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.
Pinsker-Brown relies on Costco for many
of the accessories she uses to dress up clients’
homes, but she says her goal always is to use