"Home Staging" is a term that means many things to many people. When people ask me what I do as a home stager, I could come up with 20 different answers depending on the home I'm working in at the time. HGTV has been a great help for getting the word out on home staging, but the shows ( of course!) go for the most dramatic changes, bringing in full rooms of furniture and accessories for quite some money. Not that that certainly isn't a great part of what we do (such fun!), but something as simple as clearing out clutter, simplifying a room, changing a paint color, can make some big changes with little investment
My definition of staging is "the art of accentuating the positives of a home while minimizing the negatives to make the home appealing to the largest amount of buyers as possible". Think of it as getting ready to enter a beauty pagent, it IS a competition! Especially with the market today, in order to get a house sold quickly and for asking price it must be ready to show off to the world.
I spoke with a realtor in my area recently about staging. She loved the idea of home staging, and said she didn't have any listings right now that needed staging. When I got home, I checked out her listings on the internet, and she had 2 vacant homes, and one (priced at $500,000) with dated wallpaper, formica countertops and a huge tree in the front totally obscuring the view. As you all know, that house could have definitely used the help of professional home staging!
My advice to realtors as well as home sellers is to do your homework, contact a home stager in your area, and have them come in for a consultation with every new listing. How impressive to the seller! We stagers have a knack for explaining why the 1970's decor may not be quite what buyers are looking for, whereas sometimes a realtor's hands are tied. I use a nationally recognized A.C.T.I.O.N. Scoring System when doing a consultation. It let's the seller know what score their home receives according to the cleanliness, clutter, updates and improvements on the home. A numerical score and ways to bring it up is sometimes easier for a seller to digest than saying " no one will EVER buy this house with all this pink carpet!" Not that we haven't all thought it!
Good luck and happy home selling!
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