2. Have brother put in writing that I am a model home interior designer and that what I did on Mom's apartment is pure model home strategy. (ugh! What do stagers know about design anyway?)
3. Call realtor to drop the price $20K.
4. Call estate sale woman to reschedule house clearance. Realtor says it will take a while to sell Mom's apartment. Guess the market really stinks up there.
Juliet Johnson has been offering home staging services in New Jersey with often quite nice results. Here's a full price offer, opening weekend - 2 weekends ago:- (June 14, 2009)
What a white sofa from Ikea can do for a home! Not that I, as a humble stager, know anything about design!
When the listing was renewed, I was called in to consult on the Home's presentation. My job was to advise on the things that were undermining the perceived "value". I went through the entire house, itemizing points per room that could be inexpensively addressed.
The homeowner didn't agree with a word I said. The only action they appear to have taken was to take out the vast tree in the foyer, and repaint the master bathroom.
I'm not the slightest bit offended that my advice wasn't taken. It's a free country, and when you are vested in your own taste, you think everyone who disagrees with you is wrong. You'll just wait for the right person to come along. Perfectly understandable. There's a cost associated with that line of thinking, though.
What is the cost of not presenting your home with the broadest appeal, styled by a professional?
In this case it took them 144 MORE days on the market, after the home had been listed for a year prior. And, it closed $175,000 lower than the list of $1,625,000. Here's the house. What would you have done differently?
______________________________________________________________________________________ Juliet Johnson Staging offers property presentation styling to appeal to the broadest range of buyers. with more than 7 years home staging nj, JJS specializes in the $1 - 3 million luxury suburban homes. Our latest stats:- 50% of homes sold or under contract in Watchung, NJ since Janaury 1, 2009 were staged by Juliet Johnson Staging.
Candidly, I have few WOW stories this Spring season. My staged homes have sold, only when beautifully presented and priced startlingly low. While the suburbs on train line into New York City saw what little activity there was first this Spring, towns and villages further out in New Jersey struggled hard to find buyers this season. So, it was great fun to discover that a rural young colonial I had consulted on had sold in 11 days!! I was busy this Spring with work and with moving. I did not follow what happened to my Owner Occupied Consults as I might have done in slower years, earlier in my career.
[Note to self: check up on folks - the news can be great fun!!]
Here's the 11 day results:
And here's a fun house for which I only have after shots. However, it, too had a speedy sale - 62 days - which in Watchung is remarkable and exciting in 2009.
Both listings were the handiwork of Chris Joo, who probably deserves a lot more credit than the humble stager!
The "ever-so-humble" Juliet Johnson can be found staging suburban New Jersey in the luxury niche of $1- 3 million homes. In the business of home staging nj for over 7 years, this British stager works hard to market a home in tune within the style of the neighborhood, the price point and the parameters of each listing realtor's specific brand.
As with all large group projects, a huge number of people are responsible to for different pieces of it. I would be remiss if I went any further without thanking our sponsors for the opportunity to present this event.
These guys went above and beyond for us. Our contact was Claire Andia, but they are all wonderful, soothing, calm, creative people who have an uncanny knack for making things work!
Pictured here are Barbara Killelea, Claire Andia and Jennifer Marra
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Also, Coldwell Banker's Warren-Watchung Office, specifically Sue Tucker --who is not only a great realtor but a fantastic cook! Sue single-handedly catered the gourmet brokers' luncheon, AND the Twilight Reception. It was all delicious, high end and totally spectacular!!!
More to come...
The June Bloom Show House is open to the public until June 21st. Please check the website for further details. It is teh collaborative result of the NJ Chapter of RESA - the Real Estate Staging Association. For more information, please contact RESA or NJ State President, Juliet Johnson.
Proceeds will benefit Watchung Schools and Habitat for Humanity.
Pictured here are, from left, NJ State RESA President, Juliet Johnson, who's clearly enjoyed rather too much of Sue Tucker's refreshments! (JulietJohnsonstaging.com); Event Coordinator, Suzy Minken, (BestinShowing.com) Blair from Habitat in Morristown and Claire Andia from AFR (rentfurniture.com)
Opening last week, the RESA-NJ June Bloom Show House - affectionately referred to around here as merely "the Mansion" - is a success! We think. How we will all judge it's success is a topic for another blog post. In the meantime, thanks to all who have asked for photos. There will be many posts to come, of course. Here's the first:-
This house is for sale, and can be viewed through Coldwell Banker's Sue Tucker. You can find her at (908)432-1388.
Here's the Show Home's Cast:-
The mansion is open to the public from 11 - 3 on Tues, Wed and Thurs, Sat and Sunday through June 21st. A donation of $5 is welcomed for Habitat for Humanity.
10 of our members took on a room, drawn by lots, and staged it - to demonstrate the room's best assets and their own unique approach.
No doubt you would all like to see photos of the house. Hopefully you'd like to hear the story. We all have tons of photos...and professional photos were take today. Stand by, it's all coming atcha! Stay tuned.
The house is open to the public starting on Friday evening, but realtors get a gourmet luncheon preview, courtesy of renowned local chef and realtor, Sue Tucker! If you're a NJ realtor, and you'd like to come, please get in touch with me and I'll zoom you the exact address.
