Here are some recent Twitter Tweets related to home staging I noted today. If you use twitter for home staging, please leave a comment about how its going for you in the comment section.
Virtual Staging Or Just Misleading Pictures?: If you’re a home stager, depending on what email lists you … http://bit.ly/9LTqLx
You Tube has grown rapidly to the point that it is one of the dominant sites online. Google loves video and tying video to your Home Staging Blog is a natural. And its actually quite easy.
We won’t go into the how to today, but will show a handful of YouTube videos relating to home staging. Now tell the truth didn’t you always want to star in the movies. See how these home stagers are doing it.
Home Staging Tips for Top Dollar Sale of your Home by Susan Botticelli, Realtor, Broker and Home Staging Expert. Susan specializes in residential sales in the Rancho San Diego area of El Cajon, California. Visit www.RanchoSanDiegoLifestyle.com or cal…
Stage your living to attract homebuyers. Living Room’s are often the first space that a homebuyer views when walking through the front door. First impressions are crucial when selling your home. Start with a blank canvas and start removing everything…
You’ve got only a few seconds to make a good first impression when selling your home and it starts at the curb. If you’re putting your house up for sale, curb appeal can increase the value of your home and help it sell more quickly. Follow these tips…
Staging has, of late, taken on increasing importance in real estate marketing. Several weeks ago Prudential Rubloff agent Francesca Rose and I shot video of a unit at ParkView Condominiums prior to its being staged. The transformation, as you can see…
www.redhousestaging.com Red House Style is a TV show from Washington DC’s to staging company Red House Staging & interiors.Hosted by Tracy Griffin – In episode 1 you’ll see how they transform a vacant loft apartment in downtown DC into a breath takin…
Home stagers are using video to tell the story, establish their own credibility and showcase their skill. You can do the same with your cell phone or an inexpensive flip camera.
One of the hottest trends to sell a home today is home staging, an interior decorating technique for making the most of your home’s attributes and making it more appealing to the widest array of potential buyers. Home staging has been known to boost home sales prices, as well as quicken the amount of time the home stays on the market. But the question is – What is the pricing for home staging-and is it worth it?
Preparing Your Home for Sale.
Most sellers realize the importance of cleaning up their home before putting it on the market. Things like fixing leaky sinks, mending cracks in the walls and completing other minor repairs are also pretty standard. These things are often good to do, and, in many ways, are considered forms of “staging,” or preparing your home for sale.
What Do Home Stagers Do?
There are professionals, however, who will go above and beyond what most homeowners think of when they go to sell their house. While decorating is geared toward the owner, Home Staging is aimed first and foremost at pleasing the biggest possible number of buyers. For a fee, these home stagers will come into your home and use your existing items. Or, bring in items that add that special touch to complete a room and make your house as attractive as possible. Home staging costs often include moving around, removing or adding furniture and adding tasteful artwork or other decoration to make your home really shine.
Staging – Is It Worth It?
The main benefit of hiring a professional to stage your home is that they will look at your surroundings with an experienced, tasteful and objective buyer’s eye. They won’t be attached to a souvenir plate collection, like the homeowner would. They will be able to come in and tell you which items should be removed, what should be added, and how best to feature your home.
While home staging may seem like an unnecessary expense, there probably isn’t a single house that couldn’t benefit from a bit of carefully manipulated staging. Only a mere 10% of home buyers can actually visualize living in your home, or your homes hidden potential. This is why having a vacant home staged is so important. Buyers cannot visualize size and scale, so furniture helps to give them a frame of reference.
Why Can’t I Just Stage My Own Home?
Home owners have gotten used to the way their home looks and in fact it is difficult emotionally to change it. If you can’t view something objectively then you are unable to market and package it effectively. Not to mention, most home sellers don’t stage homes everyday for a living. Staging is more than a “to-do” list, de-cluttering, and painting. Its about decorating a home for potential buyers. Home Stagers, rearrange, shop the home, and pull items from other rooms, to create a whole new look to rooms. It takes a designers eye, to pull the rooms together. And often, suggestions and changes from professionals can amount to significant increases in the bottom line profit when selling your home.
