Jay's Prelude: I've been getting a lot of inquires and questions lately about "staging" a home for sale. Not being a stager myself, I thought I'd solicit the help of an expert.
Calie Waterhouse with Decorated to Sell, LLC is a local Master Stager and was gracious enough to provide us with this guest post on the basics of staging.
Thanks Calie!!
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Home Staging, property merchandising, redecorating or redesign – however you term it – it is a trend that is recognizably and potentially the beginning of an industry boom. Try selling your house in Seattle or San Francisco and your education in the basics of home staging began decades ago. If selling in other parts of the country, home sellers are just now discovering the art of home staging.
Awareness of home staging began with the success of Ty Pennington’s crew and Extreme Home Makeover or “Trading Spaces”. Let’s not forget HGTV’s Designed To Sell – now a nationwide phenomenon that promotes the benefits of purposefully and properly preparing your property for sale.
Basic home staging builds excitement and empowers you to take control of your home selling experience. While your REALTOR® does everything within his/her power to market your home – it is your responsibility to partner with them and recognize the importance of making sure your home is ready for buyer feedback.Whether in the form of offer or critique, your responsibility to provide something positive for them to remember starts the day you start interviewing REALTORS®. Staging has become a leading-edge marketing tool that demands attention, creativity and practicality. To side step the importance of staging your home, is intentionally wasting time, adding stress and potentially more days to your MLS listing.
So – Where to start? Start by interviewing a professional home stager. Working with a professional is worth the investment of their knowledge and expertise in the real estate industry.As an experienced home stager and having staged hundreds of houses from Glendale to Maricopa, I am trained to pick up on things that perhaps a home seller may not.Home stagers are not privy to the personal and emotional connection that you have to the home.We don’t remember the day you brought your first baby home to or the memory of cold dinners waiting for loved ones to return. What a home stager does is provide perspective and a game plan for filling the gap between for sale and sold.
Here’s an example – How many retail stores have you stood in and admired the outfit on a manikin?That’s retail staging at its finest.Having difficulty picturing how the outfit would look on you? The neatly displayed (dare I say “staged”?) manikin provides you with the visual reassurance you need – back-up support that the pieces do indeed go together and would look as good on you – if not better. Staging your house is no different. Staging is merely showing off your home’s best features. Show me a house with a custom jetted bathtub and I’ll show you a bathroom that is clean, clutter free and ready to show.
The basics of staging include removing the clutter, cleaning the nooks and crannies and being creative with what you have. Good staging does not have to be expensive to be effective. Think of it this way – your home is only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it. Now is not the time to “test the waters” to see if staging may work. It will work and, if done properly, will produce measurable results. Remember, if your home is a “deal” at $1million – it’s not worth the price – until someone else sees it, believes it and buys it.
Before Staging After Staging
Before Staging After Staging
[tags]Calie Waterhouse, home staging, staging[/tags]
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Callie is fabulous! Y’all should hire her!
Cheers,
Cindy
Calie and her work ARE fabulous. I’ve hired her personally to stage two of my homes, and the clients that I’ve referred her to are thrilled with the results. In this market, where it’s critical to have a home in top-notch showing condition, staging is an excellent way to show a home off to its best advantage.
Dru Bloomfield
Thanks, Jay, for letting Calie write this post. I am gald to finally have a permalink that I can send to sellers that ask “what is staging.” In my market it is not very prevalent (yet). Great work, Calie.
John
oops – typo – I am GLAD –
Very interesting.
Calie is very good. She staged a home for me in North Scottsdale and I can certainly recommend her.
I’ve ponied up for a stager on all of my recent listings (unless vacant) and I’m happy with the results. (I tend to use a particular stager based in Scottsdale but I’ve also had good luck with one in Glendale.)
I think I’m decent at staging myself, I took the 2-day class, for example. But I just don’t think a woman is going to take too kindly to some old fart waltzing into her home and telling her to move her furniture around.
A good stager is a saleswoman who can get the client to actually make the changes she suggests… or most of them anyway.
On TLC’s Property Ladder, the host loves to beat the flippers over the head every show with the definition of staging. It makes great sense though, especially when you’re in a subdivision with the exact same floorplans and features with little to differentiate between.
Wow, big before – after different..but I think I can choose for myself what to buy to make it look after..
Greets
M.Shqip
Some of my friends asked if home staging training would be useful to support his career in the industry. I said,”Yes' definitely”. Homes Staging certification may become legal and personal measure for being a professional or otherwise. Thanks for sharing. Visit us and learn more aboutmaking solar panels. It might enrich home staging works as well.
Some of my friends asked if home staging training would be useful to support his career in the industry. I said,”Yes' definitely”. Homes Staging certification may become legal and personal measure for being a professional or otherwise. Thanks for sharing. Visit us and learn more aboutmaking solar panels. It might enrich home staging works as well.