In tough economic times, it's easy to jump to the conclusion that you should lower your price to attract clients and that you should be promoting how cheap your home staging services are. If you find yourself heading down that road, please stop! It's a dead end and it will put you out of business.
Here's the thing, if you promote your services as being cheap, you’ll attract penny-pinching clients who don’t value what you have to offer.
People who only care about price will argue every step of the way about any recommendation you might make that might cost extra. You’ll get the people who haven’t spent money maintaining their homes over the years and will balk at repainting over their 1965 decor. You’ll get people who say, “why should I replace that rusted out mailbox or the cracked front window, the new owners can worry about it.”
If you’ve gone into the home staging business because you’re a creative person, I can tell you that sort of client will completely stifle your creativity and suck all the joy out of giving advice and envisioning the potential of a property. You’ll also have to worry more about bounced checks and chasing your money.
Marketing is more than telling people what you charge for your services. You have to position yourself, properly explain the benefits of your services in a way that is meaningful to the potential customer, learn how to convey the right image and relate to people in a way that makes them want to work with you. You really should have a prospect sold on you long before you start talking price. They should want you bad enough that your rate is not an issue.
Of course price enters into a buying decision, but the point is you want it to be far down the list after other considerations, not your client’s number one concern.
Home stagers, do you have a good example about how marketing based on low rates can lead to nightmare clients? Please share by leaving a comment below!
Debra Gould, The Staging Diva® President, Six Elements Inc.
Home Staging Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager and she developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love. In course 2 of the Staging Diva Program, Debra teaches her students how to have an effective pricing strategy and build credibility with potential clients. There are over 4000 Staging Diva students around the world.
Who was it that said, when others are excited that's the time to sell and when everyone else is scared, that's the time to buy? Warren Buffet? It might have been said about the stock market, but it totally applies to making money in real estate in my opinion. I'm not a real estate agent, but I have bought 8 homes in both slow and hot real estate markets.
If I hadn't bought my dream home on Mother's Day two years ago, I'd be selling and trading up right now. This is a great market to buy in if you're ready to trade up to a better property or you're a first time buyer. If I was a real estate agent, I'd really be pushing this idea hard. Let's do the math:
If you currently own a $300,000 home, when the market goes up 10%, you'll be ahead $30,000.
If you currently own a $500,000 home, when the market goes up 10%, you'll be ahead $50,000.
In other words, if you're sitting in a $300,000 house right now, and you can afford the increased mortgage payments of owning a $500,000 home (which may not be hard at current historically low interest rates), when the market does rebound, you'd be ahead $20,000 if the market only goes up 10% (and it will likely go up way more than that). That $20,000 would offset the costs of moving and you would be living in a way nicer house.
This assumes you've been living within your means up until now of course. If you haven't, consider how much less power you have because of it and resolve to dig yourself out of debt. But that's a subject for a whole other post!
For first time buyers, housing prices are finally within the realm of affordable and interest rates are ridiculously low, so it's no surprise that first time buyers represent over 40% of the market right now. As a home stager, that's great news, because this is the crowd that would be most influenced by home staging.
Looking at attractively decorated and well-maintained properties is way less scary for a first time buyer.
I'm reminded of this every time I go to the gym and my trainer tells me about all the house showings he's been on. Like 90% of people, he can't see past cracked walls, ugly carpet, burned out light bulbs, overcrowded furniture and clutter. To him a house is exactly what it looks like, no imagination required. One of these days he's going to walk into a house that's staged for a young guy looking to put down some roots.
As soon as that happens, he'll stop throwing over $1000/month down the drain in rent and sign on the dotted line.
Debra Gould, The Staging Diva® President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging
A compulsive home buyer, Debra Gould took her passions for real estate and decorating and turned it into an internationally recognized home staging company featured on CNNMoney, MoneySense, HGTV, The Wall Street Journal and more. Since 2005, she's been teaching others how to become successful home stagers in the Staging Diva Training Program. There are currently over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates on 5 continents. Debra encourages anyone concerned about starting or growing a home staging business in today’s economy to download her free special report: “Ask Staging Diva: Can I grow a home staging business in a depressed economy?”
