Rachel at Staged Makeovers... the Blog

Interactive Home Value Map - Fun!

Rachel Backus - www.stagedmakeovers.com (Staged Makeovers) — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 21:24:34 -0500

...if you are into this kinda stuff.
Zillow has an interactive Home Value Report Map that, I have to admit, surprised me quite a bit... but in a good way. You may be shocked to find out where the values have gone up and where they have drastically gone down in the United States. Check the mad map out here.
A couple of things to do there:
See how home values have changed across the U.S.
Click on cities to compare neighborhood home values.
Download detailed city reports for more information, including single family vs. condo comparisons, and a ranking of neighborhoods within an area that are most popular on Zillow.

Add this to your staging bag of tricks!

Rachel Backus - www.stagedmakeovers.com (Staged Makeovers) — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 17:18:23 -0600

WallMarker, an arrow shaped piece of chalk, makes picture hanging easier when staging a home. How? The adhesive side sticks to the back of the frame. You then press the picture against the wall where it will be hung, and wall-ah! You have a chalk mark pointing to where you will hammer in the nail or hook.

WallMarkers are reusable and come in a pack of two, a blue for light walls and a yellow for darker walls. The price is right at just $2.99 plus a small amount of shipping and handling. Order them here, I did!

Are you underestimating the elderly?

Rachel Backus - www.stagedmakeovers.com (Staged Makeovers) — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:08:51 -0600

We have noticed quite a bit of publicity for the senior moving companies lately. A feature in the newspaper drew our attention, followed by the need of these services by a widowed down-sizer who was moving out of the country, and finally a phone call from our local yellowpages rep. The rep gave us a connection to a downsizing company in Northeast Ohio who may be able to refer us to clients for our interior redesign and staging services. So we did some research on this up and coming industry.

Here's a quiz for you. We certainly would have underestimated our own answers. Let these stats stick to your brain and find out if wisdom truly comes with age...

How many baby boomers are there in America?
What year will they first begin to reach retirement age?
Senior moving services is currently a $________________ dollar industry and is increasingly in ________________.
What services can stagers offer to downsizers and elderly?
What can be done to make the transistion easier for elderly downsizers?

Find the answers here.

Killing your clients? Or do they breathe easy?

Rachel Backus - www.stagedmakeovers.com (Staged Makeovers) — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 11:04:57 -0600

We're all aware of the need to lessen our environmental impact. But do we practice what we preach? Do we help our clients make the right choice too? We specify so much paint, generally 75% or more of our clients need to repaint. So why not specify products that don't damage the earth or make homeowners sick?

Paint companies like Sherwin Williams and Mythic have great products that won't kill a sale or your client. Mythic paint introduced a revolutionary new non-toxic paint line that protects the environment and your health. "Traditional household paints contain cancer-causing toxins that can still be released into the air years after drying." The paint contains zero VOC's, no harmful toxins, and no unpleasant odors. The paint is also washable and offers the same quality performance and durability. Plus we love the retro graphics.

Of course I don't even have a mythic color deck (yet), but I don't leave home without my Sherwin Williams samples. Their eco-friendly and people friendly lines feature the "Green Sure" symbol. Duration Home is my personal favorite because it is green, low VOC, contains mildewcide, and provides a rich coat of durable and washable paint.

I have also added a link to Mythic paint's website on my blog since it seems to be a tricky product to find online through searches.

NAEBA's Slimy Survey and Wretched Report - "You can't handle the truth!"

Rachel Backus - www.stagedmakeovers.com (Staged Makeovers) — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 10:40:00 -0500

Think back to your college statistics class or high school math. What makes a good survey? When is a survey biased? Not all surveys are done correctly and fairly to produce accurate, truthful results. There's one in particular that really upsets me... NAEBA's anti-staging report. There are more members in my city's area Board of REALTORS than there is in the NATIONAL Association of Exclusive Buyer Agents. That said, how do the results of their survey compare to a survey with a more diversified group of participants? There are no concrete statistics proving that staging did not work consistently for any of those who participated in the survey.

