All the World’s a Stage – Including Your Living Room

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 in staging a home is an objective viewpoint. According to staging expert, Barb Schwarz (www.stagedhomes.com), stand in the doorway to study the first impression your home makes.

In staging a clients’ home, the organizing professionals at White Space™ most often need to clear the clutter and accumulation of years spent in the home. Too much furniture can make rooms appear small. Too many personal photos and memorabilia can make your home less attractive to prospective buyers. Too much visual stimulation; i.e. patterns, paint colors, artwork, books, etc; can be discomforting to someone considering your home as potentially theirs. You don’t want them running screaming from the room. You want them to ask if there’s coffee and to take a comfortable seat.

Besides decluttering and organizing spaces, we often rearrange furniture and hire a good thorough cleaning of the home to be done. The air smells fresher and feels lighter to visitors. Often we need to rent a storage space for the items removed from the home.

Todd, who worked at White Space™ five years ago recently staged his home utilizing the skills learned while employed here. In a market where the average time on market is 60 to 90 days, his home sold in five. And his realtor asked him who he hired to stage his home because it was better executed than the two professional firms he engages. Todd wrote to thank me which opened the door to catching up on many other things; like the upcoming birth of his first child and his new custom guitar business. Just another side benefit of home staging . . .