Home Staging
I came across this article recently and found it very interesting--in today's Buyer's Market Seller's need any advantage they can get----here's the article. Credit and link on the bottom.
Gary Streepy, a restaurant owner in a former life, calls himself "the house whisperer" these days. He goes into houses that are for sale and suggests changes, from removing all the magnets on the fridge to clearing out some of the furniture, so that the houses sell more quickly. It's a practice -- more common in bigger cities -- called home staging.
"The buyer is buying your house and not your possessions," said Streepy, who has started a Wichita business called Three Pea Home Staging and Design. "I make the house look bigger, less cluttered."
Home stagers give aggressive advice to help people sell their homes. They may suggest new paint colors, how to rearrange furniture, what to take off walls and shelves. If needed, they'll even loan or rent furniture and accessories to dress up a place.
Real estate agents usually offer basic advice on how to prepare a home for the market, but home stagers may be specially accredited. Some real estate agents offer the service for free to clients, while full-time home stagers can charge from a couple of hundred dollars to several thousand. "It just helps set the houses apart from other houses when you're selling it," said Wichita real estate agent Alissa Unruh, who stages all of her houses.
"Buyers like to buy homes that are well decorated.... It's an emotional thing. It feels nice." When Unruh became the agent for a 7,500-square-foot Tudor house that was worth a half a million dollars, it had been on the market for 1 ½ years and had been put up for auction -- all while empty of furniture and all without selling. She called in Sharry Crowe of Wichita to stage the house. Crowe is a real estate agent with RE/MAX who has been accredited as a home stager. She filled the house with rented furniture and a variety of accessories, and the house was under contract the next week. "I've had several of my own listings that have sold to the first person in the door, so I'm convinced it works," Crowe said.
Crowe took three days of training from a business based in California called Staged Homes. Before she had the training, she tried to stage the houses she was selling, but "I didn't understand how to get people's eyes to move, the tricks of the trade," she said. Once a person decides to put his house on the market, Crowe said, "it's no longer your home. Then things change. Your favorite place to have the recliner to watch TV may block us. It may not let us see your beautiful pool in the back."
When Streepy is staging a kitchen, he wants countertops as bare as possible. The toaster can go in a cabinet. He'll allow a coffeemaker to stay out but would prefer it be put away, too. He said one client had a small television set in her kitchen that she would take with her in the car whenever there was a showing of her house. Little things make a big difference, Streepy said. "Taking the clutter off the refrigerator makes an unbelievable, unbelievable difference." He said one man was out of town when a staging was done, and when he returned, "he couldn't even believe it was his house."
There is "staging to sell" and there is also "staging to live," Crowe said. The latter can be done for people who intend to stay in their house but want a fresh view. In that case, she takes into account how they live when rearranging the house.
Streepy has started a derivative of home staging called "stick staging" that involves full-size templates of furniture that can be laid out in various ways in an empty house. He's sold one set to an apartment complex. "I build them in my garage -- hot-glue and stain them," he said. Crowe said the downside of home staging is the inventory she's accumulated of accessories needed in the process.
"I probably have for every home bought something," Crowe said. She might see a need for something like "a tall, skinny floor lamp in that back corner." "It stays in my inventory." Unruh, who works for J.P. Weigand, said she has learned some staging techniques from Crowe and now stages all her own houses, calling Crowe in for big projects.
Unruh, Crowe and Streepy all said they enjoyed the creative aspect of home staging. "The real staging is taking what people own and making a better presentation. I love doing that," Streepy said. His background is on the commercial side -- he started out doing plant layout for General Motors, then restaurant design for Pizza Hut, then designed the layouts for all of his own restaurants. He's a former owner in Heroes Sports Bar & Grille and also owned Pasta Mill and Zoom Sports Grill. "Staging is so much like getting your restaurant ready every day," he said. "How is the customer going to see my place every day? How is a buyer going to see the house?"
Despite the enthusiasm of the home stagers, many houses on the market in Wichita are not staged. "I think from the perspective of a real estate agent it's easy not to do it," Unruh said. But she said there was one element a seller should concentrate on in addition to getting the price right.
"Buyers are very critical. Buyers have a lot of options and a lot of choices, so if you're going to compete, you'll want to get your house in perfect condition."
