to read the article on Staging in the March

Lesson plan
for selling in
for selling in
tough times
It’s elementary, Realtors® say:
Start by staging your clients’ homes
W
hen Chad and Trisha Chambers fell in love with an English,
cottage-style home in Dilworth, they did what other homeowners
do: They put their current home on the market.
The catch was, they went ahead and bought the house on Ideal Way before
selling their home in the Plaza-Midwood neighborhood. Plus, the residential
market in the Charlotte region was already slow in spring 2008, a reality that
has only gotten worse in 2009. The couple knew they could handle both
mortgages for a few months, but they were “nervous,” Trisha says.
Yet, the weekend the Plaza-Midwood house was listed in the MLS, the couple
landed a $405,000, full-price offer on their small bungalow on Thomas Street.
The quick sale, Trisha says, is attributable to one main factor: preparing the
home inside and out so potential buyers were impressed with the property and
could envision themselves living there.
As many Realtors® know, that process is known as “staging.” It involves
everything from sprucing up the yard and exterior to cleaning and de-cluttering
the interior. It can also mean upfitting a vacant home with furniture and
Elizabeth Grillo,
broker/owner
EG Real Estate
Consultants
Tony Smith,
broker/owner
Wanda Smith &
Associates
By Susan Shackelford
accessories to create a sense of hominess and an
idea of how spaces may be used.
With fewer buyers in the market today, staging
a home has taken on heightened importance,
Realtors® say.
“We have a fraction of the buyers we did,
confidence is low and we have lots of listings,” says
Elizabeth Grillo, broker/owner of EG Real Estate
Consultants. “To be competitive you have to stage
your houses.”
Tony Smith, broker/owner of Wanda Smith &
Associates and 2003 CRRA/CMLS president,
agrees. “You’ve got to be better than the
competition,” Smith says. “You’ve got to be staged
better, got to be cleaner and got to be better priced.”
“I’m staging all homes,” says broker Joan B.
Goode with Dickens-Mitchener & Associates, Inc.
“Now we are in a buyer’s market — you have
to ask, why would a buyer pick this house over
another one? They have to walk through the front
door and love it.
“Also, if they are driving past, if yours stands out
visually, it’s a big advantage,” Goode adds.
From emotional to professional
In the Chamberses’ case, broker/owner Keren Boyan and her RE/
MAX Classic Properties team did the staging themselves. Some
Realtors® or homeowners hire professional stagers or interior designers
to provide the service. Charlotte is also home to a regional chapter of
the International Association of Home Staging Professionals, a national
organization of accredited stagers (see page 17).
Getting sellers to stage their home, however, is not always simple.
Trisha Chambers was a little wary at first and even more emotionally
invested in her home than many people.
“I design houses for a living,” she says. “When
Keren first talked about what she wanted to
do, I thought, ‘What are you talking about?’ At
first you’re sort of offended. It’s a very humbling
experience to have someone tell you what’s wrong
or what could be better.”
Nonetheless, Chambers and her husband
took
the plunge and went to work on the list of
Keren Boyan,
recommendations
provided by the Boyan team.
broker/owner
“It’s
very
emotional
when you sell a house, but
RE/MAX Classic
what they did was the best thing that could be
Properties
done — theyy look at it from the perspective of just
Chambers says. “They also know
wanting to sell it,” Cham
how emotional it is, and their team will take over
and drive the train.”
is for appearance
is for benefits
Investing more energy, less money
In today’s market, Boyan rarely recommends th
that sellers do major
renovations, and she didn’t in the case of the Chamberses. “Instead
of upgrades, we’re saying how can we be the best deal?” Boyan says.
“If people in this market are wanting to sell, then usually they are not
wanting to invest a lot in their house. … Plus, if you spend the money,
what if your house doesn’t sell? … And if it does, you may not get back
what you put into it.”
