Vacant and Fully Staged Homes: which sells?
Showhomes is a national franchise and we train new Home Stagers often. One of my favorite parts of training is a field exercize that clearly demonstrates the difference in a vacant home for sale and a home that is both occupied and fully staged. Our company's success is based on the premise that vacant homes are much harder to sell, take much longer to sell and sell for far less money.
For this exercise, we used two homes for sale in a suburb north of Nashville. Both homes are in the same neighborhood, are priced the same and have been on the market for the same amount of time. We carried a group of people through both houses and recorded their feedback from both homes:
House #1: vacant house:
Here is the positive and negative feedback from 5 people who visited this home:
Negative Feedback Positive Feedback weeds in planter Lot of space dark – lighting Master bath big temp cold, uncomfortable Well maintained No color Tray ceilings nice Inconsistent shine of wood floor Bonus room nice and private Sink dirty Like high finish in garage no fridge like recessed stair lights portable chairs Good windows and lighting fixtures empty mantle Solid house Tub dirty Good looking house shower missing enclosure high ceilings nice house seemed not finished wood floor nice Misc parts on counters Carpet dirty. Dusty windows have dead bugs dirty windows Toilets not clean Large empty loft room No place to sit No window coverings – no privacy Too close to neighbors Front yard not kept Lot of leaves no curtains – feels colder To big – get lost Unfinished room at top of stairs Hard to visualize space smells like paint Paint peeling on back door jamb spiderwebs creepy scrap of carpet for welcome mat Storage by fridge left over Cold and dark Echo on floor Echo on marble made subfloor seem hollow or poorly built Granite didn’t match house – colors don’t match dead leaves in front dust bunnies on floor low outlets framed awkward – looked like substandard building dead grass wood floor to marble floor uneven House empty Master tub too small shower odd scratched wood floor in study lights out living room and kitchen eating area small Pink tint odd
Here is the home staged by Showhomes with a live-in Home Stager:
Here is the positive and negative feedback from the same people:
Negative Feedback Positive Feedback
too many personal photos wel lit clean homey feel – warm comfortable very nice colors – eye catchy great furniture felt luxirous upstairs bedroom nice as master big house – good space felt more usable, easier to live in music and fans full of life really liked it – cozy very welcoming music makes great impression sitting area in master great very funstional house great floorplan keeping room – great space extra family room – bonuns room huge nice playroom smells nice closets really nice garage not cluttered food in fridge nice and clean home curb appeal great wreath on door seems like a model felt like a perfect model home linens like a spa patio nice staging really great master bedroom awesome music really helpful clean garage warm and very clean woman’s touch holiday decorations tasteful feels like a great family house live plants look great Look at them side by side and it’s obvious which home is going to sell faster!
In a pricing survey, all 5 said they preferred the staged home and if they were to put in an offer would start at 5-10% below list price and would all go up to list price to get the home. Several stated they would ‘be embarrassed to low-ball the owner since the home was so well cared for.”
The vacant home, on the other hand, did poorly on the pricing survey. Even though the homes were comparable in most ways, the viewers said they would submit a low-ball offer starting at 70% of the list price and would only go up to 75%.
What do you think?
Thomas Scott
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