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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Ratgeber
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011
Want to have homebuyers knocking down your door? Home Staging For Dummies delivers all the secrets to making your home stand out, sell faster, and bring in more money! It shows you how to make improvements room by room and generate a higher profit in the most cost- and time-effective way. Featuring eight full-color pages of instructive before-and-after photos, this completely practical guide demonstrates how and why to eliminate clutter, make repairs, arrange furnishings, and pave the way for buyers to make an emotional connection to your house. You'll get a handle on what buyers want and how to show it to them, find plenty of do-it-yourself tasks that add real value to your home, and get tips on producing photos of your home that will have buyers craving to see more! Discover how to: * See your home as prospective buyers will see it * Know what needs doing and what doesn't * Master the three-step home staging process * Add real value to your home without breaking the bank * Decide whether to DIY or call in the pros * Create curb appeal * Make a great first impression with a beautiful entryway * Spruce up your kitchen, bathroom, living, and dining rooms * Turn your bedrooms into a buyer's dream * Whip your mechanicals into top shape * Avoid staging nightmares Get top dollar for your home -- all you need is a little help from Home Staging For Dummies!
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Home Staging For Dummies
by Christine Rae and Jan Saunders Maresh
Home Staging For Dummies®
Published byWiley Publishing, Inc.111 River St.Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774www.wiley.com
Copyright © 2008 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
Published simultaneously in Canada
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax 201-748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.
LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: The publisher and the author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or Website is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or Website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet Websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2008924958
ISBN: 978-0-470-26028-9
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
About the Authors
Christine Rae is an internationally recognized trainer in the home staging industry. She has been providing ground-breaking staging programs since 2001, after a 32-year career in executive business management. In August of 2005, she developed and launched her innovative certification program throughout North America (Canadian Certified Staging Professionals and Certified Staging Professionals). Through that program, she has personally instructed over 2,600 entrepreneurs on how to start and grow a successful home staging business.
Christine has received many industry awards; among the most recent is the 2007 Real Estate Staging Association Staging Innovator of the Year. Christine has coauthored the Home Staging Business Guide e-book and countless articles in industry trade publications, like Canada’s Real Estate Magazine. She is editor and contributing writer for the staging industry trade magazine Staging Standard. She has acted as subject matter expert for CE Network, an online staging program for real estate agents, and an assortment of other real estate one-day programs. She is a platform speaker with thousands of hours dedicated to the staging industry. For information about her staging background go to www.christinerae.com.
Christine’s other credentials include Interior Redesign Industry Specialist, Canadian Vice President of Real Estate Staging Association, Affiliate Member of Women’s Council of Realtors and Interior Design Society, Certified Dewey Color Instructor, Certified Home Marketing Specialist, Certified in Management, and Professional Manager.
When not traveling the world teaching, Christine lives in Canada’s Niagara Region. She shares her life with “the Dutch Accountant” Ary, has a son, Lee, a grandson, Lucas, and an adorable Yorkshire woofie named Timmy.
Jan Saunders Maresh is a nationally known journalist and television personality specializing in sewing and home decor. Home sellers and real estate agents bank on her training as a Certified Staging Professional, Certified One-Day Decorator, and a Certified Dewey Color Instructor and her more than 25 years of design experience. Jan is also the bestselling author of 15 books, including Sewing For Dummies, Second Edition (Wiley, 2004).
In 2005, Saunders Maresh founded Naked Room Solutions, a home staging and interior redesign company. She speaks for Realtors and teaches home decorating, staging, and color classes at national industry events, paint and fabric stores, and home furnishing and design centers.
Authors’ Acknowledgments
Even though our names are on the cover, it took an army of people to help bring this book alive. We are two cogs in a great big wheel. We couldn’t have written this without Wiley Publishing and the incredible Dummies team. Thank you Mike Baker for working our book into the publishing schedule so it hits the market at the right time and for your continuing guidance and support in making sure this project is a success.
Thank you to Traci Cumbay for your patience, courtesy, and understanding, and for making us look brilliant, clever, and funny. You offered continuous encouragement throughout the writing process, and we both really appreciated your help and guidance through the rough patches and those killer deadlines.
Thank you to all the folks at the Certified Staging Professionals organization. The staff is passionate, supportive, and so proud. We couldn’t have made this book happen without the special help from Angela Brooks, JoAnne O’Donnell, Lynelle Hartman, Leigh Hagen, Nairn Friemann, Gina McNew, and the many CSP graduates who shared freely their photographs so we could bring you great examples of what we speak about.
Personal thanks go to the family of Angela Brooks, who had to do without her for so many nights while she edited, researched, and secured photographs for this book. And to Angela: Thanks for supporting and believing in us.
Finally, thank you to all the people who buy and read this book; we appreciate and are very grateful you did. Both Christine and Jan are personally donating 10 percent of any proceeds made to the CSP Pay It Forward campaign for Habitat for Humanity; we are sure they appreciate you, too.
From Christine: Thanks to Jan for her amazing spirit and knowledge of book-writing, for her knack of knowing what the editors were looking for, and for sharing this opportunity.
Thanks also to Ary, who always believes in me, and supports and encourages me while watching the pennies and doing without me in many ways.