Will My House Sell If It’s Not Staged?
Eventually, every house will sell…it’s just a matter of when and for how much. Even if your house sells quickly in a good market, it doesn’t mean it sold for the amount it would have sold for had it been professionally staged.
How Much Does Home Staging Cost?
Having your home staged, doesn’t cost a fortune. It’s the most inexpensive way to achieve the most dramatic and profitable results. Home staging pricing runs from $200+ depending on the market you’re in. According to a 2003 Survey, by Home Gain, statistics showed an average of a 6+% increase in the final sales price on homes that had been staged, versus those that had not. On a $300,000 home, that’s a $18,000 increase! And well worth the low cost of home staging fees.
To find out how to best showcase your home for sale, contact a home staging professional or your local realtor. Many realtor’s will even offer home staging services as part of their listing package, so be sure to ask if that’s something they offer, or if they can recommend someone in the industry. If you’re willing to put out a bit of money up front, you just might find that the benefits from staging your home can greatly outweigh home staging costs. In the end, Home Staging is really a no risk, win-win situation for everyone involved!
Cindy Bryant – Owner of Redesign Etc. a Home Staging & Interior Redesign Service. Serving Houston’s Bay & Gulf Coast. Featured on ABC Houston, The Houston Chronicle, Live Talk Radio, and author.
Have you ever heard a real estate agent say that “It’s a buyer’s world out there”? The sentiment rings true because due to the economic problems that the United States and the rest of the world has experienced for the past few years, the housing industry has also sank to record lows. While things are still getting back to normal as far as the real estate industry is concerned, how can homesellers make sure that they are still getting top dollar for the residential real estate property that they selling? How can homebuyers get the best value for their hard-earned bucks? This is where home staging comes in.
Here, we will take a look at the reasons why home staging is necessary when selling or buying a home, and also enumerate the top tips on how you can stage your home in such a way that your home buying or home selling goals will be met.
Why is Home Staging Important in the First Place?
So why is home staging important in the first place? Experienced real estate agents would know this: staged homes sell twice as fast as a hastily prepared house prior to selling. Again, this is a buyer’s market that we are talking about so if you are a home seller and you do not exert enough of an effort to make sure that buyers will be interested in purchasing your home, then it might stay in the market for quite a long time.
Another reason why home staging is necessary is simple: staged homes sell for more money. If a real estate property for sales sits on the market for a long time, the seller will usually get lower offers because buyers think that there is something wrong with the property that you are selling. If you want the selling process to be over and done with quickly, you need to make sure to stage it properly.
Next, no matter which part of the house it is that you stage – be it your porch, kitchen or living room – these will have an instant impact to a potential buyer. When potential buyers drive over to your home, make sure that they will be enticed enough to actually get out of the car and get a closer look, rather than just driving by. More importantly, staged homes attract real estate agents; they get more advertising; they can be appraised for top dollar; and it helps you as a seller to speed up your move.
Staging Your Home to be Sold for Top Dollar
Now that you already have a basic idea about the importance of home staging from both the buyer’s and the seller’s perspective, how about when you are a seller? How can you make sure that the way that you are staging your home is good enough for it to be sold at premium value, despite the economic crunch?
It all boils down to how staging your home will make an impact to a potential buyer. To help you out, here are a few home staging tips that you need to keep in mind if you want to sell your house for top dollar:
1. Learn what home staging is all about.
Simply put, home staging is a cost-effective way of enticing home buyers to purchase your home. It’s all about getting a potential buyer to imagine how it is to live within the walls of your home, or beautify the existing garden even more. The basics, however, involve decluttering and cleaning the premises. Make sure to get rid of all the personal clutter like family portraits. Even if those things have a sentimental value for you, a buyer would want to have his or her own family portrait in the living room – not yours.
Remember that home staging is all about teasing a buyer’s imagination so that living in the house in the future would seem like a viable prospect.
