Jared Biby of Showhomes Jacksonville emailed me these photos of a stunning home they just staged with a live in home manager in Marsh Landing, the exclusive golf community in Ponte Vedra:

 

 

Wow - what a difference! Builder Biege is tough in today's market. Every home has similar, monochromatic colors and if buyers look at several homes, the rooms quickly run together. I love the pattern on the area rug - it really changes the feel of the room. Great job by Kaye Biby on staging this home!

 

 

 

Nice work!

 

Thomas Scott  www.showhomes.com

 
Posted by Thomas Scott - Showhomes on 11/05/2009 01:08 PM   Comments (6)   Home Staging in the ActiveRain Channel   home managers, home staging, jacksonville, showhomes  

Laura Johnson of Showhomes Naperville in the Western Suburbs of Chicago emailed me today about a great success story from a home in Elmhurst they recently staged:

 

'We have great news to share about one of our new construction homes!  After

503 days on the market, the home sold within 32 days of Showhomes staging it!"

 

Here's some before and after of this really nice home:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Great job! This is one of two homes we staged for a builder who started the process before the market dropped. I love that we really get to help people in dire straits using home staging to help sell a home. This home, like most that we stage, is staged with a live-in Home Manager. Another beautiful home that avoided the short-sale and foreclosure option and sold for a great price!

 

Great work!

Thomas Scott, www.showhomes.com

We're recuiting!

 

 

 

 

 

 
Posted by Thomas Scott - Showhomes on 11/04/2009 03:10 PM   Comments (12)   Home Staging in the ActiveRain Channel   showhomes, home staging, laura johnson  

On a field visit to Tampa where Showhomes has three locations, I was able to view this $1 million dollar in-fill new contruction home in South Tampa. This 3-story home has a lot to offer and looks amazing now that it is staged:

We've had a really successful run of home sales this year, far outstripping the local market conditions. In Florida and especially in Jacksonville and Tampa, we've sold over 40 homes with an average list price of $816,000. These homes have been on the market for an average of more than a year before we stage them (they are all vacant) and we've been able to turn them around in  an average of 132 days.

Those are great numbers for the luxury market theses days - there are few buyers and far too many homes for sale. This segment of the market is not seeing the short-lived spikes the lower end segments are seeing becuase the FHA mortgages and first-time buyer credits don't apply.

Great work!

Thomas Scott, www.showhomes.com

We're recuiting!

 

 
Posted by Thomas Scott - Showhomes on 11/04/2009 08:06 AM   Comments (2)   Home Staging in the ActiveRain Channel   showhomes, home staging, tampa, florida   
Home Staging Company Employs Live In Caretakers to Protect Homeowners and Sell
Homes



As foreclosures continue to spike and the number of vacant homes on the market
for sale spirals higher, homeowners are increasingly vulnerable to companies
that peddle questionable services or outright scams. 

Thomas Scott, vice president of operations for Showhomes, the country`s largest
home staging company, says conditions are ripe in the foreclosure and high-end
housing market for exploitation, where such a high percentage of vacant homes
are lingering on the market for a year, two years or more. He encourages
consumers to be on the alert. 

"These are really scary times for owners of vacant homes," Scott says. "Almost
daily, we read in the paper about vandalism, theft, parties in vacant homes,
expensive repairs and plummeting property values that come from leaving homes
vacant and for sale. In some cases we`re seeing fly-by-night companies moving
home squatters into vacant properties in the hopes of wrestling possession of
the home from the owner. It`s unbelievable." 


Vacant home damaged by vandals in Phoenix

"Letting a home sit empty is a recipe for disaster," Scott says. "Home sellers
need reputable managed staging and live-in stagers more than ever these days." 

"The prospect of selling a home for 20-30 percent below its real value, and in
many cases waiting years for it to sell, is hard enough," Scott adds. "Now you
have to worry about sneaky scam artists trying to take advantage of distressed
homeowners." 

Showhomes, which currently has 56 franchises in 23 states, is having dramatic
success in today's tough real estate market with its innovative blend of
impeccable home staging and method of employing qualified people as live-in
caretakers to keep homes in show condition. It`s all above board - no squatting,
taking possession or scamming involved. 

And, it`s and remarkably effective. 


Home staged by Showhomes with Live In Home Managers

In a recent case study, homes in Chicago staged by Showhomes with live-in home
managers sold for 93 percent of the original list price when using home managers
to stage. Comparable homes left vacant for sale sold for 75-85 percent of the
original list price. Homes staged with home managers sold in 4-5 months and
vacant homes took well over a year to sell, if they sold at all. 


