Why discourage staging?

I stage all my own listings at my own expense right down to renting furniture, and I can say that it doesn't always sell a house. I have staged dozens and dozens of properties in all different decor. I have two huge storage lockers full of brand new accessories and stuff. I rent furniture from two different companies.  What I have found works best is a minimal amount of furniture and use the accessories with abandon, like fill the bath with towels and candles, do something cool in the kitchen, but keep the walls bare (or almost bare) and keep the furniture to a minimum. In my personal experience, buyers at open houses in staged homes wonder "what's being hidden" by all the lovely furniture and decor. It can be viewed by skeptical buyers as a mask for something and a tricky way to make a house look better than it is. Right or wrong, they are always worried about being tricked! I am only repeating the lines I hear from buyers.  That's why minimal furniture is now the key in my listings because I want to show we're hiding nothing.

The properties that sell the fastest for me have NO furniture in them and a lot of beautiful, pretty accessories. And a floor lamp or small cocktail table with one chair.  That's it....mostly accessories.

I think light staging is good, sometimes a blank palette can be overwhelming to a buyer.  I keep a stock of pictures, dried flowers and little things that I can place around the house to add interest to things I'd like buyers to take more than a passing glance at.  I also always make sure there's toilet paper in the bathrooms and hand towels there.  A new rehab, new construction or vacant home should have these things in them, after all prospective homebuyers are expected to check out the plumbing to be sure they all work.

I had 2 clients say that their first realtor told them not to get the property staged.  To just put it on the market and see what happens.  Guess what happened...nothing!

Tracey,

It makes about as much sense as telling a hungry person to avoid the attractive, good smelling food and go for  the smelly fish and the day old bread. 

Hi, Tracey - I read the article you mentioned. He lost me at "a staged home may cost 6-7% more than an unstaged one."  6-7%?  Talk about being out to lunch. 

Hello Tracey, Blanket statements like "Buyers should avoid staged homes" just shows a level of illiteracy on the part of the writer about the subject.  A professional Home Stager knows exactly the style and volume of furnishings to place in a home to increase the marketability.  A professional stager knows that if you are not increasing the marketability of a home that you are in essence wasting the clients time and money and will likely not recommend staging.  And, I recall the words of the founder of SIF who said concerning quality staging that if you have staged a property correctly that you should not be able to tell that the home has been staged.  Professional stagers are not cover-up artists, we are experts at property presentation. Painful as it may be to some, you have to own or have access to a very wide variety of furnishings so that you have at your disposal the proper items to place in a home so that it all blends well and is of the proper style and quality for the buyers that will be viewing the property.  Anything short of that, will not increase the homes marketability.  We occasionally hear people say that they picked a sofa, two chairs and a bunch of their old accessories that they had stored in their garage and staged a home with them, and that staging didn't work at all.  They are correct and chances are those same furnishing won't work the next time either.

Several months ago, I came across a homeowner who said his REA told him to NOT stage his house.  Long story short... the house never sold, the agent lost the listing, and the homeowner called me to stage before he relisted with another Realtor.

Not only did the REA lose the listing, he also lost a sale.

Sounds like he may need some educating. Why don't you call him up and make an appointment. Show him all the benefits and statistics. Invite him to AR.  Sometimes people who think like this at one point, become your very best advocates after they see results. Remember, it is all about them. ;)

Ignorants. Plain and simple. I was at a meeting with Terrylynn last night for investors/flippers. Terrylynn gave an amazing speech about what staging is and why its such a benefit to the Real Estate Industry. I then got up and gave them some basic insight to what staging real is. They had great questions and the best part was at the end one of the leaders in the rooms said "I had no idea what staging was...I thought it was just someone bringing furniture into a property. This is great!"

 Out of the mouth of babes :)

Some people seem to have staging phobia. others are unknowingor arrogant and the rest are clients.