Joshua Ferris asked:


Staging your home can be a fun, inexpensive experience that will significantly affect the amount of leverage you have when negotiating the sale of your home but first you need to know where to start. Haphazardly staging your home without a plan or guide to what you are doing will result in a staged home that lacks a cohesive flow and missed opportunities.

Burned out bulbs must be replaced! – This is huge. Because you live in your home you will become less aware of things you see every day including the third bulb that burned out over the bathroom mirror 6 months ago. Take a friend or family member who doesn’t live with you through your home and see if they notice any burned out bulbs that you might have missed.

Burned out bulbs mean lack of maintenance to a home buyer and they will gladly deduct dollars (in thousand dollar increments) if they suspect they will have to do a lot of work before moving in.

Take out excess big furniture. – Another epic mistake most do it yourself homeowners make when staging a home is leaving their large furniture sets in a room. Large furniture will dominate any room, especially smaller rooms, so consider taking some of the non-essential seating space out of a small living room to showcase the available square footage.

Dark furniture and poor lighting don’t mix! – On the topic of large furniture, dark furniture can be equally harmful to your home’s ability to show well. Because furniture is large in nature, dark furniture pulls the eye towards it. Unless your home features many expansive windows that allow sunlight to illuminate the entire room during the day, stay away from dark furniture.

Detach yourself from your home. – Detaching yourself from your home is very difficult to do but it’s better to develop a thick skin about your home now so you don’t take buyer feedback on your house personally.

One key aspect to detaching yourself from your home is to remove photos of family and other personal effects that may hold sentimental value. When you show your home you should only be showing the house and not family photos or interesting furniture pieces. Once buyers lose focus it is next to impossible for them to refocus on touring your house.

Raise the bar on your windows, literally. – Low sitting windows with drapes can be a kiss of death to vertical space conscious home buyers. Raise the bar above your window and mount it closer to your ceiling to give the impression that the ceiling is higher than it actually is.

Clear away ‘catch-all’ stations around the home. – Everything has a place and sometimes that place is all in one spot. Coffee tables, kitchen counters and tables by the main door are highly visible locations that tend to end up covered in mail, keys and random travel belongings.

Clearing these spaces is important as home buyers will deduct points (and dollars) for the perceived loss of space.

Get a pressure washer and wash away the elements! – Your home’s exterior bears the burden of making the first impression that will make or break a buyer’s interest in your home. Many times I have toured homes with clients who refused to go into a home because it didn’t look clean. Back to deferred maintenance, buyers don’t want to buy someone else’s problem.

Get a pressure washer (they can be found in many home improvement stores and rental centers) and spray down the exterior of the house. Pay special attention to the corners of the home which can harbor multiple generations of spider webs, insects and grime.

Understanding the top seven must dos of home staging will help you avoid costly staging mistakes and help sell your staged home faster than competing homes on the market.



Learn Home Staging with Books

sparklelove8702 asked:


My husband and I are getting ready to list our house for sale, and are getting it ready to stage. Before I buy items for the house (like artwork, plants, candles, etc.), I was needing to know if these items are expected to stay with the house or will we be able to take them with us? Also, any ideas for staging the house would be quite helpful. We have already decluttered everything, taking down all personal pictures, magnets, etc. We have painted everything neutral and cleaned it up inside and out.

Learn Home Staging with Videos

Ladybug NH asked:


I want to sell the house and I am intesrted in staging services. Staging is when a deigner comes in and stages the house to highlight its best features. What is the cost of this service?
Thank you

staging

Teri Woods asked:


The answer to that question is quite simple. Yes, home staging does, in fact, sell homes. All statistics show that homes that are well prepared for the market sell at a higher rate and at a higher price than homes that are not show ready. Often sellers recieve a higher appraisal on staged homes and multiple offers up front.

Does it pay for a seller to go to the work and expense of staging their home prior to the listing? All real estate agents will agree that they show staged homes more often than others as staged homes are ready to go for a buyer.

Staging is the process of preparing the home to enter the marketplace ready for the buyer to purchase and move into immediately. No repairs, painting, carpet cleaning, window washing or landscaping worries. Potential buyers remember the home that is staged well as it will totally appeal to the buyers needs.