Showhomes - www.showhomes.com
Thomas Scott, 615-483-4923
VP Operations
tscott@showhomes.com
 
Posted by Thomas Scott - Showhomes on 11/03/2009 07:28 AM   Comments (1)   Home Staging in the ActiveRain Channel   showhomes, home staging, thomas scott, wwwshowhomescom  

Every now and then we get asked at Showhomes to stage a home outside our comfort level. Anyone with expereince and enough inventory can make a pretty room and an amazing home look great. However, it takes someone with real skill to stage and sell a home with small spaces. Cindy Montgomery emailed me photos of this very challenging small cottage she staged and that sold in 10 days last week:

I can see why this home sold so fast! This home, although totally updated and in a great area of Minneapolis, has some really small spaces. Vacant, these spaces look really difficult to live in and staged they look very comfortable and usable. This is a great home for a single professional or starter home for a couple.

Great work!

Thomas Scott, www.showhomes.com

We're recruiting

 

 

Donne Muelver, owner of Showhomes Southeast Wisconson, emailed me this excellent testimonial from a listing Realtor on a home we just staged and sold:

Hi Donna,

I was very impressed with Showhomes!  After six months on the market, our sellers were relocating and needed to have their home staged and decided to go with Showhomes.  We were thrilled to receive two offers within three weeks of the staging!  Donna's professionalism and expertise made the entire process seamless.   I would highly recommend Showhomes, and encourage Realtors to contact Donna for details on this very innovative and unique way to help sellers with a vacant home.

Sincerely,

Sue Nikolic ABR

Take a look at Donna's work:

Great work and yet another reason you should stage a home in today's market. You DO have to win the beauty contest in today's market to sell a home!

Thomas Scott, www.showhomes.com

We're recruiting

 

Mike Callahan, owner of Showhomes Fox Valley in the western suburbs of Chicago, emailed me his recent success story. A home he recently staged with a live-in home manager sold in less than 90 days after over a year on the market:

Great work and another happy homeowner and Realtor!

Thomas Scott, Showhomes

We're recruiting!

 
Posted by Thomas Scott - Showhomes on 10/30/2009 06:10 AM   Comments (3)   Home Staging in the ActiveRain Channel   showhomes, fox valley, home staging, home stager  

The Jacksonville Business Journal ran an article on Showhomes today and how we are doing more and more bank business nationwide. For many banks, the type of staging we provide fits their needs. Showhomes got its start doing bank owned homes in the 1980s and we contiue today. Take a look:

Heritage Bank Senior Vice President Greg Totten was a skeptic when he decided to try using a home staging company to sell a bank-owned property that had been on the market in Queens Harbour for nearly a year at $2 million.

After a home manager moved in and staged the 6,000-square-foot home, the number of showings increased as well as the dollar amount of the offers before it went under contract in September to sell for $1.5 million. Totten’s now a believer in home staging.

Home stagers specialize in furnishing and decorating vacant homes to make them look lived-in for prospective buyers. Although the industry started as an indirect result of the savings and loan crisis in the mid-1980s when lenders needed help selling a glut of foreclosed homes, since then most homes have been staged for homeowners — until now.

“Banks are looking to try to get the most from the homes they now have,” said Totten, who is the branch manager at the Ponte Vedra Beach branch of Heritage Bank. “We came out, over all, I think pretty well.”

In the last three to four months Showhomes franchise owners Jim and Kaye Biby said they’ve seen an increasing interest from lenders looking for help to sell some of the homes they’ve had to foreclose on. The Queens Harbour home was the first foreclosed home the Bibys helped sell with a home manager who actually lived on site during the staging process. They’ve already signed a contract with a regional bank, which preferred not to be named, to help sell one, maybe two foreclosed homes and is negotiating a contract with a third.

Kaye Biby, Showhomes Jacksonville

The Bibys have also staged a short sale home in Palencia that sold in 21 days in March and have signed a contract to stage another short sale in the World Golf Village.

The Bibys say they think lenders are becoming more interested in their staged properties, which typically include live-in home managers, because it reduces the bank’s overhead.

Even though bank-owned home staging is growing, the Bibys expect it to remain a small portion of their overall portfolio. So far this year, the franchise has helped sell 17 homes for a total value of $16 million compared with 21 homes for a total value of $21 million in 2008. Only one of the homes sold so far this year was a foreclosure and one was a short sale. They had no foreclosures or short sales last year.

In the past most banks maintained minimal upkeep on foreclosed homes, often selling them as is. Lynn Vitel, broker at Vitel Realty Group of Keller Williams Realty, said now with competition stiff in the residential real estate market, banks too are looking for a competitive edge.