There's nothing like being interviewed by a reporter who is stuck with his own non-selling house to make for an information-filled discussion about home staging. We covered practical ideas to help home sellers and real estate agents understand what home staging is and why it's important to help sell a home quickly. Many of my home staging tips could be used by home sellers on their own.
Here's what we covered during this radio morning show:
what home staging is
why home staging works (logic versus emotion when house hunting)
why "less is more" in home staging
curb appeal - how to get it and why it’s critical when selling a home
garages
whether it is important to stage all rooms in a home
do home stagers disguise defects?
importance of color when decorating a house to sell
low cost kitchen makeover ideas
tips on what homeowners can do on their own to decorate their homes to sell
You can listen here or download this 22 minute radio interview here:
Your feedback and additional ideas are always appreciated!
Home Staging expert Debra Gould also known as The Staging Diva is president of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company that is frequently profiled in the media in both the US and Canada. Debra developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Training Program to teach others how to succeed in their home staging, real estate staging businesses. She is the author of several guides and is the founder of the Directory of Home Stagers which helps homeowners and real estate agents locate home stagers to decorate homes to sell quickly and for more money.
Since home staging is a completely unregulated field without official qualifications, it's difficult to know who to hire and whether they are "qualified." This difficulty is compounded by the fact that it is possible for home stagers to acquire a ready-made home staging portfolio to present as their own work, since some training programs offer this.
When reviewing a home staging portfolio, ask questions about the photos to satisfy yourself that these are the stager's own work.
If the stager can't tell you anything about the home or client, why they made the changes they did, or where the house was, these are warning signs that you're looking at a fake portfolio. If it turns out the photos are from the stager's own home, that is fine as long as the before and after shots demonstrate their ability to decorate a house to sell.
There should be an obvious transformation between the before and after photos in a portfolio. If all the stager has done is turn on the lights and clean off the kitchen counters, this does not communicate an ability to actually stage a home.
Conduct a telephone interview with any Home Stager before deciding to hire them.
Here are some things you should be listening for during the interview:
Do I feel comfortable speaking with this person?
Does the stager seem to understand my needs? A good stager will listen well and respond appropriately. If there are obvious difficulties in both of you understanding each other, this will only get worse once you are actually working together.
Does the Home Stager sound confident and interested in my project? If the stager is obviously insecure or sounds distracted or bored, do not expect this to improve once you are a paying client.
Does the Home Stager come well-recommended or does the staging portfolio suggest that he or she knows what to do?
Does the stager speak confidently and knowledgeably about real estate? Home staging is about decorating a house to sell on the real estate market, if they know nothing about real estate this is a problem.
Is the stager clear when explaining how he or she works and what the fees are? If the stager is unable to explain this clearly this suggest a lack of experience and confidence.
Do the fees make sense and suggest someone who is astute about money and your potential return on an investment in staging? If the rates are too cheap or worse, if they work for free, don't expect much value. Also do not be lured in by promises of a certain selling price for your home. This is not the stager's proper role.
I can't imagine spending weeks on end driving clients around to see one disappointing property after another. One peak inside and you know you probably wouldn't buy any of these houses either! Yet there you are flicking on the lights and stepping over the clutter, hoping against hope that someone will actually make a decision and you'll actually see a payday in a few months.
I can't imagine spending money on desk fees, fliers and advertising month after month, no closer to unloading those listings despite the price reductions. Knowing these are dead listings, yet having to put on a cheery and optimistic voice for your clients who keep asking why their home hasn't sold already.
I can't imagine what it's like to try and ignore the reality that there are about 1.4 million real estate agents in North America. if we assume that the top 20% are doing about 80% of the business, that's a lot of "employed" but "broke" people!
Home buyers are in control in this real estate market and they feel no urgency to buy, unless you give them a compelling product!
