We all know that staging helps to sell homes. De-cluttering, artfully re-arranging, and de-personalizing the interior of a home can go a long way towards making the house more appealing to a wide range of buyers. This past weekend I was reminded of what a big difference that staging makes not only to homes, but also to homeowners.
I was hired by an agent to do a two-hour consultation and staging in Northern Virginia. I was greeted by the husband and wife. Although they were both polite, it was clear that the husband was a bit skeptical. While the wife and I toured the house, hubby went off to powerwash the deck. After giving the wife pointers for each room in the house, she and I settled on actually staging the dining room in the 45 minutes that we had left.
By this point, the wife was really enthusiastic about staging. She could really see what a difference implementing my suggestions could make. As a matter of fact, she said more than once that she wished she hadn't waited until they were moving to stage the house!
We set about removing furniture and clutter from the room. As we busily worked, the husband walked through a couple of times looking on with interest. After the room was cleared we set about setting the table and editing the china closet. By the husband's last trip through the room, we were just placing a beautifully improvised centerpiece on the table. "It looks good," he grudgingly admitted. The wife was thrilled. She couldn't believe how much larger and appealing the room appeared after only 45 minutes of work. She was really psyched to tackle the rest of the house on her own.
As I was saying my final good-byes to the wife, the husband, who had been conspicuously missing for the past couple of minutes, showed up with one hand behind his back. "It really does look great," he said while handing me a bottle of Italian Moscato sparkling wine.
It was a great consultation/staging. The homeowners were happy because they got a great looking dining room in less than an hour for free and they had a more positive outlook about the sale of their home. The agent was happy because she now had clients who understood the importance of preparing their home for sale and were armed with the information to do it. I was delighted because I helped some really nice people and got a bottle of great Italian wine!
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