Hey everybody! I just wanted to let you know that this could happen in the next couple of days! I was dilated 2cm and 75% effaced on Wednesday. Still having contractions but not strong enough to go into the New Life Center at White County Hospital yet. I'm out and about still - fixing flat tires and paying bills and buying groceries :) Pray he comes before the weekend is over with. Labor is hard work, even when the contractions aren't too bad, it starts to really make you tired - and tired of waiting:) I can't wait to post pictures of this sweet little boy that is just aching to come out and play!!!Catch ya'll later!

Don't be misled by thinking that staging is simply decorating. Your personal home may be decorated beautifully. But would you put your home on the market today as it is right now? Of course not!

Most people decorate to their taste. And while many people have great taste in decor, they can easily hide a home's best features by placing too much emphasis on their antique furniture and prized hunting displays:)

As a Realtor, you realize that home buyers should be paying attention to the home itself, rather than the home owners decor choices. How many times have you wanted to roll your eyes as a buyer exclaimed "Oh, I just LOVE this lady's antique dresser!" You would much rather hear "I love how big this room feels, even with my nice furniture in here."

Are you beginning to see the difference here?

You still may be asking yourself, "Why not just hire an interior designer?" There are several reasons. First of all, decorators are not up to date on real estate market trends. Nor are they concerned with helping your buyers see the potential of a home. And be certain of this: decorators rely on you to purchase decorative accessories and furniture rather than finding the most cost-efficient solutions using mostly what you already own.

 So the bottom line: Decorators offer a superb service when you want to decorate. Only professional stagers can offer home-selling strategies that result in more money in your pocket.

Now that's a BIG difference!

 

While this is tastefully decorated, unless you are selling a lodge, dont do this! 

  In a similar topic to my most recent post, I want to explore for you some reasoning behind accepting an opportunity to professionally stage a home.

  Let's say I get a request to professionally stage a home that has been on the market for 120 days. The asking price is on the high side of average, but still reasonable. The home owners are not in a crunch to sell, and the Realtor is fearful of losing the listing contract due to length of time on the market.

  As a professional stager, I can choose to accept the job or or not.

  One of the things that I might consider would be how it might affect my success rate. But I need to educate home owners and real estate professionals so they realize how misleading "success rates" can be.

  For instance, if a home owner has staying power, should I penalize them by refusing their business? Or perhaps a home owner is interested in enhancing their lifestyle while they put their home on the market. Should I just refer them to an interior designer? And what about boosting the market conditions? Here, in a small town, by helping home owners through professional staging services, we are able to turn listings over much more quickly (and sometimes at a higher value), thus generating improved market conditions for the whole community!

  By accepting the opportunity to professionaly stage the home, I am not only helping the homeowner to show their home with more appeal, I am also helping the Realtor to offer a valuable service that increases interest and buzz among other realtors which generates more opportunities for marketing. I am also helping the Realtor to show the home owner that they are making genuine efforts at selling the home. Finally, I am enhancing the entire housing market conditions. As someone who cares about more than just my success rate, I am privileged to help an entire community!

  I am a proud member of the Central Arkansas real estate market, and I would love to help you sell your properties!

To learn more, please visit www.ArkansasStagingPros.com

 I stumbled across a new concept in running a Professional Staging business. And apparently there are quite a few out there embracing this approach.

I have seen several professional stagers who will choose whether or not to stage a home for you based on their beliefs of how likely your home will sell. In other words, they want to keep their record of success rates high.

I suppose I am not sure how I feel about that. It seems that if you only offer professional staging services for homes that you know will sell anyways, then what value are you really offering the home owner? It sounds to me like these professional stagers are turning away the people who need their staging services the most!

ANYONE can have great success rates if they are only willing to stage a home that is already most likely to sell. If a homeowner requests my services to help them sell their home, and if they implement my professional strategies, their home will BECOME a "most likely to sell" listing.

I am successful when they (homeowners, realtors, etc.) are successful. And that is truly the whole idea behind professional staging!

 

Let Arkansas Staging Pros help you sell your home or commercial property!

Visit www.ArkansasStagingPros.com for more information...

I, for one, am tired of all the negative press the housing market is receiving. And right here, in Searcy, our market is actually improving rather than deteriorating. But our community doesn't realize it! Imagine how much more business we could drum up and how much we can influence our housing market (and Searcy's economy in general for that matter) if we came together to start spreading the enthusiasm about our city.

This is a call for real estate professionals, business owners, investors and city leaders to throw a festivity to celebrate all that Searcy has to offer. And lets get everyone in town to attend so we can get them excited about how stable our housing market is. Let's boost their morale and our sales at the same time! I will coordinate the efforts if I can just get enough leaders on board.

Maybe at the same time, we could host a city-wide open house! I'll contact Main Street Searcy and see what suggestions they may have.

Imagine a day full of sidewalk sales, open houses, people meeting their business owners and city officials, and booths with refreshments sponsored by local leaders and businesses.

From fantastic shopping, to home improvement services, charitable organizations, health care, every level of educational resources and recreational abundances. Searcy has so much to offer! Lets get more of our community members excited about where they live and watch how it blossoms into more benefits for everyone in town.