2. Remember that home staging is more than decorating.
After decluttering your home from all the personal effects, you can use strategic decorations such as mirrors to make a room appear larger, for example, but home staging goes beyond that. Make sure that whatever furniture’s left is artfully arranged to highlight a focal point in the room. Upgrade accessories if you need to. Naturally, you should have already attended to the needed repairs and fresh paint is always necessary.
3. Do to the exterior what you are doing with the interior of your home.
Sometimes, all it takes is the sight of a white picket fence to entice a buyer to purchase your home. Make sure that the exterior is as inviting as the inside of your house. Replace any dead plants, trim the lawn and add a few outdoor furniture if you have to or go for strategic lighting to highlight the features of the house’s exterior.
On average, a staged home sells twice as fast as the average home on the market. In addition to speeding up the selling process, taking the time and effort to properly stage your home will greatly increase its asking price. It wouldn’t even matter if you take the economic crunch into factor. Generally, a staged home has a better selling value as compared to a run-of-the-mill, freshly painted home.
How to Use Marketing or Design Psychology to Up Your Home’s Value
There is one more important factor that you need to take into account when it comes to home staging. What you can do is combine marketing and design psychology so that the value of the house that you are selling will increase. When creating flyers, for example, create a copy which goes straight to the heart. Instead of saying that the large backyard has a built-in barbecue grill, indicate that the property has a ‘private backyard park with a built-in barbecue where you can entertain your friends.”
At the end of the day, being a home seller or a home buyer requires some effort on your part so that you can go about proper home staging. By doing so, you can sell your home to your target market at top dollar if you are a home seller; and get the best value for your real estate property if you are a home buyer.
Let the Mark Z Home Selling Team help you find your next dream home… Are you looking for Bank Owned Homes in Michigan? How about Commerce MI Real Estate or homes in Oakland County. For more information you can contact us at 248.937.1337.
Here is another in my series of articles from Home Stagers who have learned how to drive traffic and back links to their sites by article marketing.
=============================== Home Staging – Why It Works
With the popularity of home staging television shows, many are wondering if staging works in the “real world.” Home staging is more than just good entertainment on a Saturday afternoon, it is a proven technique that sells homes in Hollywood and across the country.
HOME STAGING DESCRIPTION: Home staging is the art of preparing your house for sale by highlighting the home’s features through furniture arrangement, accent placement, and color choices. An Accredited Staging Professional is a real estate expert that performs an objective evaluation of a property to determine any obstacles that may hinder buyer interest in your home. Staging is not decorating. Home staging involves using interior design principles and marketing strategies to best represent your home.
WHY STAGING WORKS: Home staging works because a properly staged house is a house shown at its best condition. Each room contains important design elements: highlighted focal points, proper furniture placement to create a larger space and smooth traffic patterns, tasteful color selections on walls and through home decor, and properly placed home accents. All these principles working together create an atmosphere that triggers buyers’ emotions, causing them to fall in love with the home.
In a staged home, buyers will see that:
* Staged homes look well cared for: staging addresses updating the home’s decor while working within the home owner’s budget.
* Staged homes are uncluttered: staging involves removing excess items so buyers can see the home’s features.
* Staged homes have a pleasant atmosphere: staging displays the best furniture layout for your home, highlighting the focal points and creating easy pathways around the furniture.
* Staged homes appeal to a wider range of buyers: staging neutralizes a homes decor, giving it a model house-like appeal, thus attracting more buyers.
These elements help to generate buyer interest causing wonderful side-effects
HOME STAGING SIDE EFFECTS (BENEFITS):
1. Higher Asking Price: Statistically, homes that have been staged command higher asking prices than non-staged homes, because the house is in top showing condition.
2. Faster Sale Time: Statistically, staged houses sell in one-third time than non-staged houses
3. Greater Rate of Return: Statistically, the investment in staging is returned to the homeowner when their house sells. The average rate of return is about 120%. For example, if a home owner invested $500 in staging their house, they are likely to receive $560 back from the sale of their home through fewer (if any) price reductions or from an increase in asking price.
