September 22, 2007
All the World is A…
My speaking engagement at the Hire-A-Busiensswoman Week presented by International Virtual Women of Chamber of Commerce was picked up by The San Francisco Real Estate blog.
I don’t think Bill is fully sold on the staging profession, but I am glad that he is at least encouraging sellers to watch programs and attend seminars that can help their homes show better and hopefully sell quicker. I think Bill brought up a great point during our “chat” on his blog was that sellers should no longer be passive in their real estate goals. Buyers now can start searching homes online without a realtor and without seeing a home in person. Sellers can also do things on their own to make their home more desirable for sale, instead of just passively letting realtors do their thing to sell the house. The home that I staged yesterday was a very good example of that (photos coming soon!). The owner was very hands on in the process, even during the staging process. Which certainly made a stressful work day and made me very frazzled, but as long as the end results were good, that was all it mattered.
You can click to read about Bill’s opinion on staging here, on The San Francisco Real Estate Blog.
Cindy, I have quite a bit of respect for the pro stagers – didn’t I say thought they might be the only segment of our business that keeps on making good money, at least for a while?
I just tried to explain what I thought folks who couldn’t afford a pro – and that describes a lot of people being forced onto the market against their will, due to mortgage problems, ARM resets, or imminent foreclosure – could do to help themselves, staging-wise.
Now, in the upper end of the market, where the mechanics are different – at least in the SF Bay Area, professional staging can mean the difference not just between a quick and a slow sale, but a big difference in the final price between a staged home, and an unstaged comp.
Of course, these are sellers for whom a ten grand fee isn’t much of a concern, especially against the potential payoff.
Hey Bill!
heh That I blame the internet has no tones, so I must’ve misread your sentence. It’s interesting. Many of stagers around the country and I talked about this actually, but our phones, unlike popular belief, haven’t been ringing off the hook. I actually find sellers more reluctant in investing in staging. They have little confidence in getting their home sold and they have little faith in staging. They know what staging could possibly do for them, but they don’t want to spend any more money to fix the home up to a potential “waste of money.”
My target market is $1.5 million and below and I sometimes do stage higher end homes. So I am not too familiar with the multi-million dollar home market. Do you feel that the higher end market has not changed much?
Cheers,
Cindy