December is one of the slowest months in home sales, but if you ask Michael Callahan, franchise owner of Showhomes Home Staging in the Fox Valley suburb of Chicago you may get a different answer. Why? Showhomes had four homes sell this month.
What made the difference? Home staging. The four homes that sold were all very different, ranging in style, size, location and price. All had been tough to sell and all four had been sitting on the market for lengthy amounts of time. One of the properties, a townhouse, was a small and featured small rooms. The challenge was highlight that the two-bedroom home had good, usable space. Callahan’s team staged the house to accommodate enough furniture without the townhouse feeling cramped or crowded. The staging was so successful the buyers, who had complained that other homes in the complex were too small, fell in love with this one and placed an offer, even though it was smaller than the others.
The next home was a unique, historic property that had been on the market for several years. Even staged, the house stayed on the market for about a year with a live-in Home Manager. The house had small rooms and an awkward layout. Michael and the Home Manager focused on creating functional rooms that could accommodate furnishings and a comfortable lifestyle. With careful staging, the living room, dining room and kitchen eating area made sense to prospective buyers. Without it, visualizing the spaces working was much more difficult.
A 10-year-old, three-bedroom house in Fox Valley was the next one to sell. The neighborhood featured mostly houses with four or five bedrooms, and though Showhomes does not typically stage basements, in this case, the team created a fourth bedroom from the basement. This detail showed that the home could accommodate a larger family and put the property in a more competitive position in that neighborhood. The fourth home was the most expensive, though it had one of the lower values in a high-end neighborhood. Again, in this house, the basement was staged with all the furniture facing the window because it looked out over a beautiful wooded area. In the end, this house, valued at just $1 million, was competing with houses in the $2 million range. “All three Chicagoland area Showhomes franchises are standing out in the industry because we are producing such good sales results,” says Michael. “Homes that have been really difficult to sell are moving when staged.”
Home staging with live in Home Managers works at all price points. The four houses ranged from $200,000 to $1 million. “But it doesn’t have to be a million-dollar home to receive the value of good quality staging,” says Michael. For more information on Showhomes, visit www.showhomes.com and for franchise information, visit www.showhomesfranchise.com.
Jennifer Ding and Michelle Sifford collected this home owner testimonial from a happy home owner:
"Showhomes Richmond did an outstanding job placing a home manager with beautiful furniture and decorations in my vacant listing. After being vacant and on the market for 15 months, my client agreed to have a Showhomes manager live in their house. The first couple to see the home after it was staged bought it! I will definitely recommend Showhomes Richmond to future clients."
Dara Nicely, home owner, VA
This home, which had been on the market for a LONG time, sold in four days once staged with a live-in Home Manager and sold for $195k - just $3k under the list price, or 98% of list. WOW - that's impressive and way to go Showhomes Richmond!
Here's some before and afters of their work:
This was a smallish townhouse that originally had furniture too large for the space, making the rooms feel smaller. At one point, the home became vacant, making a sale even tougher. The home owner and Realtor hired Showhomes Richmond to recruit and place a live-in Home Manager in the home and it made all the difference.
We're recruiting franchise owners - if there is not a franchise in your city, consider opening one: www.showhomesfranchise.com.
Carol Ackerman, who owns the Showhomes Home staging franchise for Pasco and North Pinnelas County in FL emailed me this comment from a home buyer who purchased a home she had staged. Here's his note:
“Our realtor had to remind us that we had previously seen this home, and yet to date we cannot remember being there. When we went in the second time (still can’t remember the first time), we were able to visualize our furnishings and fell in love with the home. Not only was the placement of furniture something that we could copy, but we liked the color schemes and got some new ideas for when we move in. Staging the home certainly did change our minds and helped us in making our decision.”
Barb & Jim, Home buyers, Pinellas Park
This is an older and smaller home with lower ceilings and smaller rooms typical of its age. It's always a challenge to stage a home like this and the results always blow people away. Staging really sold this home - take a look for yourself:
Congrats to the Carol on a great job selling yet another home in the Pasco County and North Pinnellas area of Tampa!
Denise Gartner, who owns the Showhomes Home Staging franchise in St Paul, MN sent me these photos and a testimonial from a very happy homeowner today:
Over the past week, I've had to spend some time at the house and have been able to take a better measure of how you and Denise laid things out - it looked very good back in July but this time around I was able to notice how well everything blended in with the features of the house - particularly on the first floor.