HOME STAGING STATISTICS:
Staged homes sell quicker than non-staged houses…
* Nationwide, staged home is on the market for an average of 31.9 days
* Nationwide, non-staged home is on the market around 160 days
* 93% of ASP homes sell within one month
* This could mean the difference between days and months!
* For complete statistics visit the Staged Homes Website
Staging is a win-win situation. The sellers win because their houses are sold in a shorter amount of time compared to a non-staged homes, and the real estate agents win because their listing sell faster than agents who don’t recommend staging. Results do not lie. Story after story has been told of how staging made the difference in the sale of a home.
For more information on staging or to view gallery photos of staging projects visit: www.kfmstaging.com.
Kristina, owner of KFM Staging & Design, is an Accredited Staging Professional and has been working with Realtors, builders, and homeowners in the Twin Cities for over ten years. KFM Staging & Design specializes in consulting as a real estate expert, performing vacant and occupied staging services, and working with re-design clients.
If you have followed my postings for any length of time, You will be aware that I am an advocate for using Squidoo as a source of traffic and in particular high ranked backlinks to your web site.
I’m so positive on Squidoo, I’ve even published a book on the site. You can get it here: Squidoo Basics If I say so myself its a bargain at $17 and could go a long way toward helping you establish your web site on Google and the rest of the search engines.
I’ve discovered though, that most people are either too busy or too lazy to go from reading the information to actually doing it. Now I have been asked to do it for others, but that isn’t the type of work I am really looking for. I prefer not to trade my time for dollars. But it is clearly what a lot of people are looking for – someone to do it for them.
My buddy, Bill McRea who also appreciates the power of Squidoo, however has found a person who is not only willing to create sites for other people, she is a master at it. And she is willing to do it for far less than I would charge if you could talk me into doing it for you.
If you are going to get you web site to the top of the search engines in your market, you need to do more than put up a web site and hope people will find it.
One of your best options is to create a Squidoo page and link that to your site. Sometimes you will find that your Squidoo page will actually rank higher than your own page. And while that can be a bit frustrating, it gets you noticed, and that in turn leads to business.
Here is another good example of a home stager using article marketing to promote not only her occupation, but also her designation and her particular business. etn
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Question: Do I really need to stage my house?
Answer: Home staging is recommended to homeowners who are serious about selling their house in the shortest amount of time. Think of this scenario: Two comparable houses are for sale in the same general area. House A was staged and is in prime showing condition. House B was not staged and may have some design issues. Which house do you think buyers will be more interested in? Statistics show us that homes which are professionally prepared for the real estate market sell in one-third less time than non-staged houses.
Question: My Realtor told me to wait to stage, is this good advise?
Answer: The sooner you stage your house, the better it will be for you. If your agent told you to not stage or to wait to stage, your Realtor may not have a complete understanding about the value of home staging. Some agents are concerned about recommending more out-of-pocket expenses for their clients. It is a noble concern but not a necessary one when considering home staging. Stagers work with real estate agents as a team, and most stagers will be happy to answer any questions that Realtors may have regarding the staging process. Realtors may not know it, but stagers may be their greatest asset in the marketing of a client’s home.
Question: How do I choose a stager?
Answer: There are many things to look for when choosing a stager. Before you hire a stager, consider these qualifications:
Look for credentials. A good stager will be professionally trained in staging and design principles.
Ask for references. An experienced stager will have references and a photo gallery of personal projects.
Interview your stager. Most staging businesses are independently owned and will operate differently from each other.
Question: Can I stage my own house? or Can I have my friend stage my house?Answer: It is best to use an independent staging consultant who has an objective view of your home. Professional stagers are specifically trained to find and remove the obstacles that could interfere with the sale of your house. Homeowners and friends who are familiar with a house may find it difficult to apply staging and design principles to areas in which they are emotional attached.
Question: Doesn’t staging cost a lot of money?
Answer: Staging, like any quality service, is not free. Staging costs may range anywhere between $100 for a consultation evaluation to $2500 for full staging services, (Actual costs vary depending upon company pricing and location.) Think of the cost of staging as an investment in your home that will save you time and money when your house is listed. Statistically, the investment of staging a house has a return of approximately 120%; (for a $1000 staging project, a homeowner may see $1200 return when they sell their home. Statistics cited from http://www.stagedhomes.com, with permission). The bottom line is that your investment in staging will usually be less than the first price reduction on your home! Can you really afford to not stage your house?