From Jan: Thanks to Christine for her willingness to share her incredible knowledge and experience of staging with me, my fellow CSPs, and now the Dummies’ readers. Your commitment to excellence, innovative ideas, and raising the bar in the staging industry will outlive us all.
And thanks to my husband, Ted, for your patience, understanding, support, and tolerance of the crazy deadlines. Thanks, too, to our son, Todd Moser, for being so understanding about what I do. I promise I won’t rent out our living-room furniture over your winter break again.
A great big thanks to my business partner and fellow CSP, Char Curry, who kept our business growing and running smoothly by managing all of our projects during the writing of this book.
Publisher’s Acknowledgments
We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.
Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:
Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development
Project Editor: Traci Cumbay
Acquisitions Editor: Mike Baker
Copy Editor: Traci Cumbay
Editorial Program Coordinator: Erin Calligan Mooney
Technical Editor: Linda Barnett
Editorial Supervisor & Reprint Editor: Carmen Krikorian
Editorial Assistants: David Lutton, Joe Niesen
Cover Photo: Leigh Hagen, LH2 Photography
Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com)
Composition Services
Project Coordinator: Lynsey Stanford
Layout and Graphics: Claudia Bell, Stacie Brooks, Laura Campbell, Reuben W. Davis, Melissa K. Jester, Brent Savage, Christine Williams
Proofreaders: Jessica Kramer, Nancy L. Reinhardt
Indexer: Christine Spina Karpeles
Publishing and Editorial for Consumer Dummies
Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher, Consumer Dummies
Joyce Pepple, Acquisitions Director, Consumer Dummies
Kristin A. Cocks, Product Development Director, Consumer Dummies
Michael Spring, Vice President and Publisher, Travel
Kelly Regan, Editorial Director, Travel
Publishing for Technology Dummies
Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher, Dummies Technology/General User
Composition Services
Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services
Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services
Contents
Title
Introduction
About This Book
Conventions Used in This Book
Foolish Assumptions
How This Book Is Organized
Icons Used in This Book
Where to Go from Here
Part I : Preparing Your Property for Sale
Chapter 1: Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me an Offer
Turning Your Home Back into a House
Seeing the Property Through the Buyer’s Eyes
Recognizing What Staging Is and Is Not (Hint: It’s Not Decorating)
Why Real Estate Pros Embrace Staging (And You Should, Too)
Setting the Stage: Three Steps to Sold
Making Staging Happen with Minimal Stress
Chapter 2: Discovering What Buyers Want
Comparison Shopping: Buyers Do It and So Should You
Identifying and Upgrading the Money-Making Rooms
Speed Dating: What Happens When Buyers Start Looking
Hitting the Target Market
Making the Most of What’s Memorable about Your House
Chapter 3: Finding the Fixes You Can’t Ignore
Having Your Home Inspected Before You Sell
Addressing the Fixes That Make Your House Safe
Working with a Home Inspector
Making the Changes That Sell Your House
Chapter 4: Color Me Sold: Using Color and Light to Sell Your House
Grasping Color’s Emotional Power
Staging with Color Psychology
Finding the Right Way to Let There Be Light
Chapter 5: It’s Not What You Have; It’s Where You Place It
Focal Points: The Start of the Selling Process
Adding Angles to a Square-Shaped Room
Balancing a Rectangular Room
The L-Shaped Room
Sparing a Bowling Alley–Shaped Room
Addressing an Unexpected Angle
Part II : Three Staging Steps Toward Hitting a Home Run
Chapter 6: First Base: The Staging Consultation
Knowing When and Why to Call a Stager
Knowing What to Expect from a Complete Staging Consultation
Setting Your Priorities: What Are the Top Recommendations?
What’s This Going to Cost Me?
Can I Do My Own Staging Consultation?
Chapter 7: Second Base: Earning Equity with Elbow Grease
Earning Equity: Steps for Every Room
It’s De-lightful, It’s De-lovely, It’s De-cluttered
Painting for Perfect Walls and Woodwork
Hiring the Elbow Grease: Working with Vendors
Chapter 8: Third Base: Showcasing Makes Your House Photo-Ready
The Ins and Outs of Showcasing
Accessories: Jewelry for Your Rooms
Hanging Mirrors and Art for Maximum Impact
Finding Ideas for Accessories Functional and Fanciful
Uncovering Out-of-the-Box Showcasing Ideas
Chapter 9: Home: Opening Your House to Buyers and Agents
Romancing the Home with Photos
Night Lights: Making Sure Buyers Find You
Offering Broker and Agent Tours
Living in Your Staged Property
Keeping Your House Show-Ready with an Open House Checklist
Part III : Working Through Your House, Room by Room
Chapter 10: Curb Appeal: Making a Winning First Impression
Color It Sold: Addressing Exterior Color
Welcoming Buyers with Fabulous Front Doors
Bright at Night: Lighting Your Property
Addressing Driveways and Sidewalks
Roofs: Tending Your House’s Top
Gussying Up Your Yard
Chapter 11: You Had Me at Hello: Entrances, Exits, and Special Places
Making an Entrance Grand
Selling Stairways and Hallways
Exits: Stage Them Right!
