Give Those Rooms Definition

A mistake so often made by sellers is to move out and leave their former home vacant. The homeowner thinks by doing this a buyer will be able to get a better feel for the space.

In some cases, a buyer does have good spatial abilities and can visualize whether their five piece sectional, two armchairs and large, oak coffee table will truly fit in the vacant living room space. From experience, I can tell you this is more often not the case. Many buyers will eliminate a property that they feel is too small even if the square footage says otherwise. Without the requisite furniture pieces, the room’s layout isn’t apparent.

This happened in a particular home I staged several years ago. The home was a new construction. It had three bedrooms located on the second floor. Now I wouldn’t believe a newly built home would have three rooms on the second floor designed to be bedrooms yet not allow the space for today’s standard of at least a queen size bed. Well, guess what? Potential home shoppers questioned their being able to fit their bedroom furniture in the rooms. By staging the space and showing the rooms with queen sized beds the home sold at the first open house. Staging solved the problem.

From personal experience, I remember looking at homes to buy that were vacant. Now I will mention the fact that they were not only empty but the heat was turned down so low frost was forming on me as I viewed inside the property. It just happened to be like the weather we are dealing with right now--single digit temperatures. I told the realtor not only was the place uninviting, but the temperature made it unbearable to stay in for any length of time. It could have been a great home but the vacuous rooms and below comfort level of heat forced a quick exit. What did these owners think they were saving? That house continued to sit vacant for a very long time. During this time, the homeowners still had to pay a mortgage, upkeep and taxes. Staging and a temperature that was reasonably comfortable would have given the rooms a feeling of home and would have gone a long way in getting the house sold.

Gone are the days of going to a realtor’s office and being handed an oversized, cumbersome book that took forever to look through. Anyone who has bought a home in the not so distant past will remember those MLS books with one or maybe two very fuzzy, black and white photos of the property for sale.

Currently, a homeowner receives pictures either taken by the stager or their realtor for potential buyers to view on the Internet. With the click of a few
keys, a property for sale comes to life through a musically enhanced, virtual tour and a large array of photos of every room in the offered home. A buyer can almost imagine living in the featured home and will make haste to view the property.

Having your home professionally staged is well worth it. STAGING IS AN INVESTMENT. It puts your property in a prime position. The misconceptions that staging is only for high end homes or that the cost is exorbitant are incorrect. Ideally, since the whole house is for sale it is suggested that the entire home is staged. When budget is more limited, key rooms can be professionally staged and the other rooms can be tackled by the homeowner. If the house is presently furnished, I prefer to work with as much of the existing pieces as possible. This cuts down on the need for my inventory and the owners cost. In the case of a vacant home, my company, THE WELL DRESSED HOUSE has an extensive inventory of furnishings in all styles, sizes and colors to fit the home. I have yet to stage a property that the owner’s are not totally impressed by the transformation. Many jokingly ask where I was when they first bought and moved in. Others question their desire to move, since their humble home now looks as good as many seen on home improvement shows.

During this cold snowy winter that is keeping us all bundled up inside, take a look through your local MLS listings and see if you can tell if a home has been staged. Check out the vacant properties and try to imagine what living there would be like. Let me know whether a vacant property has you rushing out to unroll the welcome mat or is it the staged home that beckons you to visit.