September 19th, 2006
I have been carrying around a copy of Malcolm Gladwell’s, The Tipping Point, ever since it first hit bookstores. I even made my family pull over during a holiday trek into the mountains to search bookstores prematurely because I just knew it had wisdom I wanted.
Well, nearly three years later and following several incomplete forays into its pages, one of the professional organizers at White Space who knows me well gave me The Tipping Point on CD. I was about to embark on a road trip and she suggested it might be a way for me to finish the book.
The good news . . .it worked.
The better news . . .I discovered numerous points of wisdom that were key “a-ha” moments for me.
Consider Gladwell’s point of view on “clutter.” Granted, he was talking about the information clutter we experience on a daily basis. According to his research we are now besieged by 254 different messages daily. And the challenge for marketers is to not only stand out, but to be memorable – or in his terms “sticky.” The difficulty for them is that our minds are so “cluttered” with the immediate details, information and statistics of our daily lives that we have little capacity left for potential items of interest.
Guess what?!? The same is true for our physical environments. When your desktop, closet, cabinets or car are strewn or stuffed with clutter it is nearly impossible to focus …
September 7th, 2006
With the recent tightening in the residential real estate market, we’ve started receiving numerous calls from around the country inquiring about Home Staging. Home staging, is an emerging practice among home sellers at every price level.
Home Staging is in practical terms, putting your home’s best foot forward. It’s optimizing your home’s appeal and it has real payoffs. It’s been stated that Home Staging can maximize the selling price by as much as 10% while minimizing the time the home is on the market by weeks and months.
Who doesn’t want to sell their home for as much as possible and in as little time as possible? All of our White Space ™ clients, for sure.
Until recently we had only staged homes from clients who came to us originally for other reasons; file systems, storage and closet organization, or general de-cluttering of their homes. We had staged perhaps a dozen homes. We’ve had 50 or more inquiries in recent weeks for our services in this area.
We just completed three stagings and the clients’ reactions were similar. Our client, Andy, said his home felt sterile to him. And Linda said she felt as though she was living in a hotel. Mission Accomplished!!!
That’s a good gauge as to our success in creating a home that potential buyers could see as their home. As of this blogging, Andy’s home has sold and Linda has had much more activity in viewings and interest. She may even be in contract by now.
The most important asset …