Handling Unique Spaces at Exits and Entrances
Chapter 12: A Whole Lot of Living to Do: Living, Family, and Rec Rooms
From Formal to Laid Back: The Family of Living Rooms
Bringing Luxury and Elegance to Living Rooms
Finding Focus and Balance in Family Rooms
Getting the Great Room into Selling Shape
Staging a Recreation Room, Bonus Room, or Basement
Getting Your Rooms in Shape with a DIY Checklist
Chapter 13: A Feast of Dining Room Staging Ideas
Running Through a Dining Room Staging Checklist
Placing Furniture — But Not Too Much of It
Improvising to Set Up Your Dining Room
When You Don’t Have a Formal Dining Room . . .
Chapter 14: Cashing In on Kitchens and Baths
Kitchens: Staging the Home’s Focal Point
Bathrooms: Tackling Tub, Tile, and Toilet
Upping the Wow Factor with a DIY Staging Checklist
Chapter 15: Inviting Sweet Dreams with Beautifully Staged Bedrooms
Getting Bedrooms Ready for Buyers
Mastering the Master Bedroom
Welcoming Buyers to the Guest Room
Taming Kids’ Rooms
Making Bedrooms Their Best with a DIY Checklist
Chapter 16: Office Affair: Stage ’Em Something to Talk About
Sizing Up the Space
Restoring the Function
Building a Workable Work Space
Bringing Finishing Touches to the Home Office
Spiffing Up an Office with a DIY Checklist
Chapter 17: Behind Closed Doors: Staging Closets and Other Hidden Places
Running Down Things to Do in Every Closet
Defining Closet Upgrade Options
Finding the Function and Setting the Stage in Closets of Every Kind
Organizing the Laundry Room
Bringing Basements up to Selling Speed
Getting the Garage in Order
Part IV : Addressing Special Staging Considerations
Chapter 18: Dealing with Sensitive Issues
Eradicating Scent of Wet Dog, Eau de Cat, and Other Signs of Pets
Protecting Precious Goods (Or, “Grandma’s in That Jar!”)
Quashing Collection Fever: Show Buyers Your House, Not Your Beanie Babies
Selling Your House During the Holidays
You See Beautiful Wallpaper, Buyers See Work
Chapter 19: Staging When You’re Building, Rehabbing, or Flipping
Climbing the Three Steps of Staging
Colors Speak Even When They Don’t Say a Word
Finding Eye-Opening (And Sale-Making) Improvements
Building and Staging with the Buyer in Mind
Chapter 20: Staging Your House the Feng Shui Way
Introducing Feng Shui
Overcoming Clutter’s Harmful Effects
Making the Most of the Five Natural Elements
Staging to Feng Shui the Sale
Chapter 21: It’s Not Easy Being Green: EcoStaging
Looking Into Rebate and Eco-Grant Programs
Using Earth-Friendly Products for Cleaning and Painting
Finding Flooring That Goes the Eco-Distance
Finding Practical Ways to Conserve Water
Part V : The Part of Tens
Chapter 22: (Almost) Ten Mistakes Sellers Often Make
Overpricing the Property
Choosing the Wrong Professional
Going It Alone: For Sale by Owner
Listing Your House Before You Stage It
Not Doing Your Homework
Failing to Target the Right Buyer
Undervaluing the Power of Curb Appeal
Neglecting the Floors
Not Washing the Windows
Chapter 23: Ten Reasons to Hire a Staging Professional
Utilizing the Skills of a Certified Staging Professional
Seeing What the Buyer Sees
Selling the Property to All Five Senses
Saving You and Your Agent Time and Money
Stagers Play the Bad Guy So Agents Don’t Have To
Highlighting Your House with Great Photographs
Selling Your Property Faster
Relying on the Stager’s Toolkit
Chapter 24: Ten Tricks of the Trade That Help You Sell Your House
Bringing Fresh Air In
Running a Fresh Air Machine
Choosing Eco-Friendly Cleaning Products
Hanging Art with Heavy Duty Wall Hangers
Professional Art Hanging with a Level and Hanging Tool
Saving Your Walls with Wall Respecters
Adding a Citrus Scent
Saving Your Back with Furniture Sliders
Filling Cracks and Holes Easily
Misting Naturalaire Home Cleansing Spray
Chapter 25: Ten Ways to Prepare Your House (And Yourself) for the Sale
Emotionally Disconnect from the House
Make Room for the Buyer’s Vision
Pack Up and Store Half of Your Stuff
Organize Closets, Cupboards, and Drawers
Refresh the Exterior
Inspect Your House Before the Buyer Does
Invite the Buyer In
Buy New House Numbers
Make Every Surface Shine
Seek Professional Showcasing Help
Chapter 26: Ten Reasons Sellers Don’t Stage Their Properties (But Should)
We Don’t Have Time for Home Staging
Location and Price Will Do the Work
I Get Compliments on My Home All the Time, So I Don’t Need to Stage It
My Neighbor’s House Sold Without Staging
My Agent Said I Don’t Need to Stage My House to Sell It
If It’s Good Enough for Me, It’s Good Enough for Anyone
Staging Is Just De-Cluttering and Cleaning, and I’ve Done That
Homes Have Been Selling for Years Without Staging. Why Now?
I Can’t Afford It
It’s a Hot Market — The House Will Sell Without Staging
: Further Reading
Introduction
A complete and proper home staging takes an occupied house from okay to wow, and it elevates a vacant property from cold and empty to warm and welcoming. It gives home sellers an opportunity to secure more equity and to sell their properties faster.
