Home Staging Defined
Staging of homes is a growing trend in real estate. It is especially important in slow markets with high inventory and many competing homes. Some of the things that I do as a stager are:
1. Advise removal of personal items that might make the home look crowded, or might distract buyers. Too many personal photos on the walls are a sure way to have buyers commenting on your ski trip instead of your kitchen.
2. In staging a home, many times the furnishings are rearranged to enhance the look of a room or make it look larger. This can mean the rental of a storage building for those that have too much furniture.
3. In new or unoccupied homes, the we may need to obtain rental furniture that fits the style of the home and makes it look more livable. Large expanses of open floor space may look large, but it's hard for buyers to envision their furniture in the home or get an idea of what would fit where. (There are even cardboard televisions and computers to place on desks in the home to make it seem more hospitable and help buyers to imagine their belongings in each room.)
How do I decide which Home Stager to hire?
You should do a telephone interview with any Home Stager before deciding to hire them. Make sure you feel comfortable with the person before inviting them to your home for a Home Staging Consultation.
What you should be listening for during the interview:
- Do I feel comfortable speaking with this person?
- Does this person seem to understand my needs?
- Does the Home Stager sound confident and interested in my project
- Is she clear when explaining how she works and what the fees are?
- Is the Home Stager available when I need them?
What should I expect to pay for a Home Staging Consultation?
Avoid any temptation to base your choice on pricing alone. As with most things in life, you get what you pay for.
A cheaper Home Stager may cost you more in the long run because they don't work as quickly or because their recommendations are not as good.
A real professional will charge you for the initial consultation. Be suspicious of anyone willing to come to your home and give you a "free estimate". Home Stagers should be charging for their time and their expertise; if they aren't you should question the quality of the information you receive.
Should I really be spending money on a house I'm trying to sell?
While you may be annoyed at the prospect of spending money to fix up a house you are selling, the other way to consider this is:
- Can you afford NOT to invest in selling quickly and for top dollar?
- Even in the most expensive home staging scenario, where your house is completely empty and you need to repaint and furnish it with rental furniture, your cost will be considerably less than your first price reduction if the house doesn't sell when you need it to.
Imagine the potential financial return of decorating your home so that multiple buyers get into a bidding war over it!
While there are no guarantees, staged homes do sell more quickly and for higher prices.
If you don't believe this, spend a weekend going to open houses. Notice how drawn you are to the homes that show beautifully and how uninterested you are in the ones that don't.
What happens when a Home Stager comes to my house for a Home Staging Consultation?
Home Stagers are objective about your rooms— evaluating with the eye of a highly critical buyer and finding solutions with the eye of an experienced home stager!
The Home Stager will begin with a general walk through your home to get an overview of the style of your house and the contents.
Home Stagers will be paying close attention to the flow between rooms, how many rooms you have and what the likely target market is for your home.
She'll also evaluate whether the current use of each room is optimal when decorating to sell.
Most homes are like jigsaw puzzles, a Home Stager's challenge is to figure out the best way to edit and rearrange all the pieces!
Most of the time the contents are beautiful but their placement in the home is awkward in some rooms which may close in the space and make it difficult to appreciate a home's best features.
After the initial walk-through, you can expect her to go back to each room and in detail tell you her vision and plan for what needs to be done to turn your house into a show home. Remember that none of this advice is personal. The time has come to turn your home into a product that the maximum number of potential buyers will fall in love with.
Home Stagers look in closets and built-in cabinets (because home buyers do this too) and give you strategies to cope with the clutter of daily life.
She may recommend items to be removed, suggest new furniture placement or paint colors, rearrange art and accessories, or take measurements for rental items.
Depending on her experience, the size of your home and it's current state, this process will take two to four hours.
At the end of the Home Staging consultation, some of your rooms may be already transformed, others may have a 'to do' list. It is completely up to you how many of the items in the plan you want the Home Stager to handle for you or how much you would like to do yourself.
The bottom line is that with an investment of only a few hours and under a thousand dollars, you'll have a complete plan of what needs to be done and much of it may already be done for you.
If your home needs rental furniture art and accessories, your investment may run into the $3,000 to $8,000 range, but the Home Stager will be able to assess this in your initial phone conversation or during the Home Staging Consultation. Again, your home staging investment will be less than your first price reduction if your house doesn't sell. And, you'll be setting the stage for potentially selling within days at above asking price.
Home Staging is not a cost but an investment.
Sincerely,
Lisa Miller
Sales Associate, Home Staging Consultant
Call: (405) 371-3492
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Home Staging
