Home Staging
What was once a privilege just for the wealthy; Home Staging has become more readily affordable and popular with the average Canadian seller. It’s no wonder! We are a generation in love with the before and after effects of home makeovers. Flick through your television channels and there’s a good chance you’ll find two or three shows dedicated to home improvements, renovations, restorations and DIYs. These shows demonstrate to us that a little investment goes a long way, especially when it comes to presenting a home for sale. Realtors® all over Canada are getting on the ‘Staging Wagon’ to increase their sales success and their selling prices.
But don’t just get any old stager, its important to be sure of your stager’s ability. “I had one [stager] who just came to the property to water the plants and change the display lemons in the fruit bowel,” says Lily Villa, Real Estate Broker at Harvey Kalles Real Estate Brokerage, and avid user of a Home Staging service. “These days any person can call themselves a stager.” Lily uses Home Staging for all her listings to give her business the competitive edge. “I believe all homes should be prepared for sale properly.
Getting a professional stager in before putting the home on the market is a very important step,” says Lily. “From my experience, staged homes sell quite fast and for high prices.” Home Staging is often the most beneficial to those homes deemed “unsellable.” It’s happened to all Realtors® at least once in their career; you walk into a new client’s house and you instantly know that its presentation will put off potential buyers. Toys scattered throughout the living room, the bathroom’s ceiling is covered in mould, the burnt orange shag-pile inspired broadloom has seen better days, the eighties soft pink leather couch sags in the wrong places and the lamp shades are the colour of dust.
But the client takes you on a tour with pride, opening each room with a smile on their face, stating stories of yesteryear and pointing out perceived value-adding aspects of their home. You smile and nod on the outside but on the inside you are gasping. Those cringe-worthy properties are out there, but they’re not as daunting as they once were. Home Staging can be your solution to the most dilapidated property. Home Staging is both an art and a science. Home Stagers artistically create ambiance, aesthetics and space through designs, continuity and colour schemes. A staged room appears larger than a cluttered room or even an empty room. Home Stagers use rules of scale, layout and positioning to achieve a broader appeal of the property to a wider slice of potential buyers. Home Stagers can also repair, clean and scrub to transform your listing from “unsellable” to “show home”.
Home Stagers should be aware of cultural trends in locations and reflect this by staging for the expected buyer demographic. It’s a difficult situation to be in. You can’t offend your client, but as a Realtor® you need to achieve the highest selling figure possible for both your income and the client’s satisfaction. So how do you convince your seller that their house is a dump when they believe it’s their castle? You can’t be brutally honest and shred your client’s perception of the home they’ve worked so hard towards. You must be tactfully flattering and approach the situation with sensitivity. The average Canadian understands the real estate market more than ever before and has an uncanny desire to get the highest possible price for their property. So there’s your professional hook – the highest possible sale price for their beloved home.
“I got my client 14% more than the asking price by using a Home Staging Service. Considering the unit did not have a good view and was quite old, Home Staging was a very good investment,” says Lily Villa, who agrees that it can be hard to get your seller to submit additional money to the sale. “I normally pay for the initial Home Staging consultation. Once the stager and I have a staging plan I normally get the client to pay for the staging upfront and reimburse whatever part we agree upon after the property closes. My sellers are happy to stage once they see its benefits.” So take Lily’s advice when you sit your seller down to go through the motions of creating your listing.
Discuss price and use this point to bring up the suggestion of utilising a Home Stager’s expertise. State the potential of the property, focus on positive aspects such as the decade it was built, the popular layout or the excellent location. Mention that their personal style is strong throughout the property’s features and that in your experience it has been difficult to get a good price for a property when the buyer can’t see themselves in it. Once they understand this you must convince them that the property needs to be de-personalised in order to achieve the highest possible price and that this can be quickly and easily achieved with the service of a Home Stager.
The seller will find the suggestion of outlaying more money over the top, after all they are paying you a commission to sell the property and it is your job to sell it. But it isn’t a seller’s market; it’s a buyer’s market. Insist that the additional service cost of a Home Stager is an investment and that they should expect to see a return on their investment with their selling price. If you get your seller over the line you will have transformed a nightmare listing into a cash cow. Article Courtesy Of Prpertywire.ca Written by Carla Wood, MBA, MSRE