What is Home Staging?

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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