I do think that the staging is a big part of why there's a sold sign in the front yard but not on most of the other houses in the neighborhood which have been on the market as long or longer than mine.
Will Weisert, Homeowner, St Paul, MN
Take a look at her work - historic homes are tough to sell in a down market and even tougher to sell vacant. Denise did an amazing job softening the edges and creating a showing environment that made this $695k home a joy to show and easy to sell:
Showhomes’ Extreme Home Staging Spotlights Human Props
Carla Cheifetz, Showhomes Home Staging
National Public Radio featured Showhomes Home Staging on its Morning Edition radio show, August 18th, 2010.
NPR reporter Carolyn Beeler interviewed Jonathan and Carla Chiefetz, franchise owners of Showhomes Home Staging in Princeton, NJ, and interview Showhomes Home Manager Bill Worthington.
Here’s a link to the full NPR story which talks about new forms of Home Staging including Showhomes’ highly successful use of ‘human props’ to occupy and help sell vacant homes:
As a side note, there ARE statistics about how much more effective occupied staged homes are than vacant homes! Our staged homes are often selling in less than half the typical time on market and often for a full 15% higher sales price than comparable vacant homes.
Here’s some photos of Carla’s work:
Staging by Showhomes Home Staging
Staging by Showhomes Home Staging
Here’s a transcript of the story:
Extreme Home Staging Spotlights Human Props
Bill Worthington calls himself a human prop. He seems more like an enthusiastic tour guide. Worthington is walking around his $1.5 million Princeton, N.J., home, like a proud owner.
“Look around the kitchen here,” Worthington says. “It’s essentially a brand-new kitchen, with high-end appliances, brand-new cabinetry…”
But he doesn’t own the place, or even know the owner. He was hired as a “house manager” to live in the property. He moved in with his own furniture, and bought some new items to fill out the expansive white brick colonial. He pays a monthly fee of $1,500 to live in the house, a fraction of what the mortgage or rent on the property would be.
“I’m living high on the hog for not a lot of money,” he says.
The catch: He has to keep it immaculate. The house must be ready to show prospective buyers at a moment’s notice. He can’t leave any toothbrushes out in the bathroom, shoes in the entryway, or dishes waiting to be washed in the sink.
Worthington was hired by the Princeton, N.J., branch of Showhomes, a national home staging company. “Home staging” — or furnishing and decorating a home to help sell it — has been around for decades. But with home sellers facing a dismal housing market, they’re going the extra mile to make their homes stand out in the crowd. That includes hiring house managers like Worthington to give homes a lived-in feel.
A New Routine
Every morning as soon as Worthington wakes up, he makes his bed so it looks like it belongs in a hotel. He tucks the sheets in nice and tight, straightens the off-white comforter, and replaces the decorative throw pillows he tossed on a chair the night before.
“I’m not a real good Suzy Homekeeper,” Worthington says, “so it takes me maybe 10 minutes of staggering around here half awake.”
In addition to keeping the place clean, Worthington must decorate the house to help other people visualize how they could live there. That means he can’t hang any political or religious artwork, and can’t have many personal photos. And if a buyer wants the house, Worthington has to pack up his things and move out.
The owner of the house approached Carla and Jon Cheifetz, the husband and wife duo who run the Princeton franchise of Showhomes, after the home had been sitting on the market for three years. The company operates under the assumption that lived-in houses sell for more than empty ones. Even if a house is nicely staged, Carla Cheifetz says, buyers can tell no one lives there, and that hurts the sellers.
“The prospective buyer will know that the house is vacant, because there is no food in the refrigerator,” Cheifetz says. “There’s no clothes in the closet, so therefore what happens is they will lowball offers because they feel that the owner might be struggling because they may have two mortgages.”
Staging On The Rise
Nationally, Showhomes says it has about a third more homes in the system than this time last year. It is generally accepted by real estate agents that traditionally staging a house — adding furniture and decorations — does help move a property faster.
Koki Adasi-Efuya, a Realtor in Washington, D.C., says he saw home staging increase among his clients when the housing market hit the skids.
“I saw the big jump probably around 2007, 2008,” Adasi-Efuya says. “Inventory, you know, kept increasing and people saw that it was getting harder to sell the house, so they started to think of other creative ways to make the property sell.”
Interested in opening a Showhomes Home Staging Franchise? We’re recruiting!
