home staging: Common Scents - 02/24/12 05:22 AM
Home sellers can create spaces that appeal to prospective buyers by employing a little psychology and by engaging the 5 senses......You see, our brain takes all the sensory data it receives and transforms it into feelings and those feelings can be either overwhelmingly positive or overwhelmingly negative.
The clever use of design elements in a home for sale can help sellers engage the senses of their prospects and thus trigger the desired positive emotional response. Last week in, Love at First Sight, I discussed ways sellers can engage the sense of SIGHT to elicit desirable feelings in home buyers. Today I'll cover the … (62 comments)
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home staging: Love at First Sight - 02/10/12 09:29 AM
As we get ready to celebrate Valentine's Day, what better time to discuss the subject of falling in love. After all, when you're preparing your home for sale, your goal is to get buyers to fall in love with your house. Just like all other matters of the heart, the home buying process is extremely emotional. How can savvy sellers use this to their advantage? Let me count the ways...... A great place to start helping your house elicit the love response, is by using psychology to engage your buyers' 5 senses: sight, smell, hearing, touch and taste. Today we'll … (13 comments)
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home staging: Costly Mistakes Sellers Make - #3 - 09/27/11 10:48 PM
Top 10 Costly Mistakes Sellers Make and How to Avoid Them
It's not uncommon for sellers to get in the way of their own success when selling a home. Learn from the mistakes others have made and avoid these common traps…
MISTAKE #10: Waiting until after you’ve tried - and failed - to sell your house before preparing it for market
MISTAKE #9: Selling “AS IS”
MISTAKE #8: Over-Improving
MISTAKE #7: Covering up Known Defects
MISTAKE #6: Not Containing or Relocating Pets
MISTAKE #5: Selling Before You’re Emotionally Ready
MISTAKE #4: Failing to De-Clutter
MISTAKE #: De-Cluttering Too Much
Avoid the temptation to get … (16 comments)
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home staging: What to do with an Unsightly View - Dealing with the Negatives Part 1 - 07/17/11 02:46 PM
Accentuate the positives while dealing with the negatives - What to do about an unsightly view.
Stagers like me are always saying how important it is to "accentuate the positives". Of course we want to highlight a home's BEST selling features but what should we do about those not-so-positive aspects of a home? They must be dealt with - notice I did NOT say covered up!
In a series of posts this week I will be sharing ideas for dealing with your home's flaws, after all, every house has them...
Problem 1: Unsightly view from a window
While we're … (9 comments)
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home staging: Decorating Dimensions - 06/23/11 10:29 AM
Decorating Dimensions
This handy resource guide will help you remember a few home decorating MATH FACTS...
Hanging Artwork
Artwork should fill 2/3 of the horizontal space above furniture. The bottom of artwork should be hung 3”- 6” from the top of the furniture. Artwork with no furniture beneath it should be hung 55" - 60" above the floor and should fill 2/3 of the wall space. Furniture Placement
Maintain a distance of 30" - 36" for main walkways around furniture. Anything less than 30" will appear too crowded. Area rugs (generally 6' x 9' or larger) help ground seating areas, just … (21 comments)
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home staging: Buying Decisions Are Emotional - How to Use that to Your Advantage Part 1 - 05/04/11 11:14 PM
Buying decisions are emotional. When preparing your home for sale you want to tap into your buyers emotions - and it's not as hard as you might think!
You can use decorative accessories to suggest all kinds of feelings like warmth, coziness, peace, serenity, prestige, etc. Here are just a few ideas of how it can be done.
Suggest romance with candles and flowers on a night stand or jet tub. Bring to mind a feeling of coziness by strategically draping a quilt or afghan at the end of a bed or sofa. Imply a feeling of calmness and serenity … (4 comments)
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home staging: Begin With the End in Mind - 05/02/11 11:52 PM
This week's quote to ponder is...."Begin with the end in mind" by Stephen Covey, author of one of my all-time favorite books, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
"Begin with the end in mind."
These are very simple yet very powerful words - advice I always share with the sellers I work with. Before we set out to do anything, it is important to be extremely clear on exactly what it is we want for a desired outcome.
Knowing our outcomes makes it much easier to choose our actions. Can you answer the question with absolute truthfulness, … (6 comments)
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home staging: Looking for a Fresh New Approach to Preparing Your Home for Sale? - 04/13/11 10:28 PM
Looking for a Fresh New Approach to Preparing Your Home for Sale? Are you a "do-it-yourselfer" who could use some guidance getting your house ready to sell? The Ready2Sellin30Days is just what you need! You will learn everything you need to know about evaluating your house, determining what needs to be done and making those changes in the quickest, most economical way possible.
You have at your fingertips ALL the information and inspiration you need to achieve home sale success! About The Ready2Sellin30Days System:
Each day you will be given a different task to complete. You’ll know what to … (0 comments)
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home staging: So you're thinking about downsizing.... - 04/12/11 11:53 PM
So You're Thinking About Downsizing....
Are you getting tired of cutting the grass and shoveling snow? Are you uncomfortable lugging laundry baskets and groceries up and down stairs? Perhaps the thought of moving sounds good, but the thought of selling your home and and moving to a smaller space overwhelms you. If so, you're not alone!
Making the decision to move to a smaller space is extremely diffiuclt for many older adults. If you've lived in your home for several decades, then leaving it may feel like an enormous loss. If your children have moved on, it may feel like … (70 comments)
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home staging: How to Compete with Foreclosures - 04/01/11 05:09 PM
Discouraged home sellers often ask me how their home can possibly compete against low-priced foreclosed properties in their neighborhood. My answer - the same way Neiman Marcus competes with Walmart. They're really is no competition - just different products and different buyers. There are different kinds of home buyers. Sellers, you need to think about which kind you want to attract.