A good stager is not out for the money, but is looking to help get the home sold as quickly as possibly and for the highest selling price, thus maintaining a positive reputation for themselves, their businesses, and the staging industry. According to the 2003 HomeGain Survey of 2,000 real estate agents nationwide, home staging produced an average return of 169% of the initial investment, with 76% of Realtors recommending home staging services. http://www.homegain.com/news/ibd080400?mi=ae&ht=hp_rn_ibd

Good staging advice does, in fact, add equity to the home. If the roof needs replacing, we tell the homeowner to do so. We tell them to replace anything that is in bad condition and would deter a sale because a buyer would have to replace it, such as leaks, flooring, or light fixtures. Often we suggest kitchen updates. A kitchen is the number one selling feature of a home and has the highest return on investment of any interior home improvement. Another way staging can add equity is through the homes selling price. Appraisals are based on recent home sale prices in the area. If the homes in the area are selling for the highest prices then the value of the area homes are also going to go up.

It is up to the real estate agents to fully disclose a home's flaws and issues. It is up to a homeowner to ask the questions and really analyze the home before they buy it and get a home inspection. A good stager, who is truly a professional, does not cover up serious issues; instead they insist that the homeowner make all repairs before even considering showing the home.

What do you think about this bogus report? Has staging helped you?

A New Approach to the Newsletter - Please HELP

Rachel Backus - www.stagedmakeovers.com (Staged Makeovers) — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 14:07:19 -0500

I recently posted a request for advice on the content of my newsletter. The active rain community was there to help. Now I have another question...

Does anyone use AWEBER as their newsletter host?

We want our newsletter to be as graphically stunning as our website. Does aweber allow this? Is it simple to use? Please help! I'm looking for a few more good references (from you, activerainers) before I proceed with the switch. Any advice or experience you would like to share would be very appreciated!

WOOD you tell a homeowner to paint the cabinets?

Rachel Backus - www.stagedmakeovers.com (Staged Makeovers) — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 23:14:55 -0500

Staged Makeovers: "We recommend that you paint your kitchen cabinets white to brighten them up and make them look new."

Homeowner: "Why would anyone want to paint that beautiful wood?"

Staged Makeovers: "Golden oak is outdated."

Homeowner: "But it is wood!"

Staged Makeovers: "When was this house built? Let me guess... 1989?"

Homeowner:"Ummmm....1988."

Staged Makeovers: "Your home is competing with brand new homes. As a buyer, which would you choose? 80's outdated or bright and new?"

This is a typical conversation with a homeowner on the topic of painting outdated cabinets. It's not easy to talk them into what is best for their home to sell, especially in a market with a surplus of new builds. They bought the house when the style was in and are used to it. What they don't realize is that the home is no longer their own. It is now a product for sale and the product must compete with all the new products with their bright white kitchens.

While reading about low-cost cabinet updates, I found a very credible source that you can use to convince your clients. Even if your homeowners don't listen to you, they'll trust the quote from this source. Read the quote and find out who it is.

Easier than potty training? Bathroom Makeovers that Sell.

Rachel Backus - www.stagedmakeovers.com (Staged Makeovers) — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:17:06 -0500

Bathrooms are easily one of the hardest things to sell when they are not what the buyer has in mind. Everyone wants a fresh, clean bathroom with gleaming white fixtures. But what if you seller has an outdated bathroom and a tiny budget? What if your eldery downsizer found the perfect home but requires an easily accessible shower, and that perfect home only has a bathtub?

Inexpensive answers can be found here. Trendy white hot tile and tub transformations await.

Time Flys on AR - Or is it just because it is summer?

Rachel Backus - www.stagedmakeovers.com (Staged Makeovers) — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 14:09:49 -0500

Yay! I am no longer a newbie. I just passed my two month mark on activerain and have gotten things down (well...I'm still drowning in information). Thanks to everyone who has helped me in my learning experience. I'm not done yet! I look forward to getting even more advice from the ar community.

Next step is the reformatted e-newsletter that I have been intimidated by. If you have any tips or advice, please add a comment or link to one of your articles. It'll be a great help. Thanks activerainers!

What tastes good to you? (Spam newsletters are so yucky)

Rachel Backus - www.stagedmakeovers.com (Staged Makeovers) — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 09:44:27 -0500

Staged Makeovers is currently in the process of revamping its old fashioned and neglected newsletter to make it oh-so-delicious! What we want to know is what kind of info REALTORS/agents crave. We've added a newlsetter sign-up form and hope to launch the new and improved newsletter soon. Spam is just yucky and we wouldn't want to send anyone junk that they will just skip over and delete. We need your feedback!!!