BY ANNIE CALOVICH
The Wichita Eagle
http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/living/14291636.htm
Gary Streepy, a restaurant owner in a former life, calls himself "the house whisperer" these days. He goes into houses that are for sale and suggests changes, from removing all the magnets on the fridge to clearing out some of the furniture, so that the houses sell more quickly. It's a practice -- more common in bigger cities -- called home staging.
"The buyer is buying your house and not your possessions," said Streepy, who has started a Wichita business called Three Pea Home Staging and Design. "I make the house look bigger, less cluttered."
Home stagers give aggressive advice to help people sell their homes. They may suggest new paint colors, how to rearrange furniture, what to take off walls and shelves. If needed, they'll even loan or rent furniture and accessories to dress up a place.
Real estate agents usually offer basic advice on how to prepare a home for the market, but home stagers may be specially accredited. Some real estate agents offer the service for free to clients, while full-time home stagers can charge from a couple of hundred dollars to several thousand. "It just helps set the houses apart from other houses when you're selling it," said Wichita real estate agent Alissa Unruh, who stages all of her houses.
"Buyers like to buy homes that are well decorated.... It's an emotional thing. It feels nice." When Unruh became the agent for a 7,500-square-foot Tudor house that was worth a half a million dollars, it had been on the market for 1 ½ years and had been put up for auction -- all while empty of furniture and all without selling. She called in Sharry Crowe of Wichita to stage the house. Crowe is a real estate agent with RE/MAX who has been accredited as a home stager. She filled the house with rented furniture and a variety of accessories, and the house was under contract the next week. "I've had several of my own listings that have sold to the first person in the door, so I'm convinced it works," Crowe said.
Crowe took three days of training from a business based in California called Staged Homes. Before she had the training, she tried to stage the houses she was selling, but "I didn't understand how to get people's eyes to move, the tricks of the trade," she said. Once a person decides to put his house on the market, Crowe said, "it's no longer your home. Then things change. Your favorite place to have the recliner to watch TV may block us. It may not let us see your beautiful pool in the back."
When Streepy is staging a kitchen, he wants countertops as bare as possible. The toaster can go in a cabinet. He'll allow a coffeemaker to stay out but would prefer it be put away, too. He said one client had a small television set in her kitchen that she would take with her in the car whenever there was a showing of her house. Little things make a big difference, Streepy said. "Taking the clutter off the refrigerator makes an unbelievable, unbelievable difference." He said one man was out of town when a staging was done, and when he returned, "he couldn't even believe it was his house."
There is "staging to sell" and there is also "staging to live," Crowe said. The latter can be done for people who intend to stay in their house but want a fresh view. In that case, she takes into account how they live when rearranging the house.
Streepy has started a derivative of home staging called "stick staging" that involves full-size templates of furniture that can be laid out in various ways in an empty house. He's sold one set to an apartment complex. "I build them in my garage -- hot-glue and stain them," he said. Crowe said the downside of home staging is the inventory she's accumulated of accessories needed in the process.
"I probably have for every home bought something," Crowe said. She might see a need for something like "a tall, skinny floor lamp in that back corner." "It stays in my inventory." Unruh, who works for J.P. Weigand, said she has learned some staging techniques from Crowe and now stages all her own houses, calling Crowe in for big projects.
Unruh, Crowe and Streepy all said they enjoyed the creative aspect of home staging. "The real staging is taking what people own and making a better presentation. I love doing that," Streepy said. His background is on the commercial side -- he started out doing plant layout for General Motors, then restaurant design for Pizza Hut, then designed the layouts for all of his own restaurants. He's a former owner in Heroes Sports Bar & Grille and also owned Pasta Mill and Zoom Sports Grill. "Staging is so much like getting your restaurant ready every day," he said. "How is the customer going to see my place every day? How is a buyer going to see the house?"
Despite the enthusiasm of the home stagers, many houses on the market in Wichita are not staged. "I think from the perspective of a real estate agent it's easy not to do it," Unruh said. But she said there was one element a seller should concentrate on in addition to getting the price right.
"Buyers are very critical. Buyers have a lot of options and a lot of choices, so if you're going to compete, you'll want to get your house in perfect condition."
BY ANNIE CALOVICH
The Wichita Eagle
http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/living/14291636.htm
posted by Mario @ 11:13 AM
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