions will be subject to a written agreement. That sounds straightforward enough, but in practice the settlement will have significant impact.

Buy-side brokers can no longer expect to share half of the total commission as they have in the past. Their fee arraignment is now subject to negotiation, limitation, and the scrutiny of a written agreement. While there is no mandate for reduced fees in the NAR settlement, this independent structure will put downward pressure on commissions.

Various outcomes and adjustments have been anticipated and suggested by experts and the talking heads. While giving space to those varying perspectives, there is no doubt that the antitrust settlement will level the brokerage playing field in favor of buyers and sellers. We believe that the rule changes will also have a weeding out effect among agents and brokers and not all will have the staying power to continue in the business.

One thing is certain: Any point of differentiation in your strategy that you can leverage, including fragrance, now has renewed importance. Residential brokerage, as altered, will reward quality of service and past successes.

More than ever a realtor’s opportunities will be earned. An agent’s toolbox must be up to date and complete. The quality of service matters now more than ever. Even small tweaks in your strategy will help.

Scent, emotions, and mood are directly linked. It is science-based and well established that positive scents help stabilize emotions and elevate moods. In a peer-reviewed article published by Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, the authors state that “5 minutes of exposure to an unpleasant odor (e.g., pyridine) has been reported to induce a negative mood and mild anxiety, while 5 minutes of exposure to a pleasant odor (e.g., commercial perfume) can induce positive mood and calming 1.”

While the article has a bit of fussy opaque science-speak, the authors “highlight the extensive neuroanatomical opportunities for odor-emotion/mood convergence, as well as functional data demonstrating reciprocal interactions between these processes. 1” A translation to plain English might say that fragrance and emotion are closely associated and interact directly.

The emerging research on decision making has shown that our decisions are linked directly to our emotional state. “Put succinctly, emotion and decision making go hand in hand 1” according to an article published by the Annual Review of Psychology. And, as you might easily anticipate, a cheerful and calm emotional state typically translates into the assumption of a positive outcome.

The Rice University Journal of Business Wisdom offered a more robust understanding: “Research suggests that happy people believe positive outcomes are more likely than negative ones. So cheerful decision-makers often overestimate the likelihood of a positive outcome and underestimate the chance of a negative one. 2” The power of curating fragrance for your listings could not be clearer. Air fresheners can influence positive emotion and heighten mood. And good moods and stable emotions put individuals in a hopeful and aspirational frame of mind, right for a transaction. Scent, mood, and decision-making dovetail. The only variable is the fragrance, which should be selected with care to achieve the desired outcome.

To be clear, even Scent Fill’s enthusiastic aroma experts don’t suggest that creating cheerful buyers is as easy as breathing good air. However, we strongly suggest using aroma as part of real estate sales strategy and recommend that it be used in conjunction with other efforts to present a property in its best possible light. Fragrance alone cannot manipulate buyers and holds no such power. Even if it did, there are transactional safeguards for buyers and sellers including due diligence periods, inspections, appraisals, financing, and bank loan committees protecting cheerful buyers. The research simply suggests that fragrance can contribute to a positive mood and a frame of mind that is conducive to a transaction. Use it to your advantage.

We also point out that some fragrances can be polarizing. While you may love a specific fragrance for your private space, we recommend scents that have a universal appeal. Specifically we recommend the following scents for a residential sales application. Each recommended fragrance is cleansing and light and will appeal to buyers without a heavy cloying or masking feel.

Science suggests that the aroma of a listed property can make buyers feel like they are already at home. And not just at home, but a home with associations that are heartfelt and positive. Curating a fragrance that has such evocative power is a worthwhile challenge for any realtor. Scent creates our strongest and most easily retrieved memories.

“As a sense, smell is still very much underappreciated. No other sensory system has as much emotional and evocative potency” says Professor Rachel Herz. 3 Examples of the phenomenon she cites abound in each of us: The smell of home, the lofty scent of your favorite hotel, the calming scent of flowers and vegetables that perhaps your mother grew in her garden, cookies or bread baking that open a longing for home, and the tranquility of the smell of an infant’s skin.