Agents, wouldn't you like to stop showing and listing disappointing product? Wouldn't you like to show something that people can walk into and say "wow"? Aside from being less depressing and more inspiring, can you see how showing well staged homes would also be a short cut to your pay day as an agent?
Internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould, creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, has staged millions of dollars worth of real estate, including seven of her own homes. She is president of home staging firm Six Elements Inc. and has trained over 1000 home stagers to start and grow their own businesses. Debra is the author of three home staging guides and offers a Directory of Home Stagers to help homeowners and real estate agents locate home stagers who will decorate homes to sell quickly and for top dollar.
"Home staging doesn't work," says the group of real estate agents sitting before the home stager trying to talk about her business.
It's amazing to me how many agents are still resistant to having their clients' homes decorated to sell. I challenge anyone to spend 4 minutes watching this video and then tell me that it wouldn't be easier to sell the staged property than how the home looked before. Which version of this property would you rather show on your own website when promoting your services?
Some facts to note before watching:
this Westport Connecticut house has sat on the market for 6 months with no offers
staging took place over a single day, using what the homeowner already had (plus two lamps and fresh flowers)
If you're an agent with a listing you've been carrying for months on end, isn't it time you explored another strategy besides just dropping the asking price? What is carrying this listing costing you?
I would really welcome any agents resistant to staging to post their objections to the practice here. That way we can get them out in the open and deal with them.
Internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould, creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, has staged millions of dollars worth of real estate, including seven of her own homes. She is president of home staging firm Six Elements Inc. and has trained over 1000 home stagers to start and grow their own businesses. Debra is the author of three home staging guides and offers a Directory of Home Stagers to help homeowners and real estate agents locate home stagers who will decorate homes to sell quickly and for top dollar.
I'm committed to ending this practice of free home staging because it lowers the perceived value of a stager's expertise and does a disservice to all of us.
My students don't stage homes for free "just to get their business started," they get paid for their time and expertise because they are providing a valuable service and should be compensated for it.
I know many new home stagers, afraid that they can't get their first client, will disagree with me. But hear me out for a moment:
Picture this ... there's a new restaurant...
The chef's on the sidewalk, saying "come in and have a free dinner so I can get some experience cooking for customers."
Now picture this... there's a new restaurant....
You've read an article (not an ad) about it in the newspaper announcing it's opening, you were at an event and there were some samples, you heard a bunch of different people mention this new restaurant, you've heard it's hard to get a reservation.....
So, where would you rather eat?
Stagers, I don't believe working for free belongs on your menu of services. It may get you volunteer work but it only positions you as new and inexperienced to those you are trying to impress.
The only exception being this: you need some before and after photos for your home staging portfolio so you offer to do a project for free for a friend or family member.
With a professional image, the right presentation of your services (how you explain it in writing and when you're actually speaking to someone) and great before and after photos (which can even be from your own house), you should come across as experience and knowledgeable.
In the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, I teach my students how to "burst on the scene" (like the second restaurant example described above did) so they don't have to work for free to get a real estate agent to "try them out."
Debra Gould, The Staging Diva® President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging
Home Staging expert Debra Gould also known as The Staging Diva knows how to make money as a home stager and is determined to inspire and teach others to do the same. There are over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates who have learned to use their decorating talents and run their own home staging business in the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Frequently profiled in the media in both the US and Canada, Debra is the author of of several home staging resources including a series of popular ebooks made up of a Design Guide, Color Guide and Portfolio Guide.
One trait that separates the successful from the unsuccessful is the ability to look at change with an eye to opportunity, and Americans in general are good at this.
At the end of 2008, an international survey by the Worldwide Independent Network of Market Research studied the impact of the global financial crisis on 17 different countries.
The study revealed that Americans, despite the overwhelming tide of negative indicators, are among the most positive in the world when asked about their economic prospects, ranking well above Canada even though the Canadian economy is stronger right now.