If you have a house that’s just sitting on the market drawing no offers, or if you’re getting ready to list a property for sale — as a real estate professional or as a homeowner — staging the property gives you a marketing edge. Your staged property stands out from the competition in the neighborhood and from the unstaged houses in your price range — and did we mention that staged properties sell faster?
In a soft market and with foreclosures on the rise, home sales are slowing all over North America, so staging your property has gone from a nice thing to do to a necessity.
About This Book
Whether you’re interested in home staging for personal or professional reasons, you can get what you need from this book. The basic truth is that staged properties sell faster than those that are unstaged. And a staged vacant house sells faster than an empty property. In a hot market, a property that has been staged sells for more money, and in a slow market, staged properties sell faster than those that aren’t. So why isn’t everyone staging their properties? We’d like to know.
We wrote this book to show you how to prepare a house for sale so it sells faster and secures more equity. We know that reading this book and doing what we suggest gets you closer to a sale, so we’ve done our professional best to share what we know about preparing a property for sale so it can be as trouble-free an experience as possible. Yes, it’s a lot of work, but it’s well worth doing.
Conventions Used in This Book
To assist your navigation of this book, we’ve established the following conventions:
We use italic for emphasis and to highlight new words or terms that we define.
We use monofont for Web addresses.
Sidebars, which are shaded boxes of text, consist of information that’s interesting but not necessarily critical to your understanding of the topic.
Foolish Assumptions
As we wrote this book, we made some assumptions about you and your needs. We assume that you might be
A homeowner getting ready to list a house with a real estate professional and wanting to know what to do to get top dollar
A real estate professional or property stager who wants to use this book to help clients ready their houses before you list or showcase them
A real estate professional who wants to know more about the ins and outs of staging to gain a marketing edge
A homeowner looking for information that will sell her already-listed house faster
Interested in finding out more about staging as a career
Rehabbing or flipping properties and interested in how staging helps properties sell faster
A builder who wants to know how best to sell a vacant new property
If any of these sound like you, you’ve come to the right book!
How This Book Is Organized
Unless you’ve been through a recent move, you may not know how the market has changed and what the home seller and real estate professional do to ready a property for sale. But you’re in luck because you have this book.
The following sections give you a rundown of where you can find what, so you can use this guide to your best advantage.
Part I: Preparing Your Property for Sale
In this part, we tell you what buyers are looking for in a new property and help you identify what you’re selling, so you can go into the selling process with your eyes wide open. We give you some of the basic principles of staging and show you how to start putting those principles into action, starting with color, light, and furniture placement.
Part II: Three Staging Steps Toward Hitting a Home Run
Property staging is not decorating! Our three-step staging process helps you look at your property through the eyes of the buyer — warts and all — and then tells you what to do to get your property sold. In this part, you find out what to expect from a staging consultation, the kinds of things you’re going to need to do to get your property in shape, and how to show off your work through photographs and to real estate agents.
Part III: Working Through Your House, Room by Room
What you do in a bedroom isn’t necessarily what you do in a dining room — staging-wise or otherwise. In this part, we give you the goods you need to get each room into showing shape by taking into account its purpose, its architectural features, and the things buyers are going to want from it. We take you through the front door and out the back with stops at every room (and closet) along the way.
Part IV: Addressing Special Staging Considerations
Sensitive issues can get between you and a sale. In this part we tell you how to deal with your mother-in-law’s teacup collection, your affinity for sports paraphernalia, or your kid’s pets. We give you the ins and outs of staging when you’re flipping or rehabbing a property.
You find in this part an introduction to the Feng Shui practices that can help direct energy (and buyers) through your house, and we wrap things up by giving you eco-friendly staging ideas.
Part V: The Part of Tens
In this part, we share ways to avoid common mistakes home sellers and real estate professionals make when it comes to staging properties. We run you through reasons to bring in a professional stager and show you our favorite staging products, tools, and ways to get your house (and yourself) ready for the sale.
Icons Used in This Book
Throughout this book, we guide you toward important points by using the following icons:
Next to this icon, you find information that you should keep in the back of your mind as you prepare your house for sale. These points are key to efficient property staging.
This icon highlights information, techniques, or products that professional stagers use to get a space ready for the sale.
Anything that saves you time, energy, or money gets special treatment with this icon.
The home selling process is stressful enough without putting yourself, your home, or your sale in danger. The information you find next to this icon can help you avoid frustration.
Where to Go from Here
Most For Dummies books are set up so that you can flip to the section of the book that meets your present needs. You can do that in this book, too. We tell you where to find the information you may need when we refer to a concept, and we define terms as they arise to enable you to feel at home no matter where you open the book.
Does your living room need special attention? Head straight for Chapter 12. Want to find out what you can expect from a consultation with a professional stager? Chapter 6 has what you need. If you’re an overachiever or want to ensure that you find out everything you need to know to get your house in tip-top shape before you put it on the market — well, then turn the page and keep on reading until you hit the index.
Part I
Preparing Your Property for Sale
In this part . . .
