In today's softening real estate market, we are working with proactive sellers - Sellers who are doing everything they know how to - to properly prepare their homes for sale. Working with a home stager gives home sellers the peace of mind that they're looking for - Reassurance that their home will compete with the neighboring competition and reassurance in knowing that their top dollar sales price is justified.
As a real estate professional, it is up to you to make sure that your client can justify their listing price. Do you recommend the services of a home stager? If Yes, "Way To Go!!" - If not - don't you owe it to yourself and to your client to add a qualified professional to your team?
In a recent study, it showed that by having a professional home stager do the work instead of the real estate agent, it afforded the agent 22 hours to do something else - like focus on another seller or buyer. How much $$ does that equate to for you?
Call upon a professional to help you out ... it will mean more to you than just money in your pocket.
Calie-
Good points worth more discussion.
Realtor can do a lot when it comes to helping a seller know and actually prep their homes for sale.
But lets face it... sometimes calling in the "big guns" of a professional stager will BEST serve the seller AND the realtor.
Craig
Calie,
Realtors are also finding out that when they know about home Staging but don't tell their client, the homeowner, that they can end up in court!
Still shaking my head over owners not willing to invest a modest amount in home Staging but taking tens of thousands off the list price.
Carol
Carol & Craig - you're both right! Realtors are an integral piece of the home selling puzzle. Successful agents are typically well educated about providing staging tips to their home sellers. The difference between the two would be the difference between a mini-makeover and an extreme home makeover.
As far as the property selling - As a professional stager, I can make the house look great - but it's truly the marketing and marketability that will sell the house. We're receiving at least a dozen calls a day from both home sellers and agents alike looking for either a professional stager or at a minimum, staging tips to help their property compete with the hundreds of competing homes.
WOW - has this changed from last year!
Calie
Calie,
Thank you for that informative entry which I hope every realtor will read and act upon.
You have just helped the Home Staging "cause" immeasurably by showing the importance of what we do and how realtors can benefit from our help.
Good job!
Your very first blog post! Would you ever have thought then that you'd be in the 99th percentile today? Today, you're #981 out of nearly 120,000 menbers! Way to keep on blogging! You rock!
Mike in Tucson
Oh my stars, Mike - how in the world did you happen to dig up this old post?!?! Yikes! Thanks for the continued encouragement and support - it's been a fun ride. - Calie