The Chamberses repaired plaster, put hardware on some interior
doors, painted the brick foundation and chimney and did front-yard
landscaping to boost curb appeal. They also removed furniture to
improve the flow in the 1,100- to 1,200-square-foot home. “Trisha and
Chad didn’t spend a lot of money, but they spent a lot of energy,”
Boyan says.
They also took the time to get the house ready. “We put probably
three weeks’ worth of cleaning, cleaning out and repairing into the
house before we put it on the market,” Trisha Chambers says. “At times,
we wondered if we were ever going to get it on the market, but waiting
and doing those things was so worth it. It sold right away.”
is for
curb
appeal
‘Made it look like a model home’
Meanwhile, Goode of Dickens-Mitchener &
M
Associates, Inc. obtained a similar quick-sale
Ass
result from staging Beth Winterfield’s nearly
res
2,000-square-foot house in Candlewyck.
2,0
““I was a single, working mom with three children
(ages 18, 15 and 12) and two dogs and a cat —
(ag
it w
was very much a ‘lived in’ house,” Winterfield
Joan Goode,
recalls. “Joan brought in a staging company (Dorann
rec
broker
Designs), and they pretty much did everything.”
De
Dickens-Mitchener
& Associates, Inc.
Winterfield, who was moving because she was
W
remarrying, was shocked at the transformation.
rem
“They made it look like a model home,” she says. “They even placed
“Th
fresh flowers. It looked really nice.”
fres
The house sold within three days after it was listed in May 2008.
T
Listed at $249,000, it closed at $254,000 in August. “Staging was
Lis
HUGE,” Goode wrote in an e-mail. “The stagers moved every piece of
furniture in the home so that it showed beautifully. I also suggested to
Beth that we wash all the windows, which played another big role.”
Winterfield believes the staging, plus some updates she did to the
home when she moved in five years earlier, gave her property an edge
over much of the competition in Candlewyck, a decades-old southeast
Charlotte subdivision.
Though she didn’t redo the kitchen or bathrooms, she put in an
irrigation system, added a new roof, used neutral paint colors, replaced
carpeting and added plantation shutters. “I see a lot of people moving
into Candlewyck now doing these things, and mine had it done,”
Winterfield says.
Sold before they enter the home
Curb appeal has taken on increased importance in today’s market,
Goode says. “The huge thing now is exterior landscaping — just
cleaning up your yard,” she says. “With the leaves off the trees, your
house can really stand out by putting a few pots of flowers here
and there.
continued on page 18
MARCH 2009
REALTOR® REFLECTIONS
15
Be a ‘neat freak,’
and other rules of staging
By Susan Shackelford
The importance of staging a home in today’s market has
increased because of the fierce competition for buyers.
Following are some staging tips that Realtors®, stagers
and interior designers shared with Reflections. Some of
the stagers hold the Accredited Staging Professional (ASP)
accreditation and/or the Accredited Staging Professional
Master (ASPM) accreditation.
Clean
“Your home needs to be spic-and-span and in move-in
condition,” says Marcyne Touchton, ASP and ASPM, with
Domaine Staging. “As Barb Schwarz, the creator of staging,
says, it needs to be Q-tip clean. The perception of prospective
buyers when they come through the door and see cobwebs
and dirt — they perceive the house is not well taken care of.”
Neaten
“Neatness matters,” says Tony Smith, broker/owner with
Wanda Smith & Associates. “You even want the closets to
be neat and organized. You want people to say, ‘They’re neat
freaks.’ They see it as a good indication that the sellers have
cared for the house, whether they have or not.”
De-clutter
“When you live in a house every day, you don’t notice
the clutter,” says interior designer Karen Shue, owner of
Serendipity. “When you sell, you have to eliminate it.”
A common problem “is too much oversized furniture,”
says stager Melissa Kabel, ASPM, and 2009 president of the
Charlotte chapter of the International Association of Home
Staging Professionals.
“You need to keep
the flow of the
house going.”
“Too often we see
too much stuff in a
space,” says Susan
Mikhail, co-owner
of Full Circle
Staging and Design. “We eliminate some of the furniture and
other items.”