Question: Isn’t staging and decorating the same thing?
Answer: No. Staging and decorating are on different ends of the spectrum. Staging uses proven techniques that creates an emotional response in buyers; thus generating greater buyer interest. Interior decorating uses design principles and decor to display the homeowners individual tastes and styles. When you decide to sell your home, personal styles will need to be set aside to make your house appealing to the most amount of buyers.
Question: How do I get started?
Answer: Ask your Realtor if their agency provides staging services or stager referrals. Otherwise, to find an Accredited Staging Professional in your area, visit Staged Homes.
Your home may be the biggest investment that you make in your lifetime. When you are ready to list your home, do not sell your investment short. A properly prepared home will sell in the shortest amount of time while commanding the highest offers. For more information on staging visit KFM Staging & Design.
Kristina, owner of KFM Staging & Design, is an Accredited Staging Professional and has been working with Realtors, builders, and homeowners in the Twin Cities for over ten years. KFM Staging & Design specializes in consulting as a real estate expert, performing vacant and occupied staging services, and working with re-design clients.
Here is another in my series of eZine articles demonstrating the type of material that you could also produce in article of your own. As homestagers you are likely able to come up with your own list of the five biggest don’t do’s you have encountered or heard about in your career. Write them down in 300 to 600 words or so and put them on eZine articles and other article directories. Include a reference box at the bottom that links back to your web site. This will give you “Google Juice” and start establishing you as an expert article writer, and home stager. The article below was written by Teri B Clark, and while she is a professional writer, I bet you could have written the article below, and maybe an even better one, what do you think?
— Home Staging and Renovations – The 5 Don’ts
By Teri B Clark
It is time to sell your home. You take a good hard look and realize that there are a few things you need to do to make your home a showcase. But now you wonder…..what things are the best? You certainly don’t want to fix your home in a way that doesn’t get you any return on your investment. Why waste money, right?
Here are five things you don’t want to do:
1. Adding high-end appliances to a modest home. Unless you live in an area where every home on the block has high-end appliances and a granite countertop, don’t add them to yours! You will spend a lot of money and see none of it in return. If you need new appliances or countertops, consider refinishing either or buying nice but less costly versions.
2. Adding hand painted tiles in the bath or kitchen. Sure, they look lovely. And, if you were planning to live there for years, you might want to do that for your own enjoyment. But adding a hand painted tile reflects YOUR tastes and you are trying to sell the home to others. If they want hand painted tile, they will add it!
3. Adding a central vacuum. These are a great feature. But, once again, only do this if you plan to live there and enjoy it yourself!
4. Replacing windows with newer models. Windows are very expensive and will not increase the value of your home at all. People expect a home to have windows and they don’t expect to pay more for a house just because they have them!
5. Adding a swimming pool. This is true even if people in your neighborhood do have them. It is true that a homebuyer likes the idea of a pool, but they are not willing to pay more to get it.
Just be sure that you check to see if a permit is needed before starting any new project. Many departments require permits, even for things as simple as changing a dishwasher.
There are other projects that are often part of home staging, such as replacing old or worn carpeting, painting the walls, refreshing the kitchen with new cabinet or freshly painted cabinet doors, or even putting in a new kitchen floor will give your home added value. That is what home staging is all about – adding value so that you can sell your home faster and for more money!
Teri B Clark is a professional writer and published author. Her most recent book, 301 Simple Things You Can Do To Sell Your Home NOW and For More Money Than You Thought, explains these tips in more detail and offers many, many others. To learn more about Teri’s latest book, visit http://staging-your-home.blogspot.com or sign up for a free newsletter
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The Market Maker program is now live and available for Home Stagers interested in getting more business from their existing web pages.
I did a survey of home stagers last year. One of the things many expressed disappointment in was how little new business they got from their web pages.
