| WINNING THE REAL ESTATE WAR |
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| 10 Tips From Home Stagers |
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By Julie Cazzin
Part 1: Introduction
Last spring when Jim and Heather Thompson decided to sell
their home in Vancouver, they realized they knew little
about how to get top value for their biggest possession.
"We were talking about our life savings," says
Jim, 47, who works as the head of sales for a technology
company. "But I was really clueless as to what sells."
The Thompsons enlisted the help of John Carter, co-founder
of DEKORA, a "home-staging" firm in Vancouver.
Carter spent a day going through their home room by room
and drawing up a list of suggestions aimed at maximizing
their house's appeal for prospective buyers. After discussing
his proposals — which ranged from removing some
shrubs in the front yard to powerwashing the driveway
and walkways — the Thompsons gave Carter's crew
the go-ahead to implement some of his ideas. Total cost:
$4,000.
We know what you're thinking — $4,000 just to get
your home ready for sale? — but consider the results.
After a single Sunday showing early last year, the Thompsons'
home attracted three offers, all of them higher than the
couple's asking price of $649,000. Three days later the
Thompsons agreed to sell their residence for a $41,000
premium over the listed price. While a hot real estate
market helped, the Thompsons are convinced that Carter's
primping and attention to detail was a big reason for
their house's runaway success. "Our place fetched
the highest price of any bungalow sold on our street —
ever," says Jim.
Home stagers like Carter claim they can help anyone get
a premium price for their home. Practically unknown in
Canada even three years ago, stagers are now a presence
in the real estate markets of Toronto and Vancouver and
are popping up in many other cities as well. These home
professionals — many of them former decorators or
real estate agents — specialize in knowing what
motivates potential buyers. They use all the tricks of
the trade to help homeowners come out on top in the perpetual
battle between buyers and sellers. "Getting a house
ready to live in and getting a house ready to sell are
two totalldifferent things," says Carter. "Decorating
is about making a home comfortable for you and your family;
staging a home is about merchandising properties. It involves
making a house clean and clutter-free so people can connect
with the home. Done right, it helps your place sell faster
and for
more money."
How much more? Coldwell Banker Realty tracked 2,772 properties,
ranging in price from $229,000 (U.S.) to $4.8 million,
in eight major U.S. cities. It found that while the average
home was on the market for nearly 31 days, the typical
staged home sold in just under 14 days. And while the
average home sold for a mere 1.6% over the seller's asking
price, the staged homes went for a hefty 6.3% more.
Home stagers perform their magic by playing up the best
features of your house and minimizing the worst. They
rearrange artwork on the wall, pack up your prized bowling
trophies and clear out your son's high chair. Most stagers
charge about $100 for an initial consultation; you then
have the option of executing their suggestions on your
own or hiring the stager to do it for you at $100 an hour.
We asked Carter and other home stagers to share their
10 best tips with us. Want to get top value for your home?
Sit back and listen up:
Part 2: Tips
1. Make an impression
Prospective buyers make up their minds about your house
even before they get out of the car. To ensure they have
the right idea, clean up your yard, rake the leaves, shovel
the snow, and sweep driveways and porches. Get out the
rags and cleanser and spend 30 minutes scouring your front
door, porch, railings and steps. Then tuck away all your
recycling cans and bins at the back of
the house.
Debra Gould, who owns the Six Elements home-staging firm
in Toronto, says it's important to avoid planting negative
associations in buyers' minds. When attending an open
house she had to climb several steps to get to the front
door. "I couldn't help but think that this could
be a nuisance with groceries," says Gould. "Then,
when I finally got to the top, the recycling bins were
sitting right there on the porch. I immediately told myself,
'Imagine carrying one of those bins full of newspapers,
cans down several slippery steps.' I couldn't see myself
doing that, so I left, knowing it wasn't the house for
me."
2. Unclutter
Clutter eats equity, say stagers. So purge your closets,
empty cupboards, box up small appliances. Rent a storage
locker to keep what you want, then toss the rest. "I
give storage boxes to my clients and tell them to edit,
edit, edit," says Theodore Babiak, a Toronto real
estate agent with Royal LePage. "I suggest they take
some of their books off the shelves, reduce the number
of CDs or DVDs, pare everything down."
The stager's motto? Be ruthless. When Tamara Roberts was
selling her Vancouver condo last year, she paid $150 for
a one-hour consultation with home stager Carter, who gave
her a detailed to-do list that included instructions to
leave only one thing on the kitchen counter (a bowl of
crisp green apples) and to remove fridge magnets and small
area rugs. "Everyone knows to unclutter," says
Roberts, "but John brought it down to specifics.
He even had me keep a storage container under the bed
so I could throw my pajamas and bedtime reading in there
so buyers wouldn't see it." The payoff? Her condo
sold in one day for $6,000 more than her asking price
of $339,000.