Fill out a request form to join a weekly webinar and learn more.
Home Sales results increase need for home staging service
Springfield, MO – Vacant homes are always difficult to sell and in today’s tough real estate market, they are harder than ever.
Showhomes Home Staging has garnered national media attention for its unique staging model: the national franchise recruits and trains live-in home stagers to help stage and maintain the home while it is on the market and for sale. The service is popular with homeowners because it is less expensive, lowers insurance costs, creates a model-home atmosphere and makes the home far easier to sell.
Showhomes Home Staging franchise owner Chris Menefee opened for business in Springfield on July 1, 2009, and quickly added a Branson office staffed by sales rep Karis Davis. In early June, the local franchise brought on sales rep Jon Ziarkowski to work in the main Springfield location.The unique home staging service has taken off in the SW Missouri area, an area not fully served by home staging companies prior to Showhomes' opening.
“We have a service that is a huge benefit for everybody involved,” Menefee said. “It is a win, win, win. The Home owner wins because they have someone taking care of their property, and the Realtor wins because they don’t have to worry about what they are going to find and know they’ll have good showings.”
One local property that had been on the market for at least a year had a contract 28 days after Menefee’s design team staged the home.
"We are truly excited about our Springfield franchise," said Bert Lyles, Showhomes CEO. "Southwest Missouri is like much of the rest of the country; higher end vacant homes are hard to sell and are vulnerable to low-ball offers which really hurt property values. Chris is really making an impact on the local real estate market helping Realtors sell homes that would otherwise sit.”
About Showhomes
Showhomes is a home staging business with a twist: the company uses live-in home stagers to manage vacant houses while they are on the market for sale and offset a home owner's expense to stage a home. The innovative marketing strategy has been producing results since 1986 and the company has helped over 25,000 home owners sell vacant houses valued at over $8 billion. For franchise opportunities and more information, please visit www.showhomes.com.
Former Lake Forest Realtor uses staging to drive home sales
Nashville - Showhomes, a national home staging franchise, awarded its Chicago North Shore - Barrington location its coveted Franchise of the Year Award for 2010.
Showhomes recognized the North Shore - Barrington location because “it excels in home staging, maintains the highest standard of quality, has shown steady growth several years in a row, and has produced outstanding home sales results for its customers,” said Bert Lyles, Showhomes CEO.
The home staging franchise has a twist that is producing results in today’s real estate market: it uses live-in home stagers to help sell vacant houses. The company helps home owners and their Realtors in the Chicago market sell homes substantially faster than comparable vacant homes and often for a much higher price.
The Chicago North Shore - Barrington franchise is owned by Barbara Bliss, a former Lake Forest Realtor. "It's thrilling to be a part of so many success stories," said Bliss. "My franchise has flourished during the boom and the bust. We have roared through the recession; we've seen double digit growth every year since 2005."
"I have a passion to help Realtors, home owners and buyers visualize the very best possibilities for presenting a house," Bliss said. "A beautifully staged home with a live-in home stager makes all the difference in a market that's overflowing with inventory.”
It is also the most economical way for a home owner to stage a large home: the live-in home stager pays the monthly staging fee so the home owner doesn’t have to, saving thousands.
Houses staged by Showhomes are often the first to sell in the northern suburbs of Chicago, where Bliss' franchise has its blueprint. Case in point: recently, she staged a $3 million home that had been on the market for 806 days before staging and it sold in 78 days once the live-in stager moved in. In addition to selling faster, the home sold for very near the asking price.
Bliss' current listings top $40 million. She has six employees and a bustling storefront in downtown Lake Forest. She credits much of her success to a boundless passion for home staging and her willingness to educate Realtors about the benefits of Showhomes.
"This is tough market for home owners," Bliss said. "I’m happy that our hard work makes it possible for many homes to sell that would otherwise sit. In many ways, we are helping the housing market recover one home at time."
About Showhomes Home Staging
Showhomes is a home staging business with a twist: the company uses live-in home stagers to manage vacant houses while they are on the market for sale and offset a home owner’s expense to stage the home. The innovative marketing strategy has been producing results since 1986 and the company has helped over 25,000 home owners sell vacant houses valued at over $8 billion. For franchise opportunities and more information, please visit www.showhomes.com and www.showhomesfranchise.com.