Don't professional photos make a difference? <grin>
Thanks, all, who contributed to the previous discussion. Showings have been brisk, with lots of great feedback. Unfortunately, the home is in a cluster of lovely homes in this price point, and while it competes favorably, it's not the leader of the pack yet. We need one or two others to sell first.
Juliet Johnson Staging serves the luxury real estate market of suburban New Jersey with home staging and online web 2-0 marketing techniques, home staging
About a week ago, I gave some background on what I've been up to and asked the AR community what type of topics they'd suggest I cover. The first topic of interest was SEO, so I decided to start with a post that gave the anatomy of blogging SEO. I'll come back with some more SEO stuff in the near future (including some background on generating quality inbound links), but first I thought I would dive into the 2nd area of interest: Facebook Pages. (By the way, there was also some interest in affiliate programs so I wrote a bit more on affiliate programs for real estate on 4realz.net)
Facebook Profile vs Facebook Page
Every one of the 200 Million people who have joined Facebook has (by definition) created a Facebook Profile. Your profile creates the "hub" with which you can engage with others (friends), groups, games (applications) and/or business pages.
A Facebook Page is a bit different than a profile and reserved for businesses, brands, and other professionals.
If you plan to use Facebook to generate business, then there are a ton of reasons to market yourself through a Page instead of your standard profile. Here are just a few:
One-way Connection. People connect to your Facebook Page by becoming a "fan" of you (or your business) instead of a "friend." This is a one-way connection much closer to Twitter in that people can follow your Facebook Page and you never have to "conect" with them as a friend.
Easy Updates. You can update your Facebook Page in much the same way that you can update your Facebook Profile... This means it's trivial to share status updates, photos, videos, and links with your the people who follow you.
Top-of-mind. The ability to easily update your users allows you to stay top-of-mind with the relevant target audience. I use my page to update professionals interested in social media and online marketing. If you become a "fan" of my page (and I recommend it!), then my updates will enter your "news" feed on the homepage of your Facebook account so you can be regularly updated with useful information.
Going Viral. When one of your friends comments on one of your status updates (could be text, links, video, etc.), then you're much more likely to get seen by their "friends". And, as your content becomes more popular, you're that much more likely to be featured in the "highlights" area of Facebook's homepage. For most agents, "friends of clients" are some of the best source of business and Facebook has made it possible to relatively easy get in front of these people!
Friends vs Fans. Facebook limits you to 5,000 friends, which almost definitely sounds like a lot (who has 5000 friends???). Except for the truely gifted networkers, most agents will never reach 5,000 friends. However, for an agent in a decent sized-community, it's entirely conceibable for 5,000 people of your area to follow you (or become fans) if you consistently provided information they found valuable... especially as it's so much easier to go viral with Facebook than any other tool.
Permission Farming. Savvy businesses and brands have learned that consumers, like myself, are more than happy to become a fan if they remain relevant and interesting. Do the same for your community and I'm convinced you could quickly hit the sweet spot of the terms Jim Marks coined: Permission Farming.
Timing. It's still early... some savvy agent in your community is likely to figure out how to successfully use Facebook to reach your market over the next year or two. The sooner you get in there, the quicker you'll be able to set yourself up as the dominant real estate voice on Facebook in your community.
Convinced you should set up a Facebook Page?
It's really easy... From any existing Facebook Page (mine for example), click on the text "Create a Page" at the bottom of the left-panel to get started.
And when you're ready to get serious, become a fan of my page so you can follow my updates as I explore the many ways you can use Facebook to generate business!
As Twitter gains in popularity, so does the number of followers those of us who have been on there awhile are gaining. I have to confess that now that I have over 2,000 followers, I'm not 100% sure of each and everyone of them. I recognize the faces, but can't always place their name, their industry or their connection to me. (if there is one.)
But of course, there's a tool to help. Has anyone else tried Twittersheep.com? It gives you a tag cloud from the bios of your followers. here's mine --
This looks about right! It was such fun, and amazingly quick to do! I'm thinking there's likely more men than women, but that's Twitter at the moment - 60+% men. I could do with a few less coaches, perhaps, but I'm loving that most of the folks are real estate!
I found another cool toy this week, too -- http://www.wordle.com You enter a blog post or your profile to see if you've got the balance of keywords right and it delivers back to you a cloud where the most emphasized is larger. Cool, eh?
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If you want to learn more about all the cool stuff out there in social media, do check out weekly, free calls on Web 2.0 for Real Estate. The next class will be on either BlogTalkRadio or Profile Marketing. Still deciding.
Once a Manhattan realtor, I have bought and sold 12 homes in 19 years in 4 countries. That, and 7 years of staging homes for sale in New Jersey adds up to a lot of experience. If any of it can help another, I have served my purpose. Thank you, AR members, for your own generous sharing.
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
Pictured here are, from left, NJ State RESA President, Juliet Johnson, who's clearly enjoyed rather too much of Sue Tucker's refreshments! (JulietJohnsonstaging.com); Event Coordinator, Suzy Minken, (BestinShowing.com) Blair from Habitat in Morristown and Claire Andia from AFR (rentfurniture.com)
It's really easy... From any existing Facebook Page (
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