Lighten up
“If a home has heavy draperies, make sure they are all
open so that buyers can see the amount of light,” says interior
designer Nick Prato. He also notes that removing all or part of
a wall or adding French doors can bring in light. “People don’t
want to live in the shadows,” he says.
De-personalize
“Remove most pictures and other things that personalize a
house so that prospective buyers don’t see the homeowners
when they visit — they see how their own life fits there,” says
Karen Jones, who has a master’s degree in interior design
and is co-owner of Full Circle Staging and Design.
Consider wall color
“Most people plan on painting anyway, but they like a
neutral backdrop — a clean canvass to work from,” says
Smith of Wanda Smith & Associates. “You go into homes at
all price points and you see some absurd colors.”
“I worked with a homeowner once who was not willing to
paint over a mural in a child’s room, even though the mural
contained the name of her child,” says stager Cheryl Cox,
ASP, of Stage Coach Home Staging.
“I am a color person,” says interior designer Shue, “but a
lot of people can’t walk into a red room and see possibilities. I
advise bringing in color but toning it down.”
Use good photos
“Look at the photos online and you see a lot that should
not be there because of the quality,” says Cox of Stage Coach
Home Staging. “Photography plays an important role in
selling a home. You can showcase architectural details of a
home rather than showing an empty room.”
“Use a professional photographer,” says Touchton of
Domaine Staging, “Most people look at the house online
before they put a home on their ‘must-see’ list.”
Stage before listing
“Don’t be in a rush to get a home on the market,” says
broker Joan B. Goode with Dickens-Mitchener & Associates,
Inc. “Get it ready and photograph it when it’s not raining and
the sky is blue. People are clicking on the Internet; that is
their first shopping point.”
“Each house needs to tell a story of how it’s enjoyable and
easy to live in,” says broker Elizabeth Grillo of EG Real Estate
Consultants. “The whole house has to tell it.”
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REALTOR® REFLECTIONS
MARCH 2009
“I advise homeowners to talk to their Realtor® before putting it
on the market — don’t put out a shingle and stage it later,” says
stager Kabel. “You’ve got to make a great first impression.”
Keep buyer in mind
If you’re staging a vacant home, select furnishings that might
appeal to the target market for the property. For example, “if it’s a
condo near uptown, I’m going to gear it to young single professionals or couples who likely don’t have kids,” says broker Jeff
Absher of RE/MAX Classic Properties. “The staging would be sort
of urban, somewhat contemporary but cozy, and a lot of earth
tones — the Crate & Barrel or Pottery Barn look.”
Establish, maintain curb appeal
“Change the hardware on the front door and the street
numbers on the house if they don’t look good,” says interior
designer Prato. “Wear on these items shows a lack of care. The
buyer thinks, ‘If you’re overlooking these things, what are you
overlooking inside?’
“You can have the greatest interior in the world … but without
curb appeal, prospects won’t even go into a house,” says stager
Ann Hodges of Sensible Space. “Have a well-manicured yard,
shrubbery that’s been trimmed and something to make them
feel welcome, like a nice clean mat at the door. Also, repair light
fixtures, and make sure the house is washed down. You don’t
want people to go to the front door, see cobwebs and think they
are going into Dracula’s house.”
“Curb appeal is so important because of the Internet,” says
stager Kabel. “In the first 30 seconds online prospective buyers
decide if they like the house or not.”
“Houses have to exhibit a pride in ownership,” says Smith of Wanda
Smith & Associates. “You want shrubbery pruned and the yard cut.
You want the yard to look like it just had a haircut all the time.”
“Paint the front door and/or woodwork if it’s needed,” says
Lynnsy Logue of Lynnsy Logue Real Estate.
“Also soap and water go a long way;
clean everything. You may need to
power-wash the house. Trim the
bushes, put out pine straw
around the plants and
fix the brick porch
if it starts splitting.”
Accreditation for
Realtors® and
stagers
Many Realtors® stage homes for their sellers, while others
turn to interior designers, decorators and stagers to provide
the service.
