The Results Are In!

Wow, Karen. My take on staging - it should be perhaps one of the most important factor (and btw. staging means de-cluttering, lightening and brightening as well as landscaping - isn't it? I'd leave repairs out of staging, though.)

Wow, Karen. My take on staging - it should be perhaps one of the most important factor (and btw. staging means de-cluttering, lightening and brightening as well as landscaping - isn't it? I'd leave repairs out of staging, though.)

Karen -- Thanks for posting this. I may not have found it otherwise. I love to show sellers charts to drive home a point -- especially with the cleaning and clutter.  Good to see the home staging on there, too!!

whether the $ figure returns are right or not, if this gets your seller excited about making the changes necessary to have a marketable property...it works!  Thanks for posting!

Nice blog. The kitchen and bathrooms really stand out on that graph as they should!

Good evening Karen. This is great info for home sellers... especially the cleaning and decluttering numbers. It really pays for itself... and I suspect sells the home sooner-rather-than-later.

Karen, nothing is a bigger turn off to me when I go see a house than if it is dirt and or cluttered.  So it makes sense that they would be at the top of the list as things to do.

Karen - thx for clarifications.  That makes sense (although it does bring into question some of the validity of the "data."  If you are talking small improvements to kitchen (e.g. fix a floor or add granite countertops or paint the cabinets, than this makes sense).  But, large remodels only tend to return 70% on the dollar (a figure which I don't like to hear but is true).  But, this also does not consider how much less the house would have sold for if remodel not done nor time on market.

Thanks for the information.  I've bookmarked this for future reference.

Patricia/Seacoast NH & ME

Karen this is very useful information that can be shared with sellers. Wish that I could re-blog this one. Thanks for sharing my friend. Have a great weekend. Great post.

Great post.  Some solid numbers worth keeping and quoting and using going forward.  Thanks.

The first thing sellers want to do is paint, but your statistics show that cleaning, decluttering, removing the big heavy drapes and blinds that keep out light, buying a few more lamps and putting a higher wattage light bulb in the remaining lamps can do more to sell their home for less money!  Wish I could reblog this!

Dear Karen,

Fits with our advice to Clients - MAKE YOUR CLOSETS LOOK HALF EMPTY.

You are moving anyway - pack up all out of season items and take them to a storage locker somewhere.  People often move to get more space.

Seeing LOTS of room in closets signals to Buyers that they will have room to expand in the home.

Have a happy day -
Lynn

Cleaning and de-cluttering is so important.  I think it's hard to over emphasize the effect it has on the way the home shows.

Karen -- as a professional home stager I'm glad to see the latest Home Gain statistics.  We know that items #1-3 (which are all part of staging) help homes sell faster.  Thanks for sharing the information with the rest of us!

Interesting how de-cluttering came in at #1; glad to see staging in the top three. :) Great post.  Congrats on the featured post. :)

You said;

"In my opinion, a home is properly "staged" when all of these items have been addressed"

From my perspective I would completely agree. I see many homes that have clearly been half prepared. In other words the "show" is done, but the "go" has been ignored. The electrical, plumbing and other mechanicals need to be looked at before sale, because they for certain be looked at once that contract is signed.

Karen, intuitively, my feelings were very similar to the survey.  Thanks for giving us the information to back up our claims.