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Home Stagers are being upstaged by new "staging" methods

By Liz Murray

Home Stager with Renaissance Home Staging & Redesign

March 22, 2011 03:09 AM

I just discovered that Home Stagers are being upstaged by new "staging" methods that could threaten our industry! It seems some realtors in this world are trying anything to sell a property. They are literally bringing in SWAT teams to push high end properties, and have taken others as hostages in their efforts! Shame on these new methods.

Yes,..Home Stagers are being upstaged by new "staging" methods, that could put many of the seasoned stagers out of business if these new home staging methods start catching on. Since so many of today's buyers are taking to the internet to view properties, it seems some realtors have devised plans to strip us of all our dignity, and set the stage for new standards not yet seen, in the good ol' USA.

Staging homes via the methods engaged in by these unscrupulous realtors will take the art of home staging to a new spectrum. Costs will most assuredly skyrocket, and recruiting and employing stagers will become much more difficult for realtors. Thank goodness my company, Renassiance Home Staging saw fit not to engage in this new business model.

Hopefully after viewing the link, many realtors will understand why Home Stagers are being upstaged by new "staging" methods, and decide on more traditional forms of presentation, instead of the "Aussie" standards!

......... Hope I don't offend anyone with this blog. It was meant to amuse, and remind others , that I as a stager do have a sense of humor! I chuckled when I found out what others in foreign countries are doing. Leave it to the Australians to think of something like this. They say women influence housing purchases,..maybe some of the Real Estate Brokers should hire Hugh Jackman! He seems more family friendly. After all, isn't Home Staging appealing to the broadest market of buyers?

Hugh Jackman

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Shirley Parks

Sands Realty 210-414-0966 - San Antonio, TX

Broker, 210-414-0966, San Antonio TX Real Estate

Liz, I just saw this tasteless video on another blog. No wonder some people have a low opinion of real estate agents.

Mar 22, 2011 03:13 AM

Jane Jensen

Century 21 New Millennium - Arlington, VA

Yikes. Thank goodness that would not happen here (hopefully). Doesn't get more sexist then that

Mar 22, 2011 03:14 AM

Liz Murray

Renaissance Home Staging & Redesign - Chandler, AZ

Professional Home Stager

Shirley.. yes the video is racey, but in Australia it seems they don't take themselves too seriously. I was a bit shocked myself at first, and thought it quite untraditional. But then I thought of when I was in broadcast advertising!

I once wrote an ad for a very high end interior designer! She was in her 50s, and quite conservative. I put the background music in a traditional "stripper" genre... and the first sentence in the copy said "..take it off, take it all off. --- Remove those tired old worn out window covers with new ones" etc. etc. .

My client was a bit hesitant at first, and my format was "easy listening". She told me it was the best ad she ever had, and got the biggest response from. She still talks about it,.. and the target was women.

Mar 22, 2011 03:29 AM

Liz Murray

Renaissance Home Staging & Redesign - Chandler, AZ

Professional Home Stager

Jane... if you think about the image of ad, standards of marketing are different in various parts of the world. The role of this ad was to get the attention of a particular buyer. And you're right,.. they may be sexist, but in Australia, this may not be the case.

Perhaps my point is this. How a property is viewed by a buyer is obviously how they perceive your property on line! The same holds true with "traditional" forms of home staging. How is YOUR property perceived by an audience? And what is the scene a realtor sets for that audience online??

This gets back to why I liked this marketing. Marketing is about recall. How memorable is a property on line? Granted this had a video (which many home buyers like), and you are seeing more "visual tours" as part of a realtors' marketing techniques.,.. but the realtor did his job! He got the buyers' attention.

... think about it... how many Multi-Million dollar properties do you see on line that are "empty"??

Mar 22, 2011 03:40 AM

TERI LINDSAY

Reno, NV

STAGELIGHT HOME STAGING CO.

I couldn't get the video to load after the first 10 seconds.... didn't get the "jist" of it!

Mar 23, 2011 04:20 PM

Sondra Meyer:

EXP Realty, LLC - Corpus Christi, TX

See It. Experience It. Live It.

Liz, after clicking on the video I was greatly relieved that the homestagers wouldn't actually be going out of business. I was truly concerned. The picture that came up on the video was plenty sufficient for me to laugh at the "joke." I didn't watch the video as I had to leave. As I have told many a soldier that I work with, the Realtor doesn't come with the house. (they are usually commenting about some sloppy fat man.) In this case, it would be the home stagers don't come with the house.

Mar 23, 2011 06:20 PM

Liz Murray

Renaissance Home Staging & Redesign - Chandler, AZ

Professional Home Stager

Terry,.. the video was a "playboy" style video. Sort of a show case for Victoria's Secret. The video was from a bunch of Australian Realtors promoting a very upscale property. They definitely were trying to appeal to a specific targer. The properties were not targeting families, but they might be targeting executives. I"m not saying that all execs engage in this lifestyle scenario,..but they wanted to get a buyer's attention, and it did that.

I also think that they staged the property superbly, and that was the idea. They showcased this property, and visually marketed this home.