Some stagers obtain accreditations. There are three
options, all provide through StagedHomes.com. They are
ASP Real Estate Agent, a two-day course; Accredited
Staging Professional (ASP), a three-day course; and
Accredited Staging Professional Master (ASPM), a five-day
course. One must complete the three-day ASP course before
taking the ASPM class.
In late January, NAR was slated to start offering a $349
online staging course at www.learninglibrary.com/realtoruniversity. Barb Schwarz, the founder of the staging concept,
provides the course. It educates Realtors® on the staging
concept but does not provide accreditation, Schwarz says.
“I teach agents how to communicate how important
home staging is,” Schwarz told Reflections in an e-mail. She
also imparts “how to work with ASP home stagers to help
the seller sell property in today’s market for top dollar in the
quickest amount of time,” she says.
Agents also may take a $399 online course through
Schwarz at her own Web site, www.stagedhomes.com,
and earn the ASP accreditation. Staged Homes provides
classroom options to obtain accreditations as well. Once
the accreditation is obtained, it must be renewed through
annual dues, according to the stagedhomes.com Web site.
Stagers with a current ASP designation and who maintain
a bio/feature page at stagedhomes.com are also eligible
to join the International Association of Home Staging
Professionals (IAHSP), which has a regional chapter in
Charlotte with 29 members as of mid-January.
The chapter won one of IAHSP’s 2008 chapter excellence
awards, says Melissa Kabel, ASPM, and 2009 president of
the IAHSP Charlotte chapter. — Susan Shackelford
MARCH 2009
REALTOR® REFLECTIONS
17
is for decor
continued from page 15
“It’s amazing when I drive by a property with buyers,” she continues.
“They have made up their mind about a house about 50 percent of the
time before they ever go through the front door. They have looked at it
online. If they drive up and it looks better than it did online, then they
might go in.”
Adding a cozy feel to an empty residence
With vacant homes, staging is a “must” in this market, many
Realtors® say. In nearly six years of selling real
estate, broker Jeff Absher had never recommended
hiring a staging company to upfit a vacant home —
until last summer.
“In the past … if it was a vacant home in a hot
neighborhood, it was almost a waste of the seller’s
money,” says Absher, who is with RE/MAX
Classic Properties. “Maybe if I had had more
Jeff Absher,
listings in suburban neighborhoods it would have
RE/MAX Classic
been necessary.”
Properties
His seller, who had relocated to Connecticut, updated
the three-bedroom town home in Dilworth Heights last spring, putting in
new cabinets, appliances, refinishing floors, replacing carpet, etc. But in
seeking a top price in that market, Absher knew it had to be staged as well.
“I had to convince the seller because he was the one who was going
to be paying for it,” Absher recalls. “In the old days when people were
fighting in the yard over who would get a house, you didn’t have to
worry about it so much. Now real estate agents need to use every tool
at their disposal.”
The seller picked Showhomes Charlotte from three staging
companies Absher recommended. After meeting at the town home
with the firm’s Phyllis Graham and discussing the urban but cozy feel
Absher was looking for, Showhomes took it from there. It selected the
furnishings, supervised the movers and cleaned up afterward.
The seller’s $3,500 to $4,000 in staging was well worth it, Absher
says. Listed in July 2008, the house sold in about three months for
$295,000, 9 percent less than the initial asking price of $325,000.
“The most a unit like this (in Dilworth Heights) had ever sold for was
$302,000, and that was in 2007 when the market was at its peak,”
he notes.
Expounding on staging’s role, Absher says: “It’s all psychological
based on visuals. It gives buyers the idea of furniture placement and
makes the place seem more like a home. I’m not sure buyers are
conscious of it, but at the end of the day when they’ve seen 10 houses,
they tend to remember ones … that are warm and more exciting.”
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REALTOR® REFLECTIONS
MARCH 2009
,
,
MARCH 2009
REALTOR® REFLECTIONS
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