Putting your house on the market is kind of like dating. You don’t show up for a first date in your comfy sweats with the salsa stains down the front. You want to smell good, look good, and make a good enough first impression that you score a second date. Before the first potential buyer comes through your door, you want to get your property into first-date shape. This part of the book shows you how to take a long, hard look at your house as a product you’re selling. Consider these chapters a reality check for anyone getting ready to put a house on the market.
Chapter 1
Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me an Offer
In This Chapter
Coming to grips with selling your house
Looking at your house with fresh eyes
Harnessing the power of staging
Running down reasons to stage
Discovering staging’s three steps
Finding ways to stage with minimal stress
Moving is stressful. And we have more good news for you: Securing the highest return on the sale of your house is a lot of work — exhausting, emotional, and often back-breaking work. And even when the house is priced right and in a great location, you have competition for buyers.
You can become blind to the wear and tear and the flaws of your house that jump out to a prospective buyer. The objective eye of a professional stager can make all the difference. A local, trained stager knows what’s right for your market and can uncover areas that need attention to earn you the most equity from the sale of your house. You can emulate that process yourself by following the tips we give you throughout this book. The important thing is that you do it — getting the most money from your house depends on it.
So whether you’re a do-it-yourselfer or want to call in the pros, we set the stage for the rest of the book by acquainting you with the staging process and why staging can secure the most equity from your home. And we hope that what we share here takes some of that stress out of moving.
Turning Your Home Back into a House
Home staging (house doctoring in British English) is the process of preparing a private residence before listing it in the real estate marketplace. This process includes
Cleaning
De-cluttering
Repairing
Showcasing to show off the property’s best selling features or minimizing its least desirable features
A professional stager has been trained to look at a property and suggest improvements that will help it appeal to the highest number of buyers. A professional stager knows how to look at a property and recommend changes that lead to a sale. They know how to position furniture, artwork, and accessories to sell the room and minimize its flaws. A professional stager can recommend color schemes, suggest vendors for repairs and other projects, and for vacant properties, source rental furniture, artwork, and accessories to create a feeling in the house that buyers can see themselves moving into. For information about hiring a professional stager, see Chapter 6.
If you watch Home and Garden Television (HGTV) you’ve probably seen shows on home selling and staging properties. Property staging has been around for more than 20 years but more recently has become a serious marketing tool for selling houses. Why? Because it works! As professional stagers, we believe staging requires a trained eye, elbow grease, psychology, marketing, and a generous dose of staging training thrown in.
Staging a house means taking the time and investing the money up front to prepare your house for sale.
We outline clear steps for staging your house, but you have to do the work, and one of the toughest parts of that work is the emotional challenge of letting go — while you’re still living in the house that you’re selling. Over and over we talk to sellers who really haven’t faced the inevitable; they know one day they’ll have to pack everything and move — one day — just not now.
The memories you made in a house connect you to it, but those memories also can be roadblocks to successfully marketing your house if you wait until late in the process to uncover them. Severing any emotional ties early saves you equity later by freeing you to make the changes you need to make to sell the house (like saying goodbye to the orange shag carpet you had installed when the kids were little). When you depersonalize and pack away the memories, you make the house less “your home” and more a commodity.
The sooner you face the music, the better you’ll be able to move forward with your selling plans. Do yourself a favor: After you make the decision to sell, walk through the house and revisit your memories, room by room. As you do this, take photos so you can make an album of how things were.
Feeling better now? Great. Now start packing away those memories to make room for that perfect buyer who will pay top dollar for your house.
Seeing the Property Through the Buyer’s Eyes
Trying to see what a buyer sees in your house can be tough, but getting that glimpse is extremely important for preparing your house for sale. Remove your rose-colored glasses and take an honest-to-goodness look at your property, warts and all.
Starting at the street, take an unbiased tour of the house, noting where your eyes are drawn. What is it that you notice first? Write down all the things you see that might turn off a buyer, from outdated carpet to leaky faucets, cracked sidewalk to cracked ceiling, risqué artwork to religious symbols. Paying attention to even the smallest detail might earn you equity later.
As you tour the house, take pictures or jot down some notes of the areas that need attention. Based on what you want to invest in getting your home ready for sale, the notes and photos will help you prioritize your to-do list later on. Chapter 2 tells you more about prioritizing your repairs.
The goal of staging is to sell a house in the shortest time for the most money by attracting the highest number of potential buyers. A 2007 HomeGain.com survey of 2,000 real estate professionals nationwide found home staging can average 340% on the return of investment. Figure 1-1 shows you the results, and that expending your energy in some areas pays off more than it does in others.
Figure 1-1: Plan your projects according to what buyers want.
When prospective buyers review your property you want them to put their full attention on how the property feels and what it will be like to live there. Through our research, we know that most buyers take between three to six minutes to tour your home. Three to six minutes to decide whether this is the place they want to spend the next part of their lives. You can’t waste a moment.
Minimize and remove any and all distractions that throw off the buyer from taking a closer look at your property. What are these distractions? Usually the day-to-day items, like a collection of teapots, spoons, china, and so on. Any collection may pull the buyers eye and waste some of those precious minutes, whether it’s a fabulous art collection, designer clothes, CDs, or gothic posters in the kids’ rooms — anything that derails the focus of the buyer from your house to your belongings. As harsh and premature as this may seem, do yourself a favor and pack away those personal items. Chapter 7 tells you more about depersonalizing your house.