In Arizona I have seen waaaaay too many properties on line with just a bunch of "walls and windows". This past weekend I visited an open house. 2 of them, in fact. Good God, one was empty and the paint colors horrible. (One had Canary Yellow in the entryway) The other was neutral colors,..but there was nothing to really show the house off. I don't think people could have envisioned themselves in that house.

I saw this video and was shocked initially, but as I have said, the realtor put alot of time and effort into creating the "theatre of the mind" for the buyers!

Mar 24, 2011 02:35 AM

Liz Murray

Renaissance Home Staging & Redesign - Chandler, AZ

Professional Home Stager

Sondra...... this video/ad really made me think. Why isn't the advertising/marketing of homes in Arizona so dull? I'm saying they have to be racey,..but so many are "blah". Is the market that "depressed??. Geez Louise!

It seems creativity is at an all time low in many areas. :-)

Mar 24, 2011 02:39 AM

TERI LINDSAY

Reno, NV

STAGELIGHT HOME STAGING CO.

Liz, just heard stats this week from CNN..... it isn't good for Arizona... 14% of homes are empty! I'll see if I can paste it for you, I saved it thinking I would write a post... but it WAS too depressing...Geeze!

Nearly 20% of Florida homes are vacant Les Christie, staff writer, On Friday March 18, 2011, 4:14 pm EDT It's not always easy to feel sorry for sunny Florida. But it just got hit with another blow. On Thursday, the Census Bureau revealed that 18% -- or 1.6 million -- of the Sunshine State's homes are sitting vacant. That's a rise of more than 63% over the past 10 years. Having this amount of oversupply on the market will keep home prices depressed and slow any recovery. During the housing boom, Florida was among the hottest real estate markets in the nation. Homes were snapped up by the state's growing population as well as hordes of investors confident that prices would continue to soar. "You'd drive through downtown Miami and see 30 or 40 cranes sticking up in the air," said Michael Larson, a housing market analyst for Weiss Research. The bust brought an end to that. Development ground to a halt. Retirees stopped relocating. And prices started falling and vacancies rising. "Housing went from being the preeminent investment of choice to toxic waste," added Richard DeKaser, an economist with the Parthenon Group. The vacancy problem is more dire in Florida than in any other bubble market: In California, only 8% of units were vacant, while Nevada, the state with the nation's highest foreclosure rate, had about 14% sitting empty. Arizona had a vacancy rate of about 16%. In Florida, the worst-hit county is Collier -- home of Naples -- with a whopping 32% of homes empty. In Sarasota County, 23% of the housing stock sits vacant, while Lee County (Cape Coral) has a 30% vacancy rate. And Miami-Dade County has a vacancy rate of about 12%. The housing recovery will take years, perhaps many years, to complete, according to Ingo Winzer, a housing market analyst and founder of Local Market Monitor. Not helping is the the fact that the state's rate of population growth slowed in the second half of the last decade to just 5.7%. Still, the 2000s saw the state population grow overall by nearly 18%, the Census Bureau reported. I "It will take about eight years just to put the vacancy numbers back into the single digits," said DeKaser. The inventory overhang has sent home prices plunging. The median price for homes sold in January was just $122,000, according to the Florida Association of Realtors. That was down 7% from 12 months earlier and less than half the price at the peak of the market. Winzer thinks prices in Florida will drop even more, another 5% in 2011 and 3% in 2012. "Even after that, they're not going to rebound, they'll just sit on the bottom," he said.

My mistake.... it's 16% vacancy in AZ... YIKES!!!!

Mar 24, 2011 05:13 PM

Liz Murray

Renaissance Home Staging & Redesign - Chandler, AZ

Professional Home Stager

Okay, okay.... I am a numbers freak. I like stats to analyze. I'm going to blog about something later today. The Boomers aren't necessarily buying OR moving! Only about 20% are buying their retirement homes. GUESS WHO IS BUYING?? Generation X! Yes sireee. Now if realtors and bankers are going to grab on to that market, are they doing what those buyers want?? Not many.

Generation X wants "MOVE IN READY". Boomer realtors who started their families early, and bought fixer-uppers,need to realize that those Gen Xers don't share the same values. They are too busy, and want their answers at "warp speed". They are the "Star Trek" generation. They are image conscious, and pride themselves on having great clothes, cars, technology and homes. Captain Kirk had the best starship in the galaxy,..remember? Generation X also bought almost half of the new construction during the boom.

Generation X Icon

They do not want to spend their weekend doing DIY,..they are too busy for that.

I would love to get a group of stagers, and put a challenge to those bankers and take a section of their properties and stage them. AND THEN COMPARE THEM TO THE PROPERTIES THAT ARE UNSTAGED. See which ones move faster and for what prices. Bankers are in business to make money!

I'm quite serious about it. We have a serious problem here in Arizona,..but as much as realtors claim bankers won't invest money to fix those places. they are also driving property values down even further. ..No one is even considering how to reverse it. Bankers are defeating the turnaround by ignoring a great opportunity to make more money in this depressed market.

Should we have a "SUMMIT TO SELL" properties???? Maybe it's an opportunity to sell OUR industry.

Mar 25, 2011 01:37 AM