Home Staging Sanity

Albert Einstein once said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

This interesting quote rang true last week when I was introduced to several sellers who have had their homes on the market for well over a year. Each homeowner had gone through at least 2-3 real estate agents and were convinced that the failure of selling their home was due to the incompetency of the last agent.

The newly enlisted agents called me for my advice because these properties were showing horribly and the homeowners resisted the idea of staging and they refused to lower the price.  I explained the Einstein quote and suggested that they be perfectly frank with the new  client …either raise the value of the property or lower the price.

In each case raising the value would be most beneficial for the following reasons:
1) Staging costs would be less than a $10,000 price reduction
2) Competition is tremendous, a property needs to look its absolute best.
3) After staging you can confidently add the cost to the selling price
4) You can market the “old” property as “newly designed”
5) A property that has been on the market for this amount of time may see return  buyers who are interested in the added value

My suggestion to Realtors who are in such a quandary … introduce the seller to the idea of staging before taking the listing, educate them on positive staging statistics, pay for a professional staging report …..and most importantly,  be willing to walk away from the property if the homeowner “is going to do the same thing over and over”….stop the insanity.


Maureen Reddy is the owner of DaVinci Designer Gallery , a full service design firm that has been staging homes for over a decade. The combined experience of interior design, visual display, marketing and advertising, allows for staging services that are unmatched in the Boston area.

Visit our website at ddg-re,com to view our sales record and media coverage.
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