So, some of you may remember my conflict about traveling 200 miles to stage a vacant home that had been on the market for over a year. Welll.....
I took the job and it was really a great experience. Once the kinks were worked out, it was no more complicated than any regular staging job, which we all know is not usually "regular" anyway ! We rented a truck which turned out to be much bigger than we needed, but hey, better to have more room than you need than not enough!
I had one helper who drove the truck and had the muscle I needed to move stuff into the house. I drove my own vehicle and once at the house, we unloaded and positioned the big stuff and my help left that evening and returned the truck. I made some notes before heading for my motel and found a Wal-Mart in the morning to get a few odds and ends and then off to the house.
I brought my boom box with assorted CD's and cranked up the salsa and got to work. It took the better part of three days, and then I headed home with my Suburban full of the unused inventory.
That was just a little over two weeks ago. I spoke to the Realtor yesterday, and she was very pleased to tell me that the house has had THREE offers !.. IT IS SOLD !!!
After over a year with nothing happening this was SUCH great news for all of us. The down side is that the price had been greatly reduced over the long months before the house was staged. ( A lesson here ??)
Now, here's WHY I think the house sold so quickly after being staged.. It was a nice house in good move-in condition, but it was very sterile and cold with white walls and gray floors. I can imagine the reaction of a potential buyer when first walking through the door.... Brrrrrrr...
We brought warm, rich earth tone furnsishings and LOTS of art and accessories in lush shades of deep mossy greens and rusts with deep red and gold accents. Some flat weave tribal rugs to soften the gray tile floors and we covered the dining table (which I don't usually like!) with a richly hued "arts & crafts" floral fabric for even more added texture and pattern.
The overall feeling was a richly colored, inviting and approachable home. Exactly what was missing all that time.
So of course I am very tempted to nag any and all Realtors and homeowners who think that staging a moderately priced vacant home is a "luxury". It can make all the diiference in the PERCEPTION a buyer has of any property! And just maybe those deep price reductions can be avoided as well...
And the most interesting thing for me is that the happy result has nothing to do with the distance traveled to the job. This pleasant ending could have been just across town. Buyers everywhere NEED to feel good about the home they plan to live in !
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