Home buyers and sellers alike are frequently shocked when they learn the condition of many foreclosed properties. Dilapidated foreclosures often have major issues such as water damage, mold, broken windows and missing plumbing fixtures, just to name a few. … (42 comments)
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home staging: Staging4Smooth Transitions - Solutions for Seniors Stuck in Houses They Can't Sell - 03/12/11 12:00 PM
I'm very excited to announce the launch of my new business Staging4Smooth Transitions in Southington, Connecticut where we offer solutions for seniors who feel stuck in homes they think won't sell.
Without a doubt, seniors with homes to sell have very unique needs....
Many of the seniors I've worked with over the years have lived in the same house for decades, where they've raised families and have strong emotional ties to both their homes and neighborhoods. Most realize their houses could probably use a few updates, but they really don't want to spend a lot of money, and … (14 comments)
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home staging: De-Clutter - Easy to Say, Hard to Do - The Psychology of Clutter - 03/03/11 11:12 PM
We're not going to have the room in our lives for what we DO want until we let go of the things we have in our lives that we DON'T want. I heard these simple yet life-altering words recently and felt compelled to share them because - de-cluttering is perhaps one of the hardest things for home sellers to do. I think it is because when sellers look around their homes, they don't see clutter. They see their furnishings, their belongings, their treasures. To them it's "their stuff" - how dare we call it "clutter"?
Nonetheless, "Clutter Kills Equity" is … (70 comments)
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home staging: Why Do Sellers Do This to Themselves In Such a Competitive Market?! - 02/28/11 12:08 PM
Why do sellers do this to themselves in such a competitive housing market? There is no shortage of information about how to prepare a home for sale. It's EVERYWHERE - on TV, online, in books, magazines, newspapers - advice on how to make your house look attractive to buyers is everywhere. So WHY aren't more sellers doing it? I consistently see homes that are not properly prepared for sale and every time I wonder ... WHY? I see it a lot so I wonder A LOT. Why do sellers do this to themselves in such a competitive real estate market? Maybe … (14 comments)
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home staging: The Results Are In! - 02/17/11 11:31 PM
HomeGain surveyed about 600 real estate agents from all around the country to determine the top relatively low cost, do-it-yourself home improvements for homeowners getting their house ready to sell. (low-cost is defined as under $5,000).
In my opinion, a home is properly "staged" when all of these items have been addressed, but for the purpose of this survey, it is given its own category and ranks #3. The top five home improvements that Realtors nationwide are recommending (based on those that offer the best return on investment) include: 1. Cleaning and de-cluttering 2. Lightening and brightening 3. … (71 comments)
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home staging: Do You Need a Degree in Interior Design to be a Home Stager? - 02/10/11 11:32 PM
Do you need a degree in interior design to prepare a home for sale? NO. (But a PhD in psychology might come in handy.)
Of course a knack for decorating is importatnt but there's A LOT more to preparing homes for sale than just making houses look pretty! Ideally, the person you hire to help you get your house ready to sell should know something about PEOPLE and the wide range of emotions experienced during the home sale process.
Often sellers need TIME to prepare for this huge life-altering event ahead of them. Some might have unpleasant circumstances forcing them … (18 comments)
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home staging: How to Look at Your Home Through Buyers' Eyes - 01/28/11 12:00 AM
It's quite common for home sellers to find it difficult to look at their home - REALLY look at their home - the way a buyer would. We call this looking at your home through "Buyers' Eyes" and it's an important part of preparing your house for sale. Why? Because you can't possibly address your home's flaws if you've grown so accustomed to them that you don't even see them anymore. Here's a little trick that might help... Take a few pictures of each room of your house. Be sure to take a few shots from different angles. Sometimes photographs give … (20 comments)
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home staging: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." - 01/19/11 11:47 PM
I saw this quote by Mahatma Gandhi and it really resonated with me .... "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." Kind of reminds me of my early days as a home stager. I was so sure that this was going to be a great business opportunity! First they ignore you....
I got a lot of blank stares from the majority of the people I told about my new staging business. Most had never heard of home staging. Those HGTV shows weren't popular yet. Agents were not interested. Yet I … (10 comments)
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home staging: Family Photos - What's all the Fuss About? - 01/17/11 11:59 PM
Home sellers and agents are always asking me why its so important to remove family photos. I read a great blog post on the subject of 'Staging Gone Wild' (or something along those lines). The author insisted that he never heard buyers say they didn't buy a house "because the seller had so darned many family photos all over the place" - therefore this staging advice, in his opinion, is unfounded. For those who feel this way, let's respectfully agree to disagree. If you're waiting to hear buyers utter those words, you'll be waiting a very long time.
Buyers respond … (9 comments)
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home staging: How Do You LIVE in a House That's Been STAGED? - 01/16/11 11:20 PM
How do you actually LIVE in a house that's been STAGED? Now that's a question I get a lot!
A lot of people think that a staged home needs to look like it just jumped off the pages of Better Homes and Gardens. This is a very unrealistic expectation for most people who are living in their home while it is on the market.
While tasteful decorating is important, what really matters most is that the home is clean, un-cluttered and in good repair. Staged or not, it is very stressful living in a home that is for sale … (7 comments)
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home staging: What is Staging? Does Anybody Really Know? Part 1 - 01/10/11 11:01 PM
This post was inspired by Julea Joseph's compelling post she asks, Is Home Staging now a Dirty Word? Julea seems to be worried about all the "bad staging" going on out there - and perhaps rightfully so. She tells us those without talent and professionalism are mucking up the staging world, giving the rest of us a bad name.
We're told that during the early days, staging was done only by an elite few. Apparently we're to assume that they were ALL exceptionally good at it (but I'm not buying it). Now there seems to be a home stager on … (15 comments)
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