December 26, 2006
True, Small Details Can Cost Seller Thousands
Many people think that staging is a silly business. What stagers really do is just plunk furniture down, fluff some pillows and put some nice throw pillows on couches. Actually, not true. While staging may seem frilly to lots of outsiders, there are actually some science and psychology behind it.
Fellow blogger Dee Copeland, Broker-Associate, CRS, GRI, said it very well:
“In the case of the investor I was speaking with, their painter had painted over door knobs, ceilings, shelving, even wall plates. The house had not sold as fast as they had hoped, so I was there to offer advice. I told them about the numerous small issues such as not painting the inside of a closet, not putting down new sod, or replacing rotted wood under the sink.
I summed up the buyer experience in this way, “When a buyer is walking through their potential home, it’s not just a house. It is where they will raise their family and enjoy special moments. They want to walk in and be wowed. Buyers have a move-in condition form in their mind and if they see a great deal of obvious, noticeable, small flaws, they wonder what else is wrong. You have to earn their trust that they can move in and the house won’t fall apart the next day.” In this case, I’d suggested they purchase a pre-inspection to help the buyer understand that they did their homework. They could have also fixed small issues and staged the home.”
(read the whole post here)
I love what she had pointed out that sellers often focus on the near future, which is getting the bang of their bucks and get the heck out of there to start their new lives. However, they are often distracted by what costs to put their home on market to make it into a marketable commodity — a house, and forgot to look to the future where these investments are their investments to ensure their home sell for more & faster. A staged home may not get a seller more money, but it helps to sell it fast in any market, fast or slow. Other than the common reasons that staging will help the buyers to figure out the spatial relations in the area and picturing themselves living in the house, there are also other factors: Staging will help slowing the buyers down when they tour the home. A staged home is far more interesting to tour than an empty house. A staged home will also help buyers to remember the home. They may not remember what exactly it looks like, but it will help them to jog their memories after they tour 80 homes, which is typical in the competitive San Francisco bay area market.
Additionally, staging helps to refine the signals that you send to the buyers. Sure, the buyers will be able to notice that those cabinets are newly painted, but you don’t need to leave your paint cans around to remind them that. Leaving construction materials out often send the signal that there are other things wrong that need fixing. And sure, the buyers will understand that you are a busy individual and you have a full life so you forgot to do your dishes before open houses or putting away your personal items like socks and underwears. But is this the image you want to project for your product? Living in your home is a personal thing, and we often lose sight that what may consider normal daily routine for us may not be normal for others. So WOW your buyers. Remember, once you made that decision to put your home on the market, you have released it into the big wide world. It is now on internet for millions to view, it has a price tag, it has a MLS #. IT BECOMES A PRODUCT. So put your best foot forward to sell that amazing product that had served you well, and don’t ignore the small details.
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