Since then, I have held a tele-seminar, and written dozens of articles on how to turn that around. Yet relatively few home stagers have applied the secrets well known and taught in professional internet marketing circles.
I recognize the problem in myself. I often know what to do, but doing it is often another story.
Properly setting up your web page to get customers isn’t about nicer and fancier before and after pictures. It’s about attracting people potentially interested in home staging from YOUR market place, and getting them to identify themselves, so you can directly market your services to them.
The steps required include: changing some techie things about your web site; adding an opt-in box, which used to mean you needed to redo the front page of your web site; writing a special report; and then a long series of email marketing pieces.
Now none of these are too difficult, if you know how to do them, and seemingly impossible if you don’t.
And so, most people didn’t.
That’s why I developed Market Maker. Market maker will do all this for you. Develop new Meta Tags for your web site that will help more people from your town find your web site. Create an opt in form that doesn’t require you to redo your existing web site. It provides a great “ethical bribe” that will encourage people that visit your site to let you know they were there. Let you know they are interested in home staging and most importantly giving you permission to tell them more about you and your services.
Market Maker will dramatically boost your business.
First it helps your home staging company stand out among your competitors. You will be the one that catches and keeps your prospects attention. This will get you a larger percentage of the existing business in your community.
Secondly, not everyone who thinks about using a home stager ends up doing so. With Market Maker, a larger percentage of them will, and when they do decide to use a home stager, it’s highly likely they will pick you.
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There are many ways to market ones home staging business. Most of them are enhanced by having a good web site where you can refer interested people to learn more about you and your business.
That way, when you give a talk to a church group or Chamber of Commerce luncheon you can give people a web page to visit.
But you can also get a lot of free traffic from people surfing the web for information on home staging, if your site is properly set up so it can be found.
Unfortunately, most home staging web sites are not easy to find, because they have not been optimized for search engine traffic. About 85% or all web traffic results from searches on search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and a myriad of others.
If you were to enter the words “home staging” into Google today you would get over 6 million responses. The top 10 names on the page get the vast majority of actual page views, the others 6 million don’t, and that includes your page.
That means that 85% of the people searching for a home stager are unlikely to see your page at all. That’s lost business. Business you could have a shot at…if your web pages were properly optimized to get the search engines attention.
There is an entire industry devoted to Search Engine Optimization or “SEO.”
But there are some simple steps anyone can do, if you are willing to take action and make your web site more attractive to the search engines. If you do, you will get more traffic to your page. And that’s the first step. What you do with that traffic is another issue. But first things first.
In the next week I will be posting a series of articles on SEO. This is a prelude to the release of a major new product. The exact release date and time is being held under wraps for now.
Today, I want to let you know how easy it is to begin to find keywords that apply to your business and website. In later articles I will tell you how to use these keywords, for that’s where the magic of SEO takes place.
There are a lot of expensive paid keyword tools, but the best free tool is Google’s.
Go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
In the middle of the page, you will see a blank box with directions to enter a single word or phrase. Type in the word “Home Staging.”
Make sure the box that says synonyms is checked.
Then you will need to enter the letters from the Captcha code that is there. This is to confirm you are a person and not a computer or robot.
Then click get keyword ideas.
When I did this recently I got 127 keywords related to Home Staging and another 73 related terms. Not all of these are appropriate for a home stager looking to find customers. But many are. This is because different people will use different terms to search for you. If your web site is only set up to attract some of these keywords, you won’t stand a chance of showing up in the results the search engines return at all.
There is a lot more to say about all this, and it does matter. If your web site is properly optimized to get traffic from all the relevant keywords and your competitor across town isn’t you will get more business.
If your competitor’s website is properly optimized and yours isn’t you will loose out on business you could be getting.
If you’re not turning away customers today because you are too busy, you may want to consider making the effort to understand keywords and how they apply to your web site.
More on this tomorrow. And don’t forget to sign up for information on Market Maker.
It is designed to put your web marketing on auto pilot and to pay for itself!
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June 18, 2010 
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home stager, Home Staging, Home Staging tips, Twitter, Twitter Tweets
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