Home Again

A few days off is a wonderful thing! Especially for your frame of mind. I realized I was getting punchy before I left and was having a difficult time finding anything I liked about real estate! The couple of days home in Maryland were wonderful. We played golf in 100 degree temps (which wasn't so wonderful) but drank beer to cool off. I also played with my camera a lot and shot some cool

The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling!

Every time I catch a news report I get this sinking feeling in my gut. This bank has closed its doors. That mortgage company is failing. Doom and Gloom! Lions, Tigers and Bears, Oh My!Is it really that bad? I talked to my favorite loan officer today and he assured me that the only thing shaky is non-conforming loans. Bottom line is that if you have decent credit and some money to put down,

Relocating to Rochester

It's been 19 years since I relocated to Rochester, NY from Laurel, Maryland (same town as Rochester's current police chief!) To me, it was huge! I was in my early 30's and had never lived outside of the state of Maryland. I remember being here about a month and one day simply breaking down and crying. I was so tired of being lost and among unfamiliar surroundings and people. Obviously, I got over

Seeing RED... Will Capture the Buyer's Eye

Stagers know that the time spent touring a home by a buyer is relatively short. An experienced home stager relies on techniques and practices that HELP maximize what a buyer sees and experiences in a property in the relatively short time they take to tour it. The strategic use of color AND prop placement is key to getting the most out of staging.

When it comes to color, what home stagers typically talk about is what the best paint and carpet colors to use when preparing your home for its sale. Which is sound advice, but.... it really is OLD NEWS. In fact I actually wrote my post on the subject last October entitled: If Switzerland was a Color what Color it would be?

But what about accent colors? What accent colors can effectively be used to give you an advantage when it comes to staging and selling a home?

I have to admit that red is one of our favorite staging colors for props that we use here at Real Estaging. In fact, it seems as though we never have enough red props in our prop library. We have come to learn that the color red sells homes and therefore we end up placing a lot of red props in the homes that we stage.

Please understand that while red is not used (typically) as the dominant room color when selling a home; the color red, when used strategically in props and accessories, in a staged/model home as "punctuated moments" can capture and then move the buyer's eye across and around a room so that they see all that the property is and has.

The above video was created specifically to make a visually compelling marketing point. To instantly understand the power and effectiveness of the color of red for home staging, watch the very short show we call "RED" (with speakers ON). As you watch the show, featuring actual homes we have staged, notice where and how your eye moves in and around each picture. THIS is the same thing that happens when a buyer tours a staged home that is "punctuated" with red accents.

I will be curious to know if "RED" captures your attention or not.

All in all... as experienced home stagers we have learned that the color red adds just the right snap of life, energy, warmth and excitement to even the most mundane spaces and therefore is a great color to use for home selling and home staging.


Stage It forward...
Me

If you can not see the show above CLICK HERE to find a link that will allow you to share the short "RED" show.

Mortgage Crisis is Hitting Home

I had to make one of those God-awful real estate calls yesterday. I had to tell a family to stop packing because the deal on their home was unraveling. It seems that the buyer of their buyer's home no longer qualifies for a mortgage and since his contract on our house was contingent on the sale of his home, the deal is dieing. No fun!And then I got another awful calls this morning that things are

Nothing's Slick Right Now

It seems like real estate is meaner than ever these days. Buyers and sellers bickering over little stuff (like the cost of a broken window) as well as big stuff (who pays the bill for the new sewer line?). Nobody wants to agree to pre-possession or post-possession which means everyone needs to live in a moving van while all parties are at attorney offices conducting the closing procedures! (

Initially Vacant... NOW Staged & Stunning

In my last post I wrote why vacant properties in general are more difficult to sell than furnished homes.

Well here is a little more to consider and something to see...

For years Home Developers have invested in and created model homes for their buyers to EXPERIENCE as they were shopping for new homes. WHY? Well, the answer is pretty much for many of the same reason I wrote of in Part 1 of my series on why vacant homes are difficult to sell. Those reasons include:

• Model homes are spatially easy to understand
• Model homes give off a good feeling of “home”
• Model homes are well lit making them bright, warm and inviting
  

So while words are a great way to communicate a message... I think SEEING actual examples of homes that we here at Real Estaging have staged and transformed is yet another way to make my point.

The cool thing about staging is it levels the playing field and makes available to EVERY home seller the "secret" tool that for years only had been used by larger Home Developers.

Now knowing more of what staging makes available to you, I hope you enjoy the show...

Me

Part 2 of 3: Tips for Selling Vacant Homes.

I would like to thank Design Talk for first proposing that I write on this subject. Part 1, initially written for and posted on their site, really has been received well in the cyber real estate community.

Are Vacant Homes Black Holes That Suck the Life Out of their Own Sales?

Recently I was asked by Design Talk to write a column on a question they are frequenly asked. The question comes from sellers concerned abut selling their vacant houses and wondering if thier property would have a better chance of selling if it had furnishings in it.

Well I replied saying... the fact that most Realtors dread handling a listing that is vacant says a lot, for they know that an empty house is typically a harder sell to make than one that is fully furnished. But why are vacant houses more difficult to sell then furnished homes? Let’s take look at a few reasons…

First, an empty room will always feel smaller than a furnished room. When a potential buyers tour a property, they are trying to “map” their lives into the home’s space. Buyers are evaluating the house to SEE that it will work for them. To help them understand how a house will work or not, buyers will relate the size and fit of the seller’s furnishing to their own. Vacant homes make this basic part of the buying process more difficult.
Next, for many buyers a big part of knowing a house will be the “right” is the emotional connection/vibe they get from it. Houses that are vacant often give off a hollow desperate loneliness. Because it is harder to get the welcome feeling of “home” from a vacant property, the emptiness will actually make it more difficult for buyers to emotionally attach to it.