It is not only possible but essential that the environmental scent of a real estate listing generates positive associations. It is a highly specific application of aromatherapy. For better or worse, your listings are tied directly to the existing environmental scent and the evocative memories or emotional state the fragrance generates. To curate that scent wisely is to enhance your potential for a successful transaction. That there is an added positive impact on everyone’s well-being is a bonus.

To underestimate the power of scent is to miss a valuable tool. Its impact stretches beyond triggering positive memories and associations. It influences a mindset conducive to a transaction. And when that potential buyer asks how he or she might have that scent at home, you can point them our way. Better yet, have some in a gift bag for buyers to take home and give those positive associations staying power.

The same concepts that suggest the power of fragrance to elevate mood, influence decision making, and evoke positive memories in a residential sales setting has similar power in commercial applications. Consider the meeting room in your office where you might discuss strategy and fees with sellers. The same elevation of mood, stabilization of emotional state, and hopeful decision making might also apply in that context. And if it brings some advantage to your office, think of your commercial listings. Empty offices or retail locations can be bleak and typically defy staging. Perhaps the simple step of installing a well-chosen fragrance will give life to the space and that might be enough to give it an advantage.

Occasionally a new product hits the market that changes everything. ScentDiffuse deodorizer by Scent Fill is just such a product. Our ScentDiffuse aromas bond with malodorous molecules and renders them permanently undetectable. The benefit of ScentDiffuse in a real estate sales context is perhaps obvious: It means that the air is no longer fouled with stale odors from past food, pets, mildew, or just human habitation. Malorerous smells aren’t masked by a heavy, oppressive scent but rendered inert though a natural chemical process. The air cleansed by ScentDiffuse is light as a feather.

Our ScentDiffuse products are offered as plug in air fresheners, which are superior to scented candles or aerosol sprays. Plug in air fresheners are always on. They present no risk of soot or fire like a candle. There is no immediate dissipation as with an aerosol spray. The ScentDiffuse product can linger and continue to alter the malodorous scents for the life of the plug-in.

Imagine a residential listing that has been wet and developed mildew. Perhaps one with heavy and foul air from dogs, cats, or other pets. Maybe a restaurant listing that has years of grease, cooking oils, and other oppressive and stale food odors. The ScentDiffuse product can clean the air without masking or hiding it. This is a game changer for real estate applications. The air will be cleansed and leave a feeling of lightness. The selected scent will come through as natural and not overly strong with something to hide.

We promote the ScentDiffuse product line based on personal experience. The ultimate product testing happened when the Founder of Scent Fill experienced a leaky roof that had allowed moisture into a few of his rooms. The roof was repaired, however, the musty and wet smell persisted. He plugged in a trial ScentDiffuse product he had planned to test and left his house. Upon his return an hour later the malodorous smell was gone; not masked and hidden behind a heavy scent but gone. He knew straight away that this product would make a difference.

Your author recently experienced something similar when moving into a new duplex apartment in a tropical climate. I remember being assaulted with the stale smell of a closed-up space suffering from the tropical heat and humidity. I called my expert colleagues at Scent Fill who suggested that I try a ScentDiffuse product. My experience was the same as Scent Fill’s Founder. An hour later the musty closed-up and damp smell was GONE, and the air was light and even a bit cheerful.

1. Behavioral and Neurological Convergence of Odor, Mood, and Emotion: A Review by Ioannis Kontaris, Brett E. East, and Donald A. West. Published in the journal Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience at https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2020.00035/full.
2. Jennifer S. Lerner, Ye Li, Piercarlo Valdesolo, and Karim S. Kassam, Emotion and Decision Making, published in the Annual Review of Psychology, and found online at https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115043.
3. Professor Rachel Herz, a cognitive neuroscientist at Brown University and leading expert on the psychological science of smell. The quote is found in an article the Daily Telegraph titled: Why Scents are Being Used to Treat Dementia and Depression, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/conditions/dementia/smell-treat-dementia-depression-aromatherapy/#:~:text=Scent%20can%20help%20treat%20depression&text=The%20participants%20recalled%20specific%20memories,their%20lives%20than%20word%20cues.