Haymarket · Pitt Street · 2BR apartment · 122sqm · Staged Tuesday · Photography Tuesday · Listed Wednesday · Sold in 11 days · 4 offers
What Does an Empty City Apartment Need to Compete?
A high-floor Haymarket apartment with city views, 122sqm on title, and a staging brief that had to do one thing: make buyers feel it before they stepped inside.
The apartment was empty. Had been for weeks. Generous by any measure — 122 square metres, enclosed balcony with city views, ensuite master, a U-shaped kitchen with dark granite benchtops and a gas cooktop. On paper, the numbers were strong. In person, the space felt unfinished. In photos, it looked like a shell. Buyers were clicking through, reading the specs, and moving on.
That is the problem with empty apartments in a competitive CBD market. The bones can be excellent. The light can be good. And none of it translates when there is nothing in the room to give a buyer a sense of scale, warmth, or life. Inspections were modest. Offers were zero.
Goldpac received the keys on a Tuesday morning.
The brief was clear: this apartment needed to read as generous and connected — not a corridor lined with rooms, but a home with flow. The living and dining zone is long and lateral, running from the glass-block side window all the way through to the teal-framed sliding doors that open onto the balcony. Left unstyled, that length reads as narrow. Staged correctly, it becomes the apartment's strongest feature.
The furniture placement started with that sight line. A low-profile sofa in warm oatmeal linen was positioned to open the view straight through to the balcony, creating an unbroken axis from the entry corridor to the city outside. A round slatted coffee table in raw timber kept the centre of the room breathing. The dining setting — rattan-back chairs around a compact white oval table — sat close to the glass-block window, where diffused natural light made the space feel brighter without competing with the balcony view. Two matching sputnik pendants in brass anchored the ceiling across both zones, giving the long room a rhythm it previously lacked.
Ochre and mustard cushions ran across both the sofa and the accent armchair as a deliberate warmth strategy. Against the all-white walls and honey-toned floorboards, the yellow tones created a palette that photographed as inviting rather than sterile. A timber media console on hairpin legs along the far wall added visual weight without closing the room in. A tall banana-leaf plant beside the balcony doors extended the room toward the glass — buyers' eyes followed it right out to the view.
The master bedroom had its own challenge. The room is large, but an ensuite entry on the right wall and a study nook on the left created a layout that needed anchoring. A king bed with an upholstered beige headboard and mustard cushions was centred on the back wall. A low bouclé bench at the foot of the bed defined the room's depth. A tall white ceramic vase with dried pampas sat on a dark console beside the ensuite entry — transforming what could have read as a functional doorway into a styled moment. The second bedroom was handled in a different key: soft sage and teal tones, paired botanical prints, and mirrored wardrobes that reflected the room back on itself and doubled its perceived width.
The kitchen received precision touches. The dark granite benchtop is a feature; the styling confirmed it. A champagne bottle, two flutes, a timber chopping board, white orchid, and a bowl of green apples — each object placed to direct the eye across the counter and land on the glass-block window behind. The result was a kitchen that looked used and loved, not institutional.
Goldpac photographed the apartment the same day staging was completed. That sequence is not incidental — it is the reason the campaign worked. The photographer walked into a space that had been built for the camera. Every angle, every sight line, every object placement had been made with the lens in mind. What went online was exactly what buyers walked into at inspection. No disconnect. No disappointment at the door. The living room looked as wide in person as it did in the listing photos. The balcony views were exactly as framed. Three of the four buyers who made offers had already decided before they arrived — the online photos had done the work.
Haymarket is one of those pockets that buyers research before they visit. Central Station is a six-minute walk. World Square, Darling Square, and Chinatown are all within reach on foot. The Inner Sydney High School catchment covers the address. Buyers in this market know what they want; they just need the listing to confirm it. This one did. The apartment that had been sitting unseen sold in eleven days.
Among the offers received, one came from a buyer who had initially passed on the listing when it was vacant. She came back after the Goldpac photos went live. She had seen the balcony shot and wanted to know if the chairs came with the apartment. They didn't. She bought it anyway.
Home staging Sydney, done right, is not decoration. It is a system that connects what buyers see online to what they experience in person — and closes the gap that causes offers to die at the door.
'It had been sitting with nothing in it and I was getting polite feedback at opens. After Goldpac, I had four written offers inside two weeks. One buyer came back specifically because of the balcony photo.' — Listing Agent
📍 2BR apartment · Haymarket · Empty — buyers couldn't visualise the space
🎨 Styling: Warm ochre-and-linen palette, low-profile furniture to open sight lines, staged balcony to lead buyers' eyes to city views
📸 Photography: Goldpac photographer same day — what listed online matched the staged home exactly.
⚡ Sold in 11 days · 4 offers · Sydney CBD median DOM: 24 days
💬 'Four written offers inside two weeks. One buyer came back specifically because of the balcony photo.' — Listing Agent
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