October 10, 2007
Why Staged Homes Don't Sell Part 1 of 5-Part Series
Today marks the beginning of a new Wednesday Series: Why Staged Homes Don’t Sell. In the series, we are going to cover:
- What A Well Staged Home Does for a Sale
- How Listing Agents Unintentionally Sabotage Their Own Staged Listings
- What is the Seller’s Problem?!
- How A Stager Can Potentially Kill Your Deal
- Other Real Estate Professionals’ Play in the Mud Too
What A Well Staged Home Does for a Sale
A well staged home does LOTS for you, whether you are an agent or a home seller. It does its wonder on the internet while you are sleeping, it wows the buyers when they step into the open house. Staging, essentially, is packaging a product — your listing. It is an investment that will bring you less days on market (DOM) in both hot & cold markets, and potentially for more money.
A well staged home:
- Shows better in person.
- Shows better on internet.
- Is a home with imagination and possibilities for buyers who lack of imaginations
- Provides solutions & suggestions for buyers who are troubled by the tricky floor plans
- Helps buyers to visualize their belongings into the space.
- Is an investment that will bring you less days on market in both hot & cold markets.
- Is an investment that will potentially bring you more money.
- Gives you a leg-up from your competitions and possibly brings multiple offers.
- Shows seller is someone who is sophisticated about his/hers financial decisions and have spent the time to maintain the home.
- Creates a win/win/win situation for everyone involved in the transaction!
Here are some stats to back me up 
- ‘Staging’ results in faster sale, richer price by USA Today: “With 3.75 million homes on the market — a 7.3-month supply — sellers must work harder these days to attract buyers. Yet oddly enough, the trick to making your home stand out is often to make both the interior and exterior look generic, almost bland. And that’s where home staging comes in.”
“Does it work? When Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Los Altos, Calif., looked at nearly 2,800 properties in eight U.S. cities in 2004, they found that the staged homes, on average, sold in half the time that the non-staged homes did. The sellers with staged homes ended up with 6.3% more than their asking price, on average, while sellers with non-staged homes sold for 1.6% more than the asking price.“ - Staging stats from HomeGain’s research (image courtesy of stagedhomes.com):
- Some of my own stats from Staged4more’s staged homes: earlier this year I calculated the average days on market time for the properties that I had staged, and I came up with 31 days, while the average days on market for San Francisco bay area is 62 days. That’s 1 month worth of differences in mortgage, utilities, additional fees incurred for selling and lots and lots of stress! I certainly have had projects that were sold overasking. To see them, head on over to the Staged4more gallery…
Here are some before & after Staged4more staged homes for your viewing pleasures:
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Got any other staging benefits that I missed above? Feel free to pitch in in the comments below. Like this article? Bookmark it by clicking on the button below Send any of your burning staging questions to hello@staged4more.com.
Cheers,
Cindy*Staged4more
Related posts:
- Agent Reader Question: I have heard of an empty house doesn't sell as well as staged?
- Let Price Reduction Be Your LAST Resort to Sell Your Home
- How to Use Staging to Sell Your Home (Cindy's Guest Blog @ FreeMoneyFinance)
- Another Successful Staging Story — 2001 McAllister San Francisco | Staged Vacant Condo
- San Francisco Chronicle: Updating furniture and interiors can pay off when it’s time to sell your home
This looks like it is going to be a great series Cindy!
I’ll be looking forward to reading your next posts!
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Your webpage is old and dated and there is a lack of refinement. Yours was the only webpage I have encounted that the pictures didn’t pop up right away. Maybe the images are too large.
Your little green box is cute, but it doesn’t instantly speak to me about your ability to stage. You hit on something good with your chart, but it is not easy to read. Pershap you could change the fonts, shadows, print colors and background colors. One more thing, you have too much on the page, everything seems crammed and cluttered.
I just looked at 15 or more stagging companies before I came to your page and it was so uninviting, but I also got a sense that you tried really hard, but just missed the mark. Look at some of your competitors pages.
Good luck. Please don’t post this, just read and delete.
Hi Joan
Our website actually just got its own “remodel” this year (2010).
Judging from your comment, I think you misunderstood this blog post for our front page. As you can see from the date of the post, it was written in 2007. The correct front page/ home page can be seen when you go to http://www.staged4more.com. The home page is updated and you can see our case studies on the front page, including a video introducing our services.
This particular blog post that you were on was part of our old website’s content. When we switched over to the new platform for hosting the website, a lot of images got deleted by the switch. It was unfortunate but our previous webmaster screwed up and there was not much we can fix at that point.
I know you had asked for me not to post the comment you left, but I would like to leave a comment for future visitors just so they understand why certain blog posts on the site acts a little bit weird. Thanks again for your comment.
Best of luck to you,
Cindy
General Manager