Pat Hermann poses before the mansion she rents in Minnetonka, Minn. AP
Steve Ladurantaye, Real Estate Reporter
Globe and Mail
Forget fresh flowers and percolating coffee, human stagers are where it’s at in the tough, high-end U.S. home market
Patricia Hermann is the ultimate house sitter.
In the past four years, she has lived in six monster homes in Minnesota, where she works as a nurse at the Minneapolis Heart Institute. The average emergency room nurse in the state makes about $70,000 – good money, but not enough to make the mortgage payments on the $850,000, five-bedroom Tudor-style she’s currently calling home.
Ms. Hermann is a “home manager” for Nashville-based Showhomes Home Staging, an nationally franchised network of home staging businesses. She pays a small amount each month – the amount is different in each market, but is usually around $1,200 to $1,500, or the average rent in a city for a decent two-bedroom apartment – and moves into empty homes that are languishing on the resale market. She’s a human prop, brought in along with fresh-cut flowers and some tasteful paintings to help a property feel “lived in.”
“I’ve been doing this since 2006 and I kind of take it one year a time,” said Ms. Hermann, a 63-year-old grandmother of three. “Maybe I’ll decide to get a place of my own again some day, but I’ve gotten so spoiled that it would be hard to move into a little apartment.”
The concept of home staging, often called “fluffing”, is an old one. But in the aftermath of the U.S. foreclosure crisis, it has taken on greater importance, as desperate homeowners try to set their properties apart from millions of others on the market.
Staging used to mean bringing in some snazzy furniture and making sure there weren’t any lingering odours to turn off prospective home buyers. But that is no longer enough. The housing crash has left some 20 million homes unoccupied and for sale, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Many of these are high-end properties being sold by people who took on too much and have since moved to rental properties or smaller homes. Others are empty because of foreclosures.
Regardless of the reason, vacant homes often sell for less than occupied ones. Buyers know the sellers are motivated to unload the property. Empty houses can depreciate quickly because maintenance is neglected, and buyers have a hard time picturing themselves living in what is currently an empty shell. In the U.S., buyers already have a lot of choice: For every qualified one, there about 40 homes available.
“The bottom line is vacant houses get low-balled by bottom fishers,” said Thomas Scott, vice-president of marketing at Showhomes.
Enter the professional house sitter, whose job is to keep the property in “pristine” condition in return for below-market rent. “We don’t let just anyone do this,” said Mr. Scott. “There’s pretty rigorous screening involved. You can’t have a criminal record, you need good credit and you can’t be a slob.”
There’s no particular demographic in play, but young professionals and even families are prime candidates, Mr. Scott said. Many of the home managers are coming out of a divorce and looking for short-term housing while they figure things out. Most managers stay on for a few years, while some have been around for a decade or longer.
Showhomes charges homeowners a fraction of a percent of the selling price and also makes money from the monthly fees it collects from its managers.
The Canadian market hasn’t seen human stagers yet, but Mr. Scott said the company would target model homes and homeowners who have been transferred to other cities.
There is no shortage of actual home stagers in Canada, however. They typically work with real estate agents to make a home look more desirable to prospective buyers, removing clutter, adding new furniture and rearranging things so there is better flow.
“Ten years ago this was just a cottage industry made up of housewives looking for something to do,” said Christine Rae, president of St. Catharines, Ont.-based Canadian Staging Professionals and co-author of Home Staging for Dummies. “Now there are savvy professionals making a good living.”
The goal of professionals in both countries is to ensure the changes look as natural as possible, so that the buyers don’t feel like they are walking into a movie set.
It has been a profitable business for Showhomes, which now has 65 locations and hopes to have 80 offices open by the end of the year. Some 450 people are signed on as house managers, and collectively they help sell about 1,000 homes a year.
As for Ms. Hermann, she’s torn between loving where she’s living and hoping the homeowner is able to sell the luxurious home. She has been there for nine months, and the longest she’s ever lived in one of the homes is 16 months.
“I think with this economy, I may be here for a while,” she said. “I feel bad for the homeowners, they get worried. But I know I’m helping. The house looks amazing.”
For more information and franchise opportunities, visit www.showhomes.com
June 03, 2010 — TAMPA - FOX 13 News: Selling a home in today's economy isn't easy, but there are ways to speed up the process.
The last two years have been a rollercoaster ride Jim and Nancy Ward. They have been realtors in the Bay Area for nearly 16 years, having gone through the boom and the bust.
"It takes more creativity to showcase a home," said Nancy, "to put it in its best light, because there is so much competition."