Buyers talk of falling in love with a house; however, it’s not the house they actually fall in love with but the concept of living in the house. The key to successfully staging your house is starting a romance with the lifestyle your house represents. You find out more about igniting the flames of house passion in Chapter 2; Chapter 8 tells you about showcasing to sell a lifestyle.
Staging your house gives you a competitive leg up when you enter the market. Professionally staged houses look better than nonstaged houses in the same price range. And when real estate professionals know your house is staged, they have confidence that the property will show well, and they therefore bring more buyers to look at it. So staging a house for sale is like being very well-prepared when you go to a job interview — you have everything working for you.
Recognizing What Staging Is and Is Not (Hint: It’s Not Decorating)
One big misconception professional stagers overcome time and time again is that staging the property means overdecorating or something akin to set design for a magazine shoot. Nope. Decorating appeals to the person living in the house; staging is removing the owner’s personal connection and targeting the buyer who will purchase your house. To help you better understand the differences, Table 1-1 compares decorating and staging.
The upcoming sections tell you more about the important differences among the professionals who work to make your house look good for very different audiences.
Running down interior designers’ responsibilities
Interior designers have four-year degrees and can manipulate the architecture of a room or structure. They know which walls are weight-bearing and which walls can be opened up without the roof caving in.
You might hire an interior designer for a project large or small. They generally do whole projects like a house remodel or new build and take care of every detail — blueprints, design, materials, fabrics, flooring, and so on. Interior designers also manage the contractors and eliminate as many headaches as possible for the homeowner to make sure the project runs smoothly and comes in on time and within budget. But every interior designer works differently, so check in with several if you’re considering a project of any size.
An interior designer can also become a member of the American Society of Interior Designers (www.asid.org) with a qualifying associate or bachelor degree, a minimum of 3,520 hours of interior design experience, and by taking a test given by the National Council for Interior Design Qualification (www.ncidq.org). If the designer is a member, you see ASID behind his name.
Defining an interior decorator’s job
Interior decorators don’t need a college degree but may have attained an associate’s degree or a certificate in decorating. These professionals may have taken an online decorating class, a course by mail, or trained at a local interior decorating school or hands-on workshop. Interior decorators can become certified by taking a certification test given by Certified Interior Decorators International (www.cidinternational.org). If they have passed the test, you see CID after their name.
Interior designers work with the structure and architecture, and interior decorators focus more on selecting interior furnishings. Their primary focus is creating an environment for the clients that suits how they live.
Decorators take a look at the room layout and then suggest furnishings and furniture placement. They also suggest accessories, art, wallpaper, paint color, light fixtures, and flooring and other hard surfaces. Decorators work with a list of preferred vendors but aren’t qualified to touch the structural integrity of the house.
Peering into the staging profession
Staging focuses on improving a property by transforming it into a welcoming, appealing, and attractive product for sale.
Staging often raises the value of a property by reducing the home’s flaws, depersonalizing, de-cluttering, cleaning, and making it look its best with furniture placement, lighting, color, and much more. For vacant homes, stagers use rental furniture to create a living space that buyers can see themselves in. Properly executed staging leads the eye to attractive features and minimizes (not hides) the property’s flaws. A professional stager is trained to help you and real estate professionals navigate this process.
Like a lot of newer industries, staging offers a wide range of training opportunities, which means that all stagers are not trained equally. A lot of folks call what they do staging but have been in the decorating field and haven’t had any formal staging training. The staging industry is changing dramatically, and the opportunities for learning have grown exponentially. Some stagers may not have kept their education current, so do check. Some stagers may learn their trade from online or telephone classes, some take a combined training course for decorating and staging, and others learn at intense 30-hour hands-on courses with rigorous testing, certification, and continuous education opportunities.
Staging to make every moment count
More people come through your house during the first five to ten days it’s on the market than at any other period. You know the power of first impressions. Why risk even one dollar of your equity by not making absolutely sure that your house is in tip-top shape and that it will survive the scrutiny of even the pickiest of potential buyers?
Timing is everything. Stage your house before you list it so that you don’t risk making a less-than-favorable first impression with a single potential buyer.
Another daunting house-selling fact is that the longer a property is on the market, the more likely it is to be marked down. At no point does the price go up when a house is sitting on the market, and the reality is that the price usually drops and drops further as time goes by.
You have to spend money to stage your house, but chances are that you’ll spend much less to stage it than you would otherwise lose in price reductions if your house isn’t at its buyer-alluring best.
Staging stats every seller should know
Still not convinced that staging your house is the way to get it sold? Don’t take our word for it, see what independent sources say:
From a survey conducted by the real estate marketing firm HomeGain, 2,000 real estate agents deduced that home staging provides a 340 percent return on investment.
In an April 2006 AOL Money and Finance poll of over 15,000 people, 87 percent said that home presentation makes the difference in most sales.
From the 2005–2006 Maritz Research Poll:
58 percent of buyers made a decision to buy after seeing ten properties. Effective staging keeps your house on the list of must-see properties.
79 percent of sellers are willing to invest up to $5,000 to get their houses ready for sale if they knew how to spend it.