The most pessimistic nations were Britain, France and Iceland.
Analysts generally agree that this U.S. optimism and can-do attitude (which leads to a willingness to invest and spend in hard times) will help turn the U.S. economy around, which will, in turn, affect economies throughout the rest of the world.
According to CIBC World Markets economist Meny Grauman, while the U.S. economy has never been in such rough shape in modern times, there has also never been such an unprecedented response from the U.S. government to deal with the crisis.
According to the National Association of Realtors® (NAR), there were 4.9 million homes sold in the U.S. in 2008, and the projection for 2009 sees that number growing by 6.6% to 5.2 million.Considering the numbers of real estate agents are declining, that means more homes sold per agent this year!
Calvin Lindberg, president Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) says, "The increase in the Home Buyers’ Plan and the First-Time Home Buyers’ Tax Credit to cover closing costs are both important for first-time home buyers, and they are an important factor in an active housing market."
You'll find additional information to shine a light on the brighter side of what's happening in real estate and home staging today in a new free special report: "Ask Staging Diva: Can I grow a home staging business in a depressed economy?"
I spent a ton of time researching and writing this report because I'm tired of watching all the doom and gloom in the media suck the energy out of entrepreneurs.
How are you keeping your spirits up? What new things are you doing to take advantage of what's happening in real estate today?
Debra Gould, The Staging Diva® President, Six Elements Inc.
Entrepreneur and Home Staging expert Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®, knows how to make money as a home stager and has taught over 1000 others to do the same. Discover her secrets to business success in the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program.
I read a blog post today by Clint Miller called "Death of a Salesman" listing the subtle and not so subtle ways a real estate agent can kill a client relationship. Often ignored basics like: being inaccessible, being dishonest and ignoring simple manners.
It's sad these basics have to be stated, but here we are with about 1.3 million Realtors in the US and approximately 98,000 in Canada so there's bound to be a lot of riff raff.
There are thousands of reasons for a client to fire their agent, or not recommend them to others, especially in a competitive market. Which is why you need to stay sharp to survive. Here's why I got rid of my agent once:
I was moving to a new city, and an agent spent a day showing me properties. She was supposedly an expert in the neighborhood I was moving into, so I gave her a try. I should mention, I'd already sold my other home and was due to move to this new city within 90 days. I was only in town for two weeks and needed to buy on that trip.
In other words I was a HOT PROSPECT:
highly motivated to complete an offer within 10 days because I was leaving town
no issues with financing since I'd already sold my house and the deal was closing within 60 days
I was the sole person buying the house, so there would be no delay getting a spouse's approval
I needed a quick close, so any agent that found me the right property would be hitting their payday within 60 to 90 days!
I stopped working with this agent after one day of appointments because she hadn't worked out a system for where to put her purse down in her car, and despite supposedly being a real estate expert in that neighborhood, she seemed to always get lost on the one way streets to our destinations.
Before you dismiss me as an overly critical client consider the messages she was sending to me as a new client.
After each showing, we'd get back into her car and she'd put her purse between the two buckets seats. With the first stop light it would tumble onto the floor dumping all the contents. Then with each next showing, I'd have to cool my heels on the sidewalk for a few minutes while she put the contents of her purse back together so we could get on with the appointment.
One day, 6 showings and I vowed never to work with her again!
This woman supposedly made her living showing and selling homes. Yet, she didn't have enough common sense and self awareness to put her purse on the floor behind her seat? How many times had the scene I witnessed only 6 times played itself out over a year? And if she knew this small neighborhood so well, how could she possibly never remember which streets ran in which direction? Each appointment required an additional 10 minutes to find as she circled back on her route trying to figure out how to get there!
I considered how likely she was to be showing me the best properties for my needs, given how flaky she seemed. I considered how saavy she was likely to be when presenting and negotiating my offer. All these thoughts had lots of time to run through my head as I watched her waste my precious time getting lost and scooping stray keys, lipsticks, and the other deritus women carry in their purses off her car floor, and she was history.
