Costco Connection - January 2007

for your home

A home-staging professional adds or rearranges furniture and accessories to make a home more appealing to potential buyers.

Staging
Before
your home
After
A great first impression can make
or break your home sale
By Andrea Downing Peck

THE REAL ESTATE bubble may not have burst, but it certainly has developed enough leaks to make home sellers know the days of multiple offers, quick sales and double-digit profits are waning.

How do you get an edge in a sluggish real estate market? Hiring a home-staging professional to transform your living space from drab to dramatic may be the answer. Stagers rearrange, redesign and accessorize your home to attract top dollar and a quick sale.

Barb Schwarz, CEO of StagedHomes. com, has been in the forefront of the home-staging industry, creating a nationwide training program that leads to designation as an Accredited Staging Professional (ASP). Schwarz was convinced homeowners needed to “set the scene” for potential buyers long before television shows such as Sell This House (A&E) brought the concept to the masses.

Schwarz says homeowners often fail to realize they are merchandizing a product— just like Starbucks or Mercedes Benz—when they list a home for resale. Quality sells, particularly in a competitive marketplace where a glut of “FOR SALE” signs can allow buyers to become fussy customers.

“Even in today’s market, the good ones are going to go, and everybody wants the good ones,” says Schwarz, a Costco member. “Staging is really pertinent, whether the market is hot or whether it’s not.”

Simplicity is key

First impressions do matter to home buyers. Annie Pinsker-Brown, an ASP from Los Angeles, says a stager’s goal is to highlight the features and architectural details of the

space—often returning rooms to their intended use—rather than draw attention to a client’s particular tastes or way of living in the home.

“People tend to get so caught up in the way that we live in our homes,” Pinsker-Brown says, “that we don’t think about whether that’s the best way to present the home to potential buyers.”

While there are no nationwide figures on whether staged homes sell faster or for more money, statistics compiled by Schwarz’s company indicate staged homes sell in an average of nine days versus 164 days for unstaged homes. In addition, staged houses typically sell for a 7 percent premium over comparable unstaged homes.

Beating the competition

Typically, a staging professional will begin with a consultation that includes a room-by-room written report detailing what the homeowner can do to prepare the home for sale. The stager will offer tips on cleaning, repairing problems, rearranging furniture, de-cluttering space and neutralizing the décor to appeal to the broadest range of potential buyers. Consultations cost about $250 to $500, depending on the home’s square footage.

“The goal is to get a home looking its best before any other home like it in the market,” says stager Dana Dickey of Cadiz, Kentucky, vice director of Interior Redesign Industry Specialists. “Your home—if it looks the best and is priced right—should sell first.”

Do-it-yourselfers often make the necessary changes themselves, Pinsker-Brown says, while

Before
After

The Costco Connection Costco warehouse and costco.com offer items from furniture to decorative pieces to help members stage their homes.

other clients may not want to be involved in the actual work or may not own the furnishings and accessories needed to showcase best their home’s square footage. Hiring a stager to do all the necessary repair work and rearranging as well as providing updated décor can push cost to $1,800 to $3,800, depending on the region of the country.