We suggest the average home seller consider an investment of 1 to 3 percent of the listing price to get the house ready for sale. Working with the right staging professional maximizes your return on investment and keeps you on budget.
63 percent of buyers will pay more money for a house that is move-in ready.
86 percent of buyers surveyed said that storage is important. Effective staging maximizes space and spaciousness.
The top three interior selling features are freshly painted walls, organized storage space, and current flooring. Effective staging addresses all three.
52 percent of buyers said the kitchen had the most significant impact on their purchasing decision.
79 percent of buyers indicated that they would be willing to pay a premium for a home with an updated kitchen.
41 percent of men and 30 percent of women were more likely to place a premium on updated décor.
From a Proctor and Gamble survey
Location and size make up 78 percent of the decision to view a property. But those elements are outside the seller’s control.
Elements that create 72 percent of the first impression inside the home are within the control of the seller — everything the buyer can see, hear, touch, and smell. Well-trained staging consultants know how to show these to their best advantage.
Flying solo or calling on the pros?
Staging is a sophisticated approach to preparing your house for sale. Merely packing away extra items and cleaning your house just isn’t good enough anymore for getting the most money out of your house. And when you’re dealing with your equity, you’re talking big dollars. So why risk it? We know stories of huge equity gains. While we were writing this book late in 2007, a Certified Staging Professional told us about a house she recently staged: It went on the market for $1.2 million and in just five days sold for $345,000 over the list price!
Statistics like that are wonderful to see, but you may be thinking, “That won’t happen to me!” If you don’t stage your property you’ll never know.
As a homeowner you can save money by completing the homework part of the staging process — the packing and cleaning and minor repairs — yourself. But when it comes to the final showcase and styling part of staging the property, we recommend you leave it to the pros. An educated, well-skilled staging professional knows how to style a room to address what the buyer needs to see, how to highlight the best features of your house, and how to minimize its less desirable attributes. Stagers also know how to maximize space by using correct placement of color, lighting, and art to harmonize a living space so the buyer connects on every level and makes an offer.
The information in this book helps do-it-yourselfers and provides the know-how but not the experience that a professional stager can offer.
Why Real Estate Pros Embrace Staging (And You Should, Too)
Real estate agents the world over are having an aha moment about the staging process, scratching their heads, and wondering why this process (which they think they’ve been promoting for so long) is suddenly being sought out by their sellers and promoted on TV and in the press as much as it is. For decades, savvy agents have been helping their clients pack away some of their personal items and extra furniture and advising them to clean and dust thoroughly.
But now a more sophisticated approach to preparing the rooms is in the air. Packing away extra items and cleaning the house is no longer good enough.
Looking into staging’s benefits for sellers
The number one benefit of staging for any seller is maximizing the equity gain from the sale of the property. When a house has been fully and properly readied for sale, agents are more impressed, are able to support a higher list price, and know that the house will spend fewer days on the market. They’re also proud to show the house, making it much easier for the agent to get other agents to bring prospective buyers to see your property. Here are some of the benefits that make these points true:
Staged properties attract more potential buyers. When a house looks great and shows really well, agents can initiate aggressive marketing strategies, maximizing the number of potential buyers who look at your property. More often than not, the house sells faster and for more money than it would if it hadn’t been staged.
Sellers experience less stress after the house sells. Rather than waiting for an offer and then packing up and moving all at once, homeowners who stage their properties do a lot of their packing before the house even hits the market.
All the sorting, organizing, and purging you’ve promised yourself you do for years actually gets done. Meeting that milestone definitely qualifies as a feel-good moment and enables you to move to your new house with a clean slate.
A faster sale equals less stress. When your house sells fast, you have fewer open houses to prepare for, fewer intrusions, and a shorter amount of time you actually have to keep the house show-ready.
Finding benefits for buyers
Today’s buyer wants to close the sale on Friday, move in on Saturday, meet the neighbors on Sunday, and have the kids in school and be back at work on Monday.
Buyers realize the following benefits when they view a staged home:
They can more easily see what they’re buying rather than wading though existing family and personal belongings.
Buyers can fall in love with the house because they see that it has room for the family members and their things.
A professionally staged property shows buyers how their furniture will fit in the house to maximize the space.
Buyers have peace of mind knowing that all the repairs and updating are done.
Buyers don’t need to invest more money into a property that has been staged, because the repairs and updates have been completed.
Buyers can move in and settle back into the regular routine more easily because they don’t have to deal with the usual challenges moving requires, like painting, repairs, and updating.
Highlighting benefits for real estate professionals
Staging offers definite benefits for real estate professionals. Here are our favorites:
A seller who has invested time to ready her property for sale is also someone who is more likely to appreciate the work an agent does on her behalf.
Working with a professional stager provides an objective third-party opinion. A real estate agent is in a difficult situation; she wants your listing but also needs you to help get the house sold by bringing it up to optimum viewing condition. Telling you what needs to be done may be difficult while balancing the relationship. Professional stagers look at properties objectively and can address any questions, concerns, or objections from the agent.
Staged properties look better on the Internet and in print. Photographs for the flyers or feature pages and for the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) look much better after the staging process.
Staged properties help grow the agent’s business. Both satisfied buyers and sellers more frequently refer the agent who has staged listings. Staging tells buyers and sellers that this agent markets their listings well.
