savvy agents: THINK CRUSTY THOUGHTS... When Taking Listing Photos - 03/06/07 09:38 AM
Realtors you'll notice that while I am a home stager, a number of my blog postings have to do with taking better photos of listings. This is because I KNOW that what a home buyers SEES influences their desire to purchase... or NOT. But what a buyer SEES often starts BEFORE they drive up to your listing or walk through its front door.
With each passing day the Internet becomes more and more of a resource for buyers to PRESCREEN your listings by looking at the photos YOU have provided. So with digital photography being so easy and inexpensive... Realtors you have the responsibility to feature PERFECT images … (56 comments)
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savvy agents: REALTORS... Selling a home is as easy as riding a Tricycle - 03/04/07 03:24 PM
When a home seller puts their home up for sale, they are much like kids about to go on a tricycle ride. But for this selling ride there are 4 basic elements impacting how smoothly the ride will go: Market, Location, Condition, and Price.
The Market is the sidewalk that the seller's tricycle maneuvers on. Sometimes the market is bumpy, sometimes smooth. Regardless, what the markets surface conditions are, the seller must just roll along for there is little they can do to impact the market path.
However, to get the tricycle ready for its travels, the seller must consider the 3 wheels … (57 comments)
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savvy agents: Set Your Sites Low... to Raise Your Standards - 01/15/07 12:49 PM
The brilliance of Active Rain and Localism is that they can work together to everyone's benefit. As Active Rain provides a forum to share ideas and information amongst peers, Localism provides a place to apply this knowledge and better reach clients... immediately. Here is an example to make my point...
As a home stager I believe what a home buyer sees, regardless of where, when or how they see it, matters greatly. (I believe in the importance of this so much that I am ongoingly investing in and building an entire company devoted exclusively to improve what buyers see and visually exprience.)
So to keep … (42 comments)
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savvy agents: Home Staging = Sweat Equity ON STEROIDS! - 01/09/07 07:25 PM
Realtors, with the spring selling season just around the corner I think now is the time to FLEX YOUR MINDS to make a very GOOD point! While home staging does not raise the appraised value of a property, IT STILL CAN BE A VERY PROFITABLE VENTURE!
Here's why... As every realtor knows, a home that goes to market has a possible low/high list price point range. This low/high price is primarily based on location, condition, features, and finishes.
But you might not know is that if staging is done correctly, and at the right time, the asking price can be raised toward the high side … (33 comments)
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savvy agents: A BUBBLY WAY... to share your thanks & your message - 12/03/06 07:19 PM
I know I talk a lot about staging. But my REAL passion is advertising and marketing. I LOVE to find new ways to break through the typical "advertising noise" and connect with people. (Staging just happens to be an amazing marketing tool that does this too... that is why I am so adamant about it.)
Anyway, a few years back we decide to divert some of our advertising dollars away from print and find a ways to connect to our clients and potential clients in more creative and effectiveways. So what did we do? We throw a party!
Well, actually we always had a personal holiday party... we … (13 comments)
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savvy agents: TRIX FIX 12 PIX - 12/01/06 08:22 PM
For both the realtor and a stager... GOOD photography of the property for sale is a necessity. For the realtor, the photos you take of your listing show the product you are trying to sell. For the stager the photos of your work capture and chronicle your staging skills.
Therefore it is to BOTH the realtors and stager's advantages to take and display the ABSOLUTE BEST PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGES you can... especially NOW that more and more people use the internet as a means to determine evaluate a home or the abilities of a stager.
With that in mind... last night I went on line and looked at … (38 comments)
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savvy agents: HOLIDAY DECORATING: Should home sellers GRINch or BARE it? - 11/29/06 08:45 AM
Back in the fall I blogged on about whether or not it was wise to decorate for Halloween... and while at that time many people gave varied opinions, I stated that I thought it best not to.
SO... what about Christmas? Should a home seller decorate their house during Christmas Season? My answer is a definite and resounding... CONDITIONAL YES.
Decorating a house for sale during the Christmas Season is a little different then decorating for the Halloween Season.
While the Christmas selling market is MUCH slower, and the Holiday decorations are not as "creepy" and offensive looking... Decorations still can be distractions.