3. Impersonal works
You want buyers to imagine themselves living in your home,
not to feel like a guest in it. So stash anything connected
to your family or personal interests. Hide your son's
hockey trophies, store family photos, remove all traces
of day-to-day life. "If someone goes into the bathroom,"
says home stager Gould, "and the rim of the tub is
covered with shampoo bottles while people's toothbrushes
are lying around the sink, it's hard for that person to
imagine that this could be his or her bathroom. The buyer
becomes very conscious of being in someone else's environment.
That won't get you an offer."
4. Keep it fresh
Barb Schwarz, president of StagedHomes.ca of Concord,
Calif., has been staging homes for 30 years and she says
a disturbing number of home sellers don't realize that
their home … um, smells. "There's nothing worse
than stepping into a house that smells of smoke and pet
odors," says Schwarz. The easy solution is to keep
your windows open for 10 minutes a day. This strategy
works better than deodorizers, says Schwarz, since a lot
of people have allergies to artificial room fresheners.
The oldest trick of all? Leave chocolate chip cookies
baking in the oven. Yes, it's hokey, but the smell does
do wonders to help buyers bond with your home.
5. Declare war on grime
Cleanliness helps put a buyer's mind at ease since it
suggests that you've probably taken good care of your
residence in other ways as well. So clean everything:
walls, door handles, light fixtures and pantry cupboards.
At Carter's suggestion, Jim Thompson, the Vancouver home
seller, hired a professional cleaner to scour the inside
of his home and a contractor to powerwash windows, walkways,
eavestroughs and pathways.
Toronto home stager Gould recommends you pay special attention
to the furnace room since every home buyer wonders what
shape the furnace is in. "If the furnace looks clean,
it looks newer," says Gould. That goes for the fuse
box and electrical panel, too.
6. Hire a handyman
Dripping faucets, cracked tiles and mouldy caulking around
the bathtub can knock thousands of dollars off the price
of your home. "I have a lot of clients who say, 'Well,
that's a little problem, the buyer can deal with it,'
says Gould, who makes a practice of walking through sellers'
homes and compiling a list of what needs to be fixed.
"And I say, 'No, if it's a little thing, then we
should deal with it.' "
7. Color it up
Your single best investment may be a fresh coat of paint
in key areas of your home. "Paint your front door
and put some urns with brightly colored flowers on your
front step or just inside the entryway," says Jane
Hall, a Toronto designer and owner of The Voice of Color
in Toronto. "Those things make a house seem cared
for, different and important."
8. Reduce furniture
An easy way to create a sense of space is to get rid of
some furniture. Moving a sofa and end tables into storage
can give a small room some much-needed breathing space.
So too can storing the table and chairs that normally
sit in your kitchen, piled high with mail, magazines,
books and groceries.
If your furniture dates from the Mulroney era, consider
packing it away and renting a few modern, stylish pieces
or borrowing a couple of well-chosen pieces of wall art.
"Keep it clean and simple," says Carter, "like
a hotel room or the show room for a new house."
9. Light me up
The brighter and sunnier a space, the easier it is to
sell. Start by investing in a good window-cleaning service.
Stagers say clean windows let in as much as 30% more light
than grimy ones. Then thoroughly clean the shades on your
light fixtures, change light bulbs and add floor lamps
if an area seems dim. Dump those energy-saving 60-watt
bulbs and go with higher wattage lights for maximum illumination.
Finally, when it comes time to show your home, make sure
all the lights are on. "Hallways especially should
be lit," says home stager Hall. "When those
are dark, it gets depressing for buyers going from
room to room."
10. Add a touch of humanity
A couple of planters on your front porch, a vase of flowers
on your dining room table, even a simple rose in a bud
vase can warm up a room. This is where you can let some
of your creativity show through. "You want to get
away from making rooms feel dull and sterile," says
the home stager Gould. "Flowers and plants are good
for that." Candles help, too.
Apply all these tips and the final results can be stunning.
"I could never have achieved anything as effective
on my own," says Thompson, the Vancouver home seller.
"The stagers helped me turn it into a show home.
And even though this might sound silly, all the changes
made it so attractive that it sort of made me want to
stay."
Such feelings are common. Stagers say a few homeowners
actually change their plans and take their residences
off the market once they see how good their old places
can look. Many decide to stage not just their old homes,
but their new ones as well. "Home sellers will often
ask me to come to their new home and work some of my magic
there because they don't want to go back to their old
way of living," says home stager Schwarz, who's prepped
more than 2,000 homes in the U.S. and Canada. In fact,
Schwarz notes that a lot of home sellers don't even want
to see any of the stuff they've put into storage because
they discover they've never missed it. "They want
to live fresh, clean and
clutter-free. It's a wonderful thing. Because staging
is, above all, a
cleansing experience." |
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