“Staging means everything. It lets people visualize what the rooms are,” Vitel said. “The banks are having to smarten up.”

Sandy Steiner, an agent with Re/Max Specialists who used Showhomes to stage a property that was not a owned by a lender, said she expects that as market values continue to decline more lenders will reach out to home stagers.

“Banks are taking on a larger responsibility,” Steiner said. “They don’t want to be blamed for that one foreclosed property bringing down the property value for the whole neighborhood.”

Christy McCarthy, owner of Jacksonville-based Interiors Revitalized, said that while she hasn’t actually staged any lender-owned properties yet, she too has noticed the interest, and she understands why.

“It’s crucial to get these homes back in top-dollar condition so they don’t lose any more money,” McCarthy said.

 

Thomas Scott, Showhomes

Franchise Information

 

At Showhomes, we stage all types of homes. Some are amazing, beautiful homes that look stunning when staged and some are, ummm - more challenging?

We strive to make every home we stage look amazing. Some just take more work. At our training class last week in Nashville we deconstructed an already staged home and spent a day putting it back together:

This $800k hilltop tudor home was built about 20 years ago. The home has amazing views and state of the art fixtures for its age. Here's the main room our class had to work with and as you can see, it's a bit of sage overload:

The carpet and walls are green. The light fixtures are green. When this room is empty, it is just plain green! How do you tone down the mono-chromatic colors? With the 2-story wall of windows, how do you use the fireplace? making it worse, the traffic pattern runs right through the middle of the room.

After moving couches and chairs all over the room, our class settled on what I think is the right way to stage this room:

 

They used the fireplace as the focal point, pulled the furniture off the walls, made it so everyone could reach the coffee table (a must for good conversation groups) and used the hearth as additional seating. The traffic pattern goes around the grouping, not through it and there are large accesories to make the room pop.

When you add in lamps and soften the lighting, the room isn't nearly as green. After staging the room, we noticed that everyone wanted to plop down on the couch or in a chair - the room went from cold and green to warm and comfortable.

Thomas Scott, Showhomes

www.showhomes.com

Franchise Information

 

 
Posted by Thomas Scott - Showhomes on 10/28/2009 08:39 PM   Comments (7)   Home Staging in the ActiveRain Channel   showhomes, home staging, home stager, thomas scott  

It's easy to get negative in today's real estate market. I come across all types of negative Realtors, home owners, home buyers and people who love to complain about the market.

Ever worked with a complainer? Have someone on your team who is always negative, finding an endless stream of critical things to say?

Have you noticed how these people suck the life out of a business and take the fun out of work?

The No Complaining Rule

I just read through Jon Gordon’s The No Complaining Rule. The short, 136 page book was easy to read and hit on some of my favorite points about working as a team.

As a rule, I avoid negative people and I work hard to be a solutions-oriented person at work and at home. I gravitate towards enthusiastic and positive people and like most people I avoid negative people like the plague. I believe this is critical in a down real estate market - people are looking for a message of hope and a solution to the crisis. Complaining simply helps no one.

Here are some points I learned from reading this book:

1. Complaining serves little purpose. It sucks the life out of company, is hurtful to those around you and kills both productivity and moral.

2. One negative person can create a miserable office environment for everyone else.

3. Complaining and negativie emotions are associated with:

  • decreased life span
  • fewer friends
  • increased risk of heart attack
  • more stress
  • less success

The book is worth a read for anyone who works with others or has a family. In other words, it should be manditory reading for anyone in your office or family!

The book focuses on positive thoughts and behavior as the key to eradicating negativity:

  • Start with yourself – you might be more of a complainer than you realize. Lead by example!
  • Try not to complain. At all.
  • If you can’t avoid a complaint or a negative statement, add a ‘but’ to the end and stack on two solutions.
  • Start your day with gratitude – be thankful for the things you have. If you are stuck in traffic, be thankful you have a nice car to drive.
  • Avoid saying ‘I have to…’ and replace it with “I get to….” Don’t say “I have to work late to finish this job.’ Say, ‘I GET TO finish this job!’

If you’ve read it, let me know by leaving a comment. I’m going to make my kids read it and buy some copies for my office. How about you?

 

Thomas Scott, Showhomes

www.showhomes.com

Franchise Information

 
Posted by Thomas Scott - Showhomes on 10/28/2009 04:39 PM   Comments (1)   Book Review in the ActiveRain Channel  
 
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Thomas Scott - Showhomes

Nashville, TN

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Showhomes

Cell Phone: (615) 483-4923

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