Here's the problem... I need your help. Add a comment letting us know:

What tastes good to you?
What kind of content do real estate professionals drool over?
What leaves a bad taste in your mouth?
Give us a sampling of your favorite real estate newsletter ingredients and a link to your newsletter.

How is Your Competition?

Rachel Backus - www.stagedmakeovers.com (Staged Makeovers) — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 17:23:58 -0500

Staged Makeovers continuously keeps an eye on the competition. In Ohio, staging has not yet become a huge industry and many still have not heard of it. The bad thing is that we still have to educate many of our clients, but the good thing is the competition isn't strong. Some of our tactics for checking out the competition include:

Reading newspapers and cutting out others ads
Visiting local competitors websites
Surveying competitors pricing locally and throughout the country
Forming alliances with competitors

What we have learned is that at least half of our local competitors have gone out of business in the past year. Many lack websites. Pricing in our area is comparatively low, especially when compared to other states and metropolitan areas. And more and more realtors are also attempting double duty as stagers.

How is your competition doing? How do you keep up or go beyond the competition when they are dropping out? What makes your company stand out?

Arhaus Clearance Sale

Rachel Backus - www.stagedmakeovers.com (Staged Makeovers) — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 22:29:51 -0500

Another Arhaus warehouse is going to be shutting it's doors for good. Sadly, this isn't the first one of the Cleveland-based, family-owned company's warehouses to close down. The good thing is everything will be marked down 50%-70% which makes it a stager's dream! This is going to be some great shopping and my inventory will be stocked up with some fabulous high-end items that normally are too pricey for the budget. FYI If you are in the Cleveland area - it is the Brookpark Clearance Center and the final day is July 31st.

Realtor Relief - Internet helps clients when buying a home

Rachel Backus - www.stagedmakeovers.com (Staged Makeovers) — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 11:24:14 -0500

These are some really great websites that you can pass along to your clients who are buying a home. The internet can be a fantastic (and free) way to get the info they need (plus it might alieviate some of the phone calls with customer questions). The Akron Beacon Journal recently had a piece suggesting a few of these great websites. We loved them too!

AllAroundYourHome - http://www.allaroundyourhouse.org/ (look under "Home Sales"
Home Buyer's Information Center - http://www.ourfamilyplace.com/
Real Estate ABC.com - http://www.realestateabc.com/
Realtor.com - http://www.realtor.com/
Staged Makeovers - http://www.stagedmakeovers.com/ (this one wasn't in the news article but it is definitely our favorite!)

IKEA - Don't let this happen to you!

Rachel Backus - www.stagedmakeovers.com (Staged Makeovers) — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 21:21:10 -0500

Once upon a time, I was an IKEA fan. I shopped there, I referred many people. I was in love. Not anymore. My last experience was so dissatisfying that I may never shop there again, and I certainly won't be referring as many people to the store!

I drove down one week in my little coupe just to prove to a recent home buyer that IKEA had everything a household could need, it was great quality, and the prices were amazing. Our customer service was fine. No real problems, and the homeowner found the items he was looking for. We picked up a few items which suprisingly fit in my car. I proved my point enough to call for a second trip. Keep in mind the drive is 2 1/2 hours each way from where we are. So it had to be worthy.

The second trip was the bad one. The indecisive homeowner was already stressed from all the decisions of furnishing a house. But I had made a thorough list of all the items that we planned on picking up (of course they weren't available online, strike one). He had brought a friend to help with all the lifting and of course I had talked about how amazing IKEA is the whole way there. Finally we arrived ($12 in tolls and $50 in gas later). List in hand, we went straight to the beds. No customer service person was there to help (strike two). We stood around for 10 minutes or so before the guy finally showed up. Buying an IKEA bed is a process. We needed help deciding which components to choose. His answers were so obviously wrong (I had to let him know that you can't use an adjustable base with a spring mattress because it doesn't bend- moron). After about half an hour of discussing which size bed to get, which slatted bed base to get, and which mattress to use, we had finally decided. Turns out the bed base was not in stock. The homeowner was told by the associate that it was available online. So the homeowner went home without bed base. The first thing he did when he got home was jump online. But to our suprise, it was NOT available online (strike three). I called customer service. It would not be available for months! The only choice was to order another base. It was not the one he wanted and that type of base could have been purchased at the store that we were just at! He was furious! He had to pay $100 for shipping for an item that he wasn't satisfied with and he still had to wait over a month. I attempted a couple of calls to customer service. Then settled on an e-mail, hoping for some cooperation and a resolution. The only thing that came of it was my own dissatisfaction with their customer service as well as many lost potential clients for IKEA.

