Are You on Stage?
Posted April 16th, 2008 in Real Estate, Sharing the Experience
Photo Credit: Flickr Stage Door slimmer_jimmer
Are you sure you don’t want to stage?
When selling Vancouver Real Estate, most Realtors® would say that staging is the defacto recommendation. Yet, a great number of sellers continue to resist the idea.
My Miami friend Ines Hegedus-Garcia recently wrote that “Staging is useless - why you should never stage your home before you sell.” A provocative statement or a new reality? As a Realtor® who advises clients to engage a professional stager, it is an eye-popping statement that is contrary to the marketing norm.
Ines says:it seems that the industry liked the concept of staging but not all home sellers were convinced…
Courtesy of Ines and Rick
Honed Skills
Understand, Ines’ marketing skills have been finely honed by a grindingly slow market in Miami. There are some in Canada predicting the Vancouver Real Estate market may suffer a somewhat similar fate. Regardless, her thoughts apply to all market conditions. Of her market she tells us -
the complete and total truth - in this slow market, you as a seller must go out of your way to make your house stand out from the rest.
Top Ten Recipes
As a starting point when deciding to sell your home you may follow Elizabeth Weintraub’s Top Ten recipe of things you need to do to sell your home, or MSN’s Staging Road Map.Up or down - hiring a professional stager will help to ensure you get the most money for your home.
Got a Vancouver Real Estate question? I’ll do my best to answer it. Call or send me an email. Larry
Wow Larry - I am honored to be included in your blog.
Staging is one of those things considered an “extra”, a “luxury”, something that is not really necessary - If more home sellers would see the difference in buyers’ eyes when they walk into a perfectly staged property as opposed to one that’s not - EVERYONE would stage their properties.
Studies show that staged properties not only sell quicker, but also sell for more.
Ines when people write good stuff others need to know. Thank you for the priviledge of sharing your knowledge and experience.
With respect to the difference in the buyer’s eyes - perhaps you should stage an introduction of your seller to the buyer as your assistant. Then they can see for themselves and be glad they “Staged.”
no doubt it depends on the market. I recently listed a $1 milliion condo in Coal Harbour and because it was new and vacant i strongly suggest to the seller that he should have it staged. Turns out it would cost $8,000 for the first month. He declined. It sold in 2 weeks. Probably a good idea in slow markets or for older places that need “kicking up a notch”
Maggie,
If you buy in to the claim by the staging community, and I don’t have hard proof, is that this particular seller may have short changed himself on the final price.
That’s a great idea Larry - as for the $1 million sale, you will never know if they could have gotten more if they would have staged. There are also all kinds of stagers, those that have their own furniture like Craig Schiller in Chicago (who inspired my article) and those that have to rent.
Stagers may also recommend only doing certain rooms instead of the whole property - every case is certainly different.
Ines,
The eternal question of would have I sold my home for more prevails. We’ll never know because it wasn’t tried. These are choices made that leave questions unanswered.
I like the idea of “some” but not all. I agree that many homes can be partially staged with the proviso that the overall presentation is worthy.