 

If you are interested in helping coordinate please email me: angela@arkansasstagingpros.com 

As a home stager, I have been speaking with realtors to find out what kind of challenges they face when listing a home to sell.

What I have learned is that most realtors already know what needs to be done for a home to be "staged" or prepared before going on the market. The problem is that they can't get the home owners to follow through with their suggestions. Many realtors are fabulous decorators and have great taste. And they are the ones who hear feedback from home buyers every day. They KNOW what buyers are looking for. They can almost guess what each buyer will say before ever entering the premises. So why don't home owners benefit from the experience and knowledge their realtors are trying to provide them?!?!

One agent suggested to me that maybe the home owners see the realtor as some one who just wants them to "over improve" so they can get a higher selling price.  Or maybe the home owners just need to be educated about the knowledge a Realtor can provide for them. They ought to see their Realtors as valuable resources for selling their home at top value, not as some one who is imposing on their finances and decor taste! It's crazy!

Another agent likes to bring me into his clients homes as a professional stager that offers expert advice with no other incentive than to help the sellers get top dollar for their home in the shortest amount of time possible. In other words, I am supporting everything their realtor had already told them. This second round of expert advice is often just the prompting a home seller needs to take action.

In the end, the realtor is more credible, the home owners feel more confident in their actions to prepare the house and the listing stands out from the unstaged competing homes. 

 

 

Give your business a boost. Call Angela Spearman to see what Staging can do to grow your business! 

 

I have to smile as I think about the experience of staging this beautiful home in Searcy, AR. 

As you can see, the home has beautiful architectural details and classy furnishings, so the staging really only consisted of working with what the home owners already had (I supplied the art) to accentuate what the home buyers will love about this property.

The comical part of the experience was the interaction with the home owners. They are wonderful people, full of spirit and energy! And like most people, they love to display family pictures. I myself have family pictures displayed in my home, but my home is not on the market.

A familiar challenge Realtors and Stagers run into is convincing home owners to take down the personal pictures. Home buyers just have a difficult time envisioning the home belonging to them when they walk through the home and are barraged with some one else's family.

 After many compliments are paid to the home owner about the beauty and love that are obvious in the photos, I gently help them understand that home buyers are going to be distracted by the pictures because they are so personal. For instance, when you walked into this home, the picture to the right is the first glimpse of the rest of the home. This is what I call the "first impression zone".  Above the mantle were numerous family photos and large Christmas-looking garlands complete with tiny white Christmas lights aglow. I remember walking away and thinking that there must be a beautiful fireplace underneath all that pretty decor.

By removing the family portraits and clearing off the mantel I was able to make the fireplace the gorgeous centerpiece that it deserves to be! The same strategy was applied to the rest of the rooms in the home, allowing the home buyers to walk away and remember all the gorgeous architectural details of the home, rather than the pretty decor and smiling faces of a strangers family members.

 

But I must share with you the toughest part of the stage. Home owners are very emotionally attached to their personal photos and unique collection of various items. There was one portrait in particular that was very difficult to ask the home owner to remove. It was the sweetest picture of them during the last months of their pregnancy. Professional and stunning as it was, it commanded too much attention in the master bedroom suite - the most intimate part of the home. I had to place myself in the home owners shoes as I urged her to remove the portrait. It was easy for me to empathize because I myself am in the final month of my first pregnancy. (See pic to the left and click on it to view the adorable website I created for our soon-to-be son!)

By sharing with her my personal experiences and building a trusting relationship with her, I was able to help her feel good about removing the things that mattered most to her in her home.

Often you will hear professionals advise you to keep a distance from those you work with. But I have found that being honest and personal with my clients opens the door to a loyal relationship that reaps benefits for all those involved! I am excited to share my stories with everyone on ActiveRain because I know we are all in the same boat. And if you don't care to know about me, you will simply read other's blogs.

Thank you for visiting my profile and thank you to everyone who finds inspiration from my blogs. Together we can learn and grow into more successful and grateful professionals that benefit from networking with other professionals here on Active Rain! 

 

Blogging can become addictive. And the technology has a bad rap as being for computer geeks and slackers. It can be hard to overcome those cultural perceptions! But thanks to Dick Betts, Barbara Duncan, and Larry DeGroat, I am pushing past these obstacles and embracing the help that blogging and other technology can offer my business. Sure, I'm afraid of saying something that may offend. Sure, I'm worried about the time it ties up, and of course I hit that same writers block as everyone else. And how in the world do I get people to read and comment on my blog?!?!?

I'm sure I'll figure it out. It's worth all the effort if it means greater success for me and the people who work in the real estate profession around me!

We all have an enormous role in the market conditions here in Searcy.

Let's talk about market conditions, trends, and the future of Searcy. What services are most helpful to Searcy's real estate professionals? How do real estate professionals impact the Central Arkansas economy? I am excited to help each other realize just how much we influence the world around us!

So for my very first blog entry, I ask: What are some of the things we can tell home buyers, investors, and business owners to help them feel more confident in Searcy's market conditions?