CAN you believe it? 70,000 empty beer cans

Rachel Backus - www.stagedmakeovers.com (Staged Makeovers) — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 22:18:58 -0500

CAN you believe it? 70,000 empty beer cans

I just posted a story on my other blog about a condo that had by far the worst collection I have ever seen in it. The story is an internet legend and happened just two years ago. I couldn't even begin to imagine the realtor's reaction when he or she pushed his or her way into this mess. Take a look at the pictures and read the article...shocking. http://www.mystagedlife.com/

Stagers are great at being the bad guy and telling the homeowner in the most polite way possible to "pack up your collection so that the buyers can look past it." In this case (no pun intended) there was no need to rely on the stager.

CAN you believe it? 70,000 empty beer cans

Rachel Backus - www.stagedmakeovers.com (Staged Makeovers) — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 22:17:55 -0500

CAN you believe it? 70,000 empty beer cans

CAN you believe it? 70,000 empty beer cans

Rachel Backus - www.stagedmakeovers.com (Staged Makeovers) — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 22:17:28 -0500

CAN you believe it? 70,000 empty beer cans

CAN you believe it? 70,000 empty beer cans

Rachel Backus - www.stagedmakeovers.com (Staged Makeovers) — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 19:40:29 -0500

Dated Disaster - what to do?

Rachel Backus - www.stagedmakeovers.com (Staged Makeovers) — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 12:21:56 -0500

I was brought into this disaster to give redesign/staging advice to a Realtor. As soon as I walked through the door, my jaw dropped. This house was a nightmare the whole way through. All I could say was "wow" over and over again. No one was living in it, so it was completely empty. It was a 70's disaster: slate walls, copper mirrored walls, blue and pink carpet, drop ceilings, random built in cabinets, walls that stopped before they reached the ceiling, gothic arched doorways and windows between rooms, panelling, bad lighting, dangerous stairs that couldn't meet code, I could go on and on.

The good thing about this property was the number of acres, enough to split the property into 2 lots. The yard was great.

The whole package was at a high asking price (for a home that needed completely redone inside) because of the land. So what was the realtor to do? Should she sell the whole package? Should she sell the lots seperately - one with the home and the other to build on? Should she convice the owner to invest the minimum $20,000 needed to fix up the home to make it at least presentable? Or should she leave it like it is for an investor to rehab, high price and all?

HELP!

Inventory Reduction Sale aka Yard Sale

Rachel Backus - www.stagedmakeovers.com (Staged Makeovers) — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 12:32:54 -0500

Let's face it, inventory gets outdated or worn out over time. Why not make some money and get rid of the old stuff at the same time. To reduce our inventory, we participate in the neighborhood yard sale. It doesn't bring in tons of cash but it does force us to do our Spring cleaning and gives us an excuse to sit out in the sun!

www.mystagedlife.com

www.stagedmakeovers.com

My other blog is, as we interior designers say, FABULOUS!

Rachel Backus - www.stagedmakeovers.com (Staged Makeovers) — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 16:47:23 -0500

Are you amused by INTERIOR DESIGN? Do you love watching tv shows on staging? Ever wonder what a day in the life of a stager is really like? Check out my other blog which can be found at www.mystagedlife.com for great tips, amusing stories, home sale advice, and everything that we think is fabulous!

My Staged Life

Rachel Backus - www.stagedmakeovers.com (Staged Makeovers) — Thu, 31 May 2007 14:19:50 -0500

Visit my favorite blog (the one I most frequently update) at www.mystagedlife.com for great staging advice, home improvement tips, current events, funny true life anecdotes, and lots of quirky little blurbs that you would never expect to find in the life of an interior designer/stager in a real estate world!