Staging a home for the real estate market takes special skill and basically is designing the home to appeal to wide array of buyers. One must think in these terms to stage their home on their own. Of course there are many professional home stagers that one could call on to get the job done for the seller. As a professional stager I do recommend hiring a professional , especially if you need your home to sell quickly.

Home Stages Designs caters to the seller in that we offer training ebooks in staging your own home. Once a seller learns the techniques that we designers use to prepare a home they can then step out on their own and begin the process.

Home Stages also offers a complete Home Staging Business Start Up & Training Kit and you can see us today for further details. www.Homestages.com

Happy Staging!



Home Staging Tips

Debra Gould asked:


When I ask many real estate agents today about the state of the market and its effect on their income, I often get an earful about tiny, intermittent commission checks and complaints of record breaking gas prices cutting into already bleak profits. Things aren’t great for many in the front lines selling real estate right now.

However, if you’re a home stager, chances are you are building your real estate staging business with the help of the market’s downward spiral. In a buyer’s real estate market, the people prepared to make offers are pickier than ever. Homeowners are desperate to sell. They’re scrambling to find an edge that doesn’t mean dropping their asking price, and that’s great news for home stagers.

More homeowners than ever before are turning to home staging professionals for advice on how to best decorate their homes to stand out before they list with a real estate agent. If you’re one of the lucky stagers enjoying an increase in inquiries because of the market’s decline, you have to keep the fine line between ‘free estimate’ and ‘free advice’ good and clear. Otherwise, you could burn out and bankrupt your business faster than you think.

If you are a home stager, you know what you can expect when you walk into a house to meet with a home seller to provide a home staging estimate. Not long after being greeted at the door, you’re peppered with questions like; ‘Do you think I should repaint the bathroom?’, ‘What do you think of the rug in the living room?’, ‘Should I leave the high chair in the dining room for showings?’, ‘Do you think the kitty litter in the washroom will turn off buyers?’ Of course these are legitimate questions for a home seller to consider. But when they’re asked of a professional home stager, the real goal is to obtain free home staging advice.

Because you can increase the perceived value of a home from $10,000 to $70,000 by staging it properly, you deserve to be paid (and paid well) for your expertise and advice. Unfortunately, if you’re new to the business of home staging, you might be tempted to visit sellers to provide a free estimate of what it will cost for you to stage their home. If you continue down this road, you should know it almost always leads to burnout and bankruptcy.

If you consider yourself a professional stager, I hope you’re not out there wasting your time (not to mention gas) visiting potential clients to give away free advice. Any serious home seller seeking professional home staging advice will be happy to pay for your services – they know your work will result in a quick sale for top dollar.

It is rarely necessary to visit a home to provide a rough estimate of what it will cost to stage it, especially if it’s already furnished. If you have any experience at all, you’ll be able to tell from one telephone interview, approximately how long it will take and roughly what staging will cost the seller. However, you have to be confident enough to explain everything thoroughly to someone who has probably never hired a real estate stager before. They need to understand the services you provide and how it will benefit them.

So how do you stop walking right into the free estimate trap and start taking the reins right from the get-go? You arm yourself with the information you need to enable home sellers to understand your services and realize how much they need you. I’ve recently created a tool called the ‘Staging Diva® Sales Script: How to Avoid the Free Estimate Trap and Turn Homeowners Into Home Staging Customers in One Phone Conversation .’ It’s my script of what I say to a prospective customer to turn them into a buyer. I’ve been using it for five years to build my staging company Six Elements Inc. This resource teaches home stagers what to say when the caller asks, ‘I’m thinking of having my home staged, what does it cost?’, so they no longer have to fall into that ‘free estimate trap’ in the hopes of winning business.

With the opportunities opening up for you as a home stager in today’s slow real estate market, it’s certainly not the time to give your services away for free. Educate yourself and enjoy the profits waiting for you as you help desperate homeowners sell faster and for more money. Their real estate agents will appreciate it to since you make their selling job so much easier!



Home Staging Props