Staged properties show better. Other agents are pleased to show the listing, bringing more potential buyers for the property.
Setting the Stage: Three Steps to Sold
Staging your house is a three-step process that starts when a stager evaluates your house and ends when the house is at its “buy me” best. The following sections show you what you can expect when you work with a staging professional.
Step one: The consultation
The staging process starts with a face-to-face consultation with a staging professional. A consultation establishes a working plan, sets up deadlines and timelines, helps you settle on a budget, and determines who will complete which part of the plan. A full-service consultation is very comprehensive, covering everything the consultant really believes will make or break the sale of property — not just the things that fit into your budget.
Stagers tour your home and then produce a report with their recommendations. They later sit down with you to go over their findings and make their top recommendations. Chapter 6 gives you a full rundown of the staging consultation.
Step two: Work, work, work
This step is where the “anxious to save money” sellers maximize their savings by doing the work themselves. If you’re a do-it-yourselfer, you may actually enjoy this part of the process.
The work of staging obviously varies from house to house. It can be simple — packing up some items and rearranging furniture — to the more intense work of painting and refurbishing. With your stager, determine your window of value, time, budget, and inclination and then decide which of the recommendations fit into your budget and maximize your return on investment.
Some areas of the property and rooms in the house are more important than others. Here’s a list of important areas ranked from most to least important for getting buyers through the door:
Curb appeal (see Chapter 10)
Kitchen (see Chapter 14)
Bathrooms (see Chapter 14)
Entry (see Chapter 11)
Living room (see Chapter 12)
Dining room (see Chapter 13)
Closets (see Chapter 17)
Master bedroom (see Chapter 15)
Other bedrooms (see Chapter 15)
Office (see Chapter 16)
Garage (see Chapter 17)
Attic (see Chapter17)
Basement (see Chapter 17)
Chapter 7 tells you what you need to know about getting through step two most efficiently and effectively.
Step three: Showcasing your work
Showcasing is usually the step that most folks know as staging. Showcasing is when professional stagers create the magic that gets the buyer to stop a moment and imagine living in the space. Anyone bringing a property to market without completing this step is totally missing the boat, because it’s the part that most helps the buyer connect emotionally to your house and to make the offer you’re looking for.
Showcasing is where the skill level of the person you’re working with really shows. The styling of every room should capture the interest of the buyer. That’s why it’s important to correctly place items to engage the buyer in the life they will have when they buy your property. For example, in a kitchen you might place a bowl of popcorn or a tray with sparkling water and drinking glasses on the counter. In a bathroom you might include a basket filled with rolled up towels.
Many people who plan a move buy new items — towels and bedding in particular — and then bring those items to their new house. Use fresh, new things to help showcase your house knowing you can keep on using them after you move.
We tell you more about showcasing in Chapter 8.
Making Staging Happen with Minimal Stress
If there is anything that brings a person down, it’s being overwhelmed with the amount of work to be accomplished. Sometimes clients ask us, “Do I have to do all of these jobs that you recommend?” We then sweetly reply, “Oh no; of course not. You just need to discuss with your agent how much you want to reduce the listing price.”
When you’re in the middle of cleaning out a cupboard or taking yet another load of stuff to the Goodwill store, just think of this work as making a deposit into your new house fund, because that’s just what you’re doing. The more effort you put into getting your house ready to sell, the more equity you’re depositing into your new house.
Whether you work alone or with a professional, an organized plan of action is essential to completing everything on time before your property is photographed and listed.
Taking a room-by-room approach
Working on one room at a time breaks up the job into bite-size pieces so it’s easier to plan your work and work your plan. Any roadblock you put up for completing all the recommendations is the very roadblock that will keep you living in your current house. The room-by-room approach is the best way we’ve found to make sure you accomplish all that’s necessary to ready your house for sale.
Part III of this book runs you through the projects you may need to accomplish for each room of your house.
Reaching simple rewards
After you make the commitment to doing the work, make it worth your time and effort by giving yourself a goal. It could be as simple as packing five boxes after work or just going through a drawer in the kitchen. When the task is complete, give yourself permission to watch your favorite TV show or read a little more of that novel you’ve been working on.
Packing early and attending to the details of the move ahead of time speeds up the process, secures more equity, and makes you feel more in control and less stressed out. It also leads you to appreciate the house all over again, which gives you a really good feeling about selling its value.
Remembering that the work is worth the effort
Keeping your eye on the prize is crucial to getting the work done. When things get tough, remember why you’re moving and some of the ways your work is going to pay off:
Staging helps your house sell quickly.
Staging provides you a net equity gain that will make you happy.
Staging helps you purge all the stuff you’ve been meaning to get rid of anyway.
Staging helps you start off fresh and clean in your new house because you have gone through and eliminated stuff, drawer-by-drawer.
Staging makes the buyer happy because they get a great house at a great price and get a great value for their investment.
Treating yourself to dinner and a movie
Celebrate the staging process along the way. Set some big goals; for example, when you complete three rooms, treat yourself to a spa afternoon, dinner and a movie, a nice glass of wine — whatever will keep you on track and motivated. And don’t forget to dream about what you’ll do with the extra money you’re earning by staging your property.
Chapter 2
Discovering What Buyers Want
In This Chapter
The dating game: How buyers find house love
