Staging Your Home for a Quick Sale

[powayseller]

Look at the before/after photos, and tell me this staging wasn’t a waste of money.

The most important thing is the price, right? Not whether the sofa is against the wall or has its own space with the coffee table. Or am I just ignorant?

[NotARocketScientist]

Rearranging — er, staging — the deck chairs on the Titanic comes to mind…

[Bugs]

A seller faces a more competitive market than they did last year. Homebuyers often make their decisions in part based on their emotional needs. Anything a seller can do to capitalize on that will help them compete.

Maybe better staging will offset some of the price reduction a seller needs to make in order to close the sale. It can’t hurt.

[NotARocketScientist]

You’re right, Bugs, it can’t hurt. But it may not help.

We sold our last house as the market was starting to slide in 1990. And we did our own staging. Traded out bigger furniture for small. Replaced personal effects with generic objects which signified prosperity and a happy home. Laced the air with the smell of fresh baked cookies!

The house showed well, and visitors loved our cookies, but buyers could smell blood in the air — not cookies — that summer. What finally moved the house was our willingness (and ability) to forfeit some of our equity gains and get the hell out.

[Bugs]

Of course you’re right about pricing being the imperative. I’m just saying that if two houses, identical in each respect including price, are competing against each other for the same buyer the property that shows better has the edge and might be able to fetch a couple extra bucks on the sale.

Clean people like a clean home. Dirty people LOVE a clean home.

[NotARocketScientist]

“Clean people like a clean home. Dirty people LOVE a clean home.”

That’s a great line.

When we were selling, we got permission from our neighbor to replant his flower beds, mow his lawn, trim his hedges. We watered and fertilized and had his place looking great.

He LOVED us.

within three months of our selling we drove by it had completely reverted.

[PD]

NotARocketScientist, I’ve often wondered why more people do not do the same thing. If you are selling your house and the neighbor’s yard looks awful, why not pay for someone to mow the lawn and pull the weeds? I think a lot of people just can’t stand the idea of giving something away free, even if it helps them out in the end.

[NotARocketScientist]

PD:

We actually got the idea from an NPR news story on Sweden’s efforts to reduce pollution levels in the Baltic Sea. They finally concluded that the most efficient solution was to build free sewage and industrial waste treatment facilities across the sea in Poland.

Some Swedes balked at subsidizing a neighbor until they saw that the cost-benefit ratio was ten of fifteen times higher than any project they could have done at home. Everyone came out ahead.

[powayseller]

Good idea for the Tijuana sewage sludge making its way to Imperial Beach and Coronado. I believe we should pay for Tijuana’s sewage plant, so we can have clean beaches.

[mycroft]

A few statements in the article jumped out at me:

“The minute we finish the staging, the houses sell,” Istratoff said. “It works for the whole spectrum, from starter homes to high-end – I ask for staging with about three-quarters of the homes I sell, because getting the home in a condition where it will appeal to buyers is a vital service.”

The very minute the staging is finished, the offers come pouring in? Ummmmm, okey-dokey, if you say so. Mr. Istratoff.

Now, we hear from the stager…stagist?

“You can get a 20 percent to 40 percent higher price because you appeal to a specific person,” Kopec said. “I usually earn $500 to $1,000, and it’s a pittance compared to how much more money a seller can make.”

So, $500K house will sell for $600,000, maybe even $700,000 because she moved the couch? Boy, that thousand buck fee really is a pittance. I’m gonna go buy a few houses, stage the hell out of ’em, and make me some serious money. 40% profits looking good to me.

[novice1027]

All though, presentation is important. I have gone into a few occupied homes lately, and had they picked up their things, or cleaned a little better, I may have not gone running and screaming from the house.
When I bought my house 15 years ago, it was in absolute perfect condition. Unlike some of the very same homes in the same track. The selling feature was the presentation.
I don’t think moving a couch will sell you a house you are not really interested in, but if there are 2 houses that are alike, I would think that most people would go for the one with the nice decor.

[mycroft]

I agree that presentation is important. But, not to the extent that the stagers are trying to claim in the article.I seriously doubt a staged house will sell for 20% more, nevermnind 40%, than the same house unstaged, which is what the stager in the article seems to imply.

[novice1027]

Not unless they plan on leaving the stage equipment with the house, lol

[powayseller]

I got my first offer on my house from a couple that came over the day before we were available for showing. The house was on the MLS, but we were still making some yard improvements.

The house was a mess, the kitchen a disaster, as I hadn’t cleaned up from breakfast and was working outside. The people made an offer. They loved the house.

[Author]

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