In our line of work and because we deal so much with people, we collect stories which we feature in our "Adventures in Staging" portion of our monthly newsletter. Our adventures detail our experiences and usually provide an underlying message for clients and REA's reading them.
This actual event occurred last year and while at the time was quite disconcerting, now makes us chuckle because it contains so many elements of what we hope not to have happen during a consultation.
So first of all, both my partner and I are asked by one of our REA partners to go and do a consult for one of his clients which he happens to be close friends with. We are told that they have done some updating but aren't sure what to do to get the house "show ready". Great. This we can definitely help with.
We get to the house and are greeted by the sellers who happen to be a lovely couple and it is apparent by the pride in their voices that they have spent some money doing some upgrades and painting. The house is very open concept and they have designated "spaces" by painting areas different colours and the paint colours sometimes meet together on a wall in the same room (eg. In the living room/dining room the dining room was eggplant and the living room was kelly green). The colours are very personal and there is some wallpaper/borders which we address on our walk through. At the mere mention of re-painting a more neutral colour - and keeping the colour the same throughout the open areas, the husband blanches and disappears, re-appearing with a beer. He offers us one, we decline and continue.
We offer suggestions about accenting focal walls in bedrooms, updating hardware in kitchens and bathrooms and every ten minutes the husband disappears and then re-appears with another beer (which he finishes in record time). By the second beer he is cracking borderline naughty jokes and ogling my partner's chest. His wife starts shooting him murderous looks and we pretend to ignore it all, smiling brightly and expertly changing the subject. By the fifth beer the husband has half joked half suggested that instead of moving the kitty litter from the bathroom to a more appropriate spot in the basement that they take the cat out and shoot it instead. His wife gasps, grabs him and pulls him upstairs to have an argument and we continue making notes and keeping cheery smiles on our faces.
We go back upstairs, our clients are now having a full out fight and the husband is definitely more than a little tipsy. We give them their space and move into a different area of the house, continuing to work on our report. The wife comes in a few minutes later, apologizing and we simply say that we understand and that getting a house ready for sale is very stressful so of course we get it. We go over some things we are recommending and then all of a sudden she breaks down crying and talking about how she and her husband are getting divorced and how she can't handle everything. We listen without questions or judgement and then we gently suggest that we pack it in for the night - everything will be in our report - and that we are happy to answer questions later.
We prepare to leave and the husband comes back in with yet another beer and thanks us for coming out .. and then asks my partner if she is happily married and if she isn't, maybe she would consider meeting for a drink sometime. His wife was handing me my coat at the time and I thought I must have mis-heard him but no, my partner whose cheeks are now flaming red, is saying "we" are available if he has any questions about the report or if they would like to hire us to stage their home. His wife is shooting daggers at him with her eyes and we're practically leaping through the door to leave.
It took a lot of professionalism and tact to get through that evening however the morale to my story is that when a stager goes into a client's home, its important to always be understanding of the fact that sellers are very emotionally attached to their homes. Not all sellers respond favourably to our advice and all handle the stress of getting their home ready for sale differently. Being courteous and respectful is the best way to get the sellers in the right frame of mind so that they are open to recommendations you are making!
Also, we never mentioned to our REA partner what actually transpired the night of the consultation. From what we heard, the house was painted as per our recommendations and the sellers followed our suggestions and staged themselves. Within a few weeks it had sold and our thrilled REA sent us a thank you card for being a great resource for his clients.
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