How well did the new agent do?
I bought a house with a different agent who appeared to be more in control of herself and her surroundings, and she especially cashed in when I listed it with her again within a few months. She made about $25,000 in commissions earned from:
showing me 14 houses over two days
handling one purchase negotiation that lasted 24 hours because I insisted we go back and forth immediately to keep the pressure on the sellers
within 2 months of closing on the house, I staged it and put it back on the market with the same agent
sold with two offers within the week, with a 3 week close
Client / agent relationships are largely a matter of faith. Lose their trust and you've lost your client.
Internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould, creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, has staged millions of dollars worth of real estate, including seven of her own homes. She is president of home staging firm Six Elements Inc. and has trained over 1000 home stagers to start and grow their own businesses. Debra is the author of three home staging guides and offers a Directory of Home Stagers to help homeowners and real estate agents locate home stagers who will decorate homes to sell quickly and for top dollar.
I wrote a blog post recently called The Stench of Desperation which attracted some excellent examples from readers of desperate marketing efforts they've seen that don't really help build business and may in fact make you look so desperate people won't hire you.
For example, Diana Young wrote about an agent who advertised fortune telling and tarot card reading for agents who attended her broker's open house! Wow, and here I thought the important thing about getting brokers into a house was for them to actually look at it and perhaps recommend it to appropriate clients!
Yesterday I actually got a knock on the door from an Edwards Jones investment advisor!
Ironically, their company tag line is "making sense of investing." Any advisor who has the time to go knocking on strangers' doors in the middle of the day hoping to land a client, is certainly no one I would take financial advice from!
Didn't this tactic go out in the last century somewhere around the time of the demise of the "Fuller Brush Man" and encyclopedia salesmen? It's so Glengarry Glen Ross!
If you're a real estate agent or a home stager, I don't recommend this knocking on individual doors tactic either.
Aside from making you look desperate for business, the amount of time it takes to go door-to-door is ridiculous! The chances of you landing an actual client are about one in a thousand if you're lucky.
Instead take that time and effort and use it towards positioning yourself as an expert in your market. And, look at one-to-many marketing tactics to leverage your time.
What examples have you seen lately of ineffective sales and marketing tactics that made the individual or company just look desperate?
Debra Gould, The Staging Diva® President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging
Intrepid Entrepreneur Debra Gould is also known as The Staging Diva and is president of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company that is frequently profiled in the media in both the US and Canada. Debra Gould developed the Staging Diva Training Program to create opportunities for others to grow their own profitable home staging businesses. There are currently over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates on five continents.
Articles of interest to real estate stagers and aspiring home stagers and real estate agents to improve understanding of the business of home staging (or real estate staging, house fluffing as it's also called).
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.
In tough economic times, it's easy to jump to the conclusion that you should lower your price to attract clients and that you should be promoting how cheap your home staging services are. If you find yourself heading down that road, please stop! It's a dead end and it will put you out of business.
Who was it that said, when others are excited that's the time to sell and when everyone else is scared, that's the time to buy? Warren Buffet? It might have been said about the stock market, but it totally applies to making money in real estate in my opinion. I'm not a real estate agent, but I have bought 8 homes in both slow and hot real estate markets.
I can't imagine spending weeks on end driving clients around to see one disappointing property after another. One peak inside and you know you probably wouldn't buy any of these houses either! Yet there you are flicking on the lights and stepping over the clutter, hoping against hope that someone will actually make a decision and you'll actually see a payday in a few months.
I'm committed to ending this practice of free home staging because it lowers the perceived value of a stager's expertise and does a disservice to all of us.
One trait that separates the successful from the unsuccessful is the ability to look at change with an eye to opportunity, and Americans in general are good at this.
According to the National Association of Realtors® (NAR), there were 4.9 million homes sold in the U.S. in 2008, and the projection for 2009 sees that number growing by 6.6% to 5.2 million.Considering the numbers of real estate agents are declining, that means more homes sold per agent this year!
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