Full disclosure...I don't know squat about Staging, and I temporarily gave up my "man card" today for a fascinating talk with the one and only, Kathy Streib. Kathy is the owner of Room Service Home Staging, and operates out of Delray Beach, Florida.
My extensive knowledge about Home Staging was collected in bits and pieces, walking through the room when my wife was watching HGTV. That knowledge base consisted of one word..."declutter." 30 minutes with the Staging Teacher, I'm ready to rock and roll on my next listing. I'm now armed to be able to counter the seller argument that all they need to do is "declutter."
We talked about the differences in staging a house that is vacant, compared to one that still has occupants. During that conversation, we trickled off to also talk about "Virtual Staging." And while Kathy doesn't do Virtual Staging, she sure knows a lot about the subject.
Kathy let me know that good stagers start when they get out of their car, and appraise the curb appeal of the house. She patiently explained that at times stagers and agents have to play good cop/bad cop. While an agent may not be able to find a way to tell the seller to get rid of the "ugly bedspread," a stager certainly wouldn't have that problem.
My biggest take away from my discussion with Kathy, was that she believes that her job is to make the house more marketable. Combine that with the agents job of marketing the house, and you have a winning combination.
It's funny, we see people on Active Rain every day, and we get this impression in our minds about what they should sound like. We both got a laugh out of the fact that neither of us sound like we look.
Here's a little known fact. If I'm not mistaken, Kathy Streib is the first Stager to hit the million point mark on Active Rain.
P.S. For those of you who didn't already know...Kathy is the originator of this contest. I may not know much about Staging, but I do know how to suck up to the boss.
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