Fsbo

Staging is the craft of transforming a home listing into a showpiece, removing clutter to make rooms look bigger, cleaning and repairing to give a used residence that new, model-home look. According to Schwarz’s Web site:

• Ninety-three percent of homes staged by professionals sell in a month. Professionally staged homes are on the market an average of 33 days, compared to the 161-day average for non-staged homes.
• Staging provides at least a 300% return on investment Hence a $3,000 staging fee adds about $12,000 to a home’s price, Schwarz said.

Tips for a making your room a winner
If you can smell it, you can’t sell it, writes Barb Schwarz in her book, “Home Staging: The winning way to sell your house for more money.”

Other home-selling tips: Homes need to be Q-tip clean, not just clean. Wash all windows and make sure they open freely. Clean out the fireplace. Keep curtains and blinds open to let in light when showing a home. And keep soft music playing.

But home staging takes more insight than just playing music and baking cookies. Schwarz provided these “simple steps” for staging a room:

• Stand in the doorway: This is where buyers stand before deciding to go into a room. If they don’t go in, they won’t buy your house.
• Pick a staging point: Stage the round around a focal point. If it’s a bedroom, the staging point usually is the bed. In a music room, it could be the piano. In a living room, it could be the fireplace.
• Make a plan: Design the room around the focal point, but change it if the feeling of the room isn’t right.
• Clear the clutter: Remove pictures, accessories, mirrors to reveal the room’s bones.
• Divide things into piles: Some things go back into the room, others are packed – or tossed.
• Get rid of some of the furniture: Keep the basics, get rid of the extras. Remove furnishings that crowd a room.
• Arrange the furniture: Find an arrangement that works. Use less furniture and create more space for a room that looks open, balanced and bigger.
• Rebuild with accessories: Find new uses for things, such as making a curtain rod out of a golf club or an oar. Be creative. But don’t over-accessorize. Less is more.
• Fine-tune: Stand in the doorway again to see if anything needs to be removed or added. Scan for overlooked details, like tags on pillows or crooked blinds.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 at 7:56 am and is filed under FSBO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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