So … (20 comments)
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savvy agents: REALTORS... tune into this opportunity NOW! - 11/15/06 05:13 PM
So I've been talking to Kim Segal a researcher working for HGTV. The BIG OPPROTUNITY and news I was hinting at in my earlier blog from today is that HGTV's #1 Real Estate Show wants to feature realtors in Chicago! (Kim is also looking for realtors in Denver, Raleigh, Vancouver, and Montreal!)
"BUY ME" is HGTV's reality-based TV series that chronicles the real-life drama of selling a home. From "For Sale" to "SOLD", each episode features a new story with a different entertaining twist.
"BUY ME" will tell your story by taking their viewers behind-the-scenes to meet your sellers, buyers, contractors, stagers and home inspectors. Televised across Canada and the … (19 comments)
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savvy agents: Stagers... are we red headed step children that get no respect? - 10/30/06 05:38 AM
Lately I have been getting a lot of email from stagers that are frustrated with the response they have been getting from the real estate community. Basically they are surprised that realtors are not flocking to them with open welcoming arms and lavishing them with clients. Compared to mortgage brokers or home inspectors we are "red headed step children that get no respect".The best advice I can give you is to "persevere".Staging is new and in many parts of the country untested. So it is up to us as a united industry to get the word out about staging and the … (40 comments)
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savvy agents: Someone needs to tell the truth... PHOTOS LIE! - 10/03/06 07:29 PM
In my previous post today I showed Before & After Photos of a property that we just completed staging. What I did NOT show was how I got those After Photos to look so good.
Realtors and stagers need to understand a very important point about digital cameras... THEY DISTORT THE TRUTH.
Below is the raw Before (left) and edited After (right) photo of the Living room we just staged. PhotoShop is the tool I used to make the After look so good.
But what did I do to transform the image? Well, first I applied BASIC principles of photographic perspective.
Let's break it down … (77 comments)
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savvy agents: NO SALE! for Good Morning America - 10/02/06 05:12 PM
If you didn't catch the conclusion of GMA's "Sell Your House In a Week Challenge"... well it was NOT a happy ending. Real estate expert Barbara Corcoran gave it her all to prepare and market the NJ house and get it sold in 1 week. And while they had 80 people tour with 3 serious buyers at yesterday's open house, they just could not seal the deal.
WHAT LEASONS DID BARBARA LEARN and want to share about selling in the current market?
#1 MOST IMPORTANT THING: "STAGING is not optional it is ESSENTIAL!"
#2 Price is King
#3 There are no "Hollywood Endings" … (15 comments)
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savvy agents: 2 Sides of the Real Estate Transaction - 10/01/06 01:22 PM
It is often said that buying a home is the biggest PURCHASE one will ever make in their lives.
But there are 2 sides to every story.
Does it NOT stand to reason that putting one's home on the market would then be a person's biggest SALE in their life?
I think sometimes that is forgotten... and that is where stagers go to work.
Plain and Simple... Stager's help maxmize the BIGGEST SALE in one's life.
… (5 comments)
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savvy agents: Halloween Decorations or DISTRACTIONS? - 09/30/06 01:55 PM
Well it's that time of the year when the ghost, goblins, gouls come out of attics and basements and into homes. While for some the day is great fun... for other's Halloween carries a negative connotation.
You might want to suggest to your seller's that this year they cut back or totally avoid decorating.
As a stager I advise our clients to use VERY little or NO decorations. WHY? For the simple reason... when selling a house the HOME is to be the "star of the show" not the stuff.
PRO OR CON Halloween... NOT decorating makes sense because:
* If a buyer LIKES Halloween you don't want them looking at all … (31 comments)
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savvy agents: The "art" of the THANK YOU NOTE - 07/30/06 01:26 PM
In today's age, where it seems like it is all about hard core marketing, sometimes what is forgotten is that marketing is ultimately about building authentic relationships.
A simple thank you card can so easily begin or solidify a relationship... IF one writes and formats the note's message correctly.
Here are some simple tips that I follow...
Write from the heart... don't try to sell ANYTHING Make it personal... refer to something ONLY you and that person know and share Write something that you think will make the person smile or chuckle The card is to THANK and ONLY SINCERLY thank... it is not a camouflaged sales pitch … (14 comments)
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