To help them showcase, they've teamed up with a company called Showhomes home staging.
"When we come in and design and decorate a home, what we've done is transformed a vacant house into a valued home," Karla Dorsey, Showhomes' Director of Sales.
Here is how the showcasing works: a professional house-sitter moves into your home with their furniture. They maintain the house and pay the electricity bill, but you continue to make the mortgage payments.
"What we do is we bring a home manager in, that's a professional house-sitter," explained Dorsey. "They have their beautiful furnishings, we come in as a design team and we design and decorate the home."
"Showhomes" are selling 50 percent faster and 25 percent more than vacant homes in Hillsborough County. In the last two weeks, 9 houses have gone under contract.
"First home we ever staged with Showhomes, we actually were able to put a contract on a home that had been for sale with other realtors for three years in 29 days," said Nancy Ward.
Five of the Wards' homeowners went with Showhomes. All of those houses have closed or are pending.
"Another success story recently was a house in Cheval," added Nancy. "A more expensive home, fewer buyers available to buy a home like that, and it was under contact in 9 days and has already closed."
For more information about Showhomes home staging, go to www.showhomes.com
Angela Voss posted this blog today and I enjoyed reading it - it would bve even funnier if these truly tacky tactics didn't run potential buyers off. We go to great lengths to avoid tactics like this and make our staged homes look 'real' - that is what sells today!
Home staging should show off the great features of your listing and diminish the negative ones, not create a phony atmosphere. It's all about marketing that feeling of the good life and what is possible for the room without going overboard.
A home should never look like it's been staged. 20 Tacky Techniques:
Napkins stuffed in wine glasses(Creates a phony atmosphere.)
Place settings on a table or bar (Nothing says, "This home has been staged", more than dishes, stemware, silverware, and napkins.)
Old bath towels hanging on a bar with ribbon(Old towels will not give a buyer the spa feeling, even with a ribbon.)
Single piece of artwork on a wall with nothing else in theroom(Buyers will only see the art and not the room, especially online.)
Furniture store tags on items that are for sale (Staging should be about the house and not what furniture is being sold by a store.)
Old, dirty rugs(Rugs should only be used to define space or add color. Buyers need to see the floors and what they are buying.)
Dusty, plastic trees with only a few branches(I don't mind trees, but they have to look nice.)
Cuttings from bushes and branches broughtinside(Will wilt rapidly, and it will take the eyes away from the room.)
Accessories that have nothing to do with the style of the home(Example: You can't take a country look and put it in a contemporary house.)
A card table with a sheet covering it in a dining room(A cheap look and does not represent the room dimensions.)
Plants or greenery over window treatments (Shows off bad decorating, and again takes the buyer away from the overall room.)
Plastic patio furniture inside that is covered or not(Just don't!)
Cheesy old lamps(Get the granny lamps out.)
Cheap plastic flowers (What I like to call "forever flowers" usually found at dollar stores.)
Sofa covered with a sheet as a slipcover(Planning on painting anytime soon?)
Blow-up beds (From personal experience: blow up beds will only stay fully inflated for a short time no matter how expensive they are.)
Plastic fruit(Fruit can be done right, but the majority of the time it looks tacky, creating a phony atmosphere.)
Breakfast tray on a bed with tumbled wine glasses(Creates a phony atmosphere.)
Only two chairs in a living room(This will not give a buyer a sense of the space.)
Wine bottle sitting on the edge of a garden tub(Creates a phony atmosphere.)
Tacky staging can spell disaster for your listing. Why? Because we remember tacky! What you put in the home is the perception of what the value of the home is worth. Your poorly staged listing becomes, "That house with the saggy, deflated blow up bed," or "That place with the cheesy lamp like the one in my parents' house."
If the accessories and furniture looks like you got it out of grandma's attic or down the street at a yard sale, the buyer could expect a yard sale price tag on the house. It is better to leave a house empty then to use bad décor!Staging should enhance the architecture of the home, not show off poor decorating ideas. Bad staging draws attention to itself - and distracts your buyer from your listing!
Please understand the quality of a good home stager. Know what services you are having your seller buy and who you are recommending. They will be worth their weight in gold.
Helping you get your listing SOLD, Angela Voss Designology Home Staging
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.
Former Lake Forest Realtor uses staging to drive home sales
on the $850,000, five-bedroom Tudor-style she’s currently calling home.
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