You may have noticed that Realtors, about to show a furnished home, first turn on EVERY light and lamp in it before the buyer gets there to tour it. (And when I say “every light,” I mean EVERY light.) They turn on the lights because they know that a well lit home sparkles, shines, and adds a warmth and glow that buyers find appealing. Unfortunately, a vacant house will quite often lack or have no lights at all in some rooms. This bad lighting makes it harder for the buyer to see what they are buying, and ends up making the house show as dreary, dark and dull. A big reason why vacant houses are harder to sell is that there naturally is not much to look at, so what there is to see gets scrutinized. While a buyer does want to spend their hard earned money to BUY a home, they are not too interested in spending money on making repairs and fixing the problems the seller chose to leave behind. Having nothing in a house makes it very easy for the buyer to focus their attention on even the smallest of flaws and then negatively fixate on having to spend money to make repairs. Think about it… a wood, tile and linoleum floor will show more dirt, scratches and mars; the smallest carpet stains will clearly be visible; and naked walls will noticeably reveal all the holes, nicks and scuffs that are present. Because the home is unoccupied, the exterior maintenance will often go undone. In the summer, lawns will either overgrow or burn out and weeds will take over gardens. In northern markets, walks and drives will be hidden if not shoveled after a winter snow fall. In general an unkempt exterior will kill any curb appeal and immediately start to diminish the buyer’s hopes as to what to expect on the interior.

For all these reasons, a vacant house will be more difficult to sell then a furnished home. A buyers market will only make it even more difficult for a seller to sell for there are more than enough homes to choose from. Therefore, it is easy to understand how a buyer will be attracted to a home that they spatially understand; get a good feeling of “home” from; is bright, warm and inviting; and shows no glaring signs for maintenance or repair.

Oh… and just because a home is furnished does not make it an automatically and perfectly appealing home to buy… for even a furnished home still should be light, bright, CLEAN, maintained and uncluttered.

Stage It Forward…
Me

Part 1 of 3: Tips for Selling Vacant Homes.

Click HERE for Part 2.

WOW! USA TODAY featured this post on Vacant Homes to its on-line readers!

Where Was This Guy When I Needed Him?

Have you seen these billboards around town? We Buy Ugly Houses.com! A real estate agents dream come true!Like most agents, when I first started in the business and didn't have much experience, it seemed like I could only get listings that no one else wanted. Believe me, I've sold my fair share of ugly houses. Now, people actually call me to sell their house and usually they are pretty nice.

Frequent Misconception!

A client of my recently sent an e-mail to me about a mistake I made. As he reviewed the fine print in the contract to sell his home, he saw that he would be paying the commission for the buyer of his home."I've always been under the impression that the buyer paid for the buyer's agent--hence their being representing the buyer and the buyer's interest. If I'm paying for the buyer's agent,

Something to Churp About!

It's been busy! Five sales in ten days has had me running. I was so preoccupied with my next appointment that I almost didn't see the tiny, almost-naked baby bird laying on the ground next to my back door. So I scooped him up, made him a bed out of a candy dish and started feeding him soggy dog food. With a full belly, he snuggled up and went fast asleep. And since it was August 1st, I decided

FEED ME SEYMOUR! It takes a lot for Home Stagers to grow Prop Inventories

Many home stager's have been taught ONLY to stage using what home sellers personally have in the way of furnishings and decorative accessories (props). This approach to staging is all well and good and at times the right solution, but also at other times extremely limiting to what would and could best serve the home seller. Why limiting? Well what if what the property that needs to be staged is a totally vacant property? Or what if the property, that needs to be staged, is occupied but still lacking in pizazz and is basically an empty home? What does the prop-less stager do if a house needs more "bling" to bring some life and appeal to it?
Houses that need life and be "propped up" to add to their sales appeal happen more than I thought they would. Realizing this, Real Estaging made a commitment 3 years ago to build a prop library… we quickly learned it would ultimately best serve our home selling clients regardless of what their staging needs were.

Currently we have just about 5000 items available in our "PROP LIBRARY"... which might at first seem like a lot. But what do we do if all of our props are out and placed in homes and a new staging job comes in that needs to be propped up? Well, we do what we have been doing for 3+ years… we go out and buy more! AND... the quality and appropriateness of what we buy is VERY important. We just can't buy shlocky junk and put it in a house and say it is “staged.” Bad props will distract a buyer’s attention from looking at the property. We know that if a stager wants to build a reputation for quality staging... they have to own and place in the home quality props.

And as important as it is to give a client the options to have the BEST that staging can offer, I have to admit owning a Prop Library sometimes feels like that voracious plant in the play The Little Shop of Horrors that screams "FEED ME SEYMOUR!"

July for us has been a CRAZY BUSY time here at Real Estaging (hence, I have had no time to write anything for my blog). And being so busy, fortunately (or unfortunately) we found that much of what we own in our inventory had already been "PLACED" out in client properties.... and we needed more!

So what did we do? We went shopping... and rung up a whopping $6,448.21 for new props for the month of July! (Brook supplies the rental furniture for our clients.) THAT was a lot of Ka-Ching for BLING! But, if we wanted the business, it is money we had to invest without immediate return. Placed props do NOT pay for themselves the first time they are placed... it takes a few flips!

Why do we invest in props when so many other stagers don't? We know having the resources that provide options and a variety level of services WILL help differentiate your staging business from other stagers in the market place. Being a one stop staging shop has helped build our reputation. But I gotta admit owning a Prop Library has at times turned our one stop staging shop into a Shop of Horrors.

Stage It Forward…
Me

Happy August!

Just in case you don't have air conditioning, I thought I share with you this shot of my husband from last February and a reminder to not complain about the heat because the snow will be flying soon!