Staged4more Home Staging + Redesigns | Home Staging in San Francisco Bay: San Francisco, San Mateo Counties

Are you looking for a townhouse in San Jose? We got you for you!

Blurb from the listing agent:

A great opportunity! This 3 bedroom 2.5 bath townhouse is ready for you. Best location within complex, quiet end unit. Private 2 car side by side garage with extra storage. Conveniently close to Santana Row, Willow Glen, shopping and freeways. Beautiful park at your step.

To see more photos on this staged vacant townhouse in San Jose, visit this link here.

We had great fun staging this vacant property. The before and afters are like night and day! The agent and seller really had worked hard on this property to get everything cleaned up and modernized it with a limited budget. There were a lot of original wood wall panels, which the contractor had repainted. They also removed majority of mirrors on the wall, removed the carpet and repainted. Once the home was ready, we came in with furniture that had cleaner lines and styled the property with more contemporary furnishing and colors.

The seller asked us to do minimal rooms and simple staging to work with their already tight budget. We listened, and here is the result of an example of staging only the key rooms in the home. While this may not be an ideal scenario, it is still great if the staged areas look fully staged. It is far better than zero staging or “vignette staging” where only a corner is staged.

What do you think?

Below is the slide show by the talented agent Vicki Moore. You can also see more photos here.

Here are the specs of the home:

For 45 years this home has been filled with the love of friends and family. Sunday dinners were the highlight of the week. Now you can welcome your loved ones and create your own memories. Large windows bathe the space with light and warmth. Beautiful hardwood floors accent the rooms. Freshly painted walls are ready for your photos. Large patio and pool to wow your guests. Amazing 28,000 sq foot lot.

3 bedrooms
2 full bathrooms
1860 square feet of living space
28,688 square foot lot
2 car garage

Offered at $1,150,000

[from Agent's flyer]

Yes, we are hiring (again)! This time, we are hiring an Admin Assistant who will work directly under General Manager Cindy Lin and coordinate other team members on staff, as well as helping with project deadlines, paperwork and implementing systems that will help us grow healthily.

Deadline Conscious Admin Assistant needed for Award Winning Home Staging Firm

Summary of Position: This position will serve as General Manager’s right hand person. We are a small boutique home staging firm located in South San Francisco that serves mainly San Francisco and San Mateo counties. We have currently 3 team members and we are looking to add a fourth team member who will assist in coordinating all the administrative tasks in house.

Ever since our home staging company relocated to a 5,500 square feet warehouse, as our company grew, our inventory and staff grew as well. We now own inventory enough to stage 30+ homes concurrently. The main purpose of this job is to keep every team member organized and on track in a systematic way, so we are position for growth.

The person will take over majority of paperwork that needs to be done, such as electronically filing our contracts, documents, sort receipts, update websites (WordPress knowledge is a plus, but not required), coordinate schedules, keeping track of marketing deadlines, updates our social media, updates inventory system to keep track of our existing inventory, posting to directories, working with our virtual assistant on some researches, helping around the warehouse, filing, some shipping and handling of our online store, etc.

We need an individual who has a keen attention to detail, a stickler to deadlines, loves to do lists, organizations and maintain accurate records. It is very important for us to keep efficiencies, and know our inventory accurately. We want someone who can work on his/her own without much supervision.

Basic computer skills and digital photo skill (i.e. uploading photos to computer to print) is a must. Marketing experiences and web 2.0 knowledge is not required but a bonus.

This will be a part-time position, with possibility of turning into a permanent position.

Expectations: Applicants must submit a cover letter and resume expressing why he/she is the best candidate for the job. While the schedule can be flexible based on individual’s needs, we do expect employees to be on time armed with positive attitudes. The employee will not qualify for any benefits. The schedule is roughly 2-3 days a week. This is an office only position; employee will not be going to job site with designers. Employees must be able to lift 50 lbs.
Organizational skill is a must. Good customer service skill is a plus. (There may be times when you will be asked to call a client for follow up, etc.)

Compensations: $10-14/hour. 20-30 hours per week. Part-time status. No benefits.

Accountability: Admin Assistant will report to General Manager directly. Employee must be able to travel to our South San Francisco warehouse location. Employee will be expected to be on target with tasks assigned: filing paperwork, updating social networks and blogs, recording inventory correctly via writing and photographs, filing inventory spec sheets to appropriate binder and return furniture to appropriate storage space. Employees will be expected to keep detailed and accurate logs. Attention to detail is a must. Employee should have a good sense in organizing house goods by categorizing and grouping.

Hiring Process: there will be a paper cut based on the resumes and cover letters received. Then we will call to schedule an interview over the phone. On the day of interview, applicant will be interviewed by General Manager and other team members. Applicant will also be asked to perform tasks as part of the interview process.

• Compensation: $10-14/ hour
• This is a part-time job.
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don’t contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

Contact: Send your Resume and Cover Letter to Jobs@staged4more.com

Let’s face it, there are no industry standards in hiring a stager. In fact, it is easy to become a stager. One can simply tell people she had self-taught herself staging and she has been re-arranging that Barbie Dream House ever since she was a small child so technically she has been doing staging forever. Or he can go to staging school and get some impressive looking alphabets behind his name on the business card. In a sea of stagers, how do you know if you are hiring the right one?

I had received emails from sellers who wanted to know if the staging price that their realtors quoted them was reasonable. They usually go something like

“I want to know if my realtor is overcharging me, he quoted me $BLAH for Blah square foot.”

I also once spent 20 minutes on the phone with a perspective client who was a home owner. She was interviewing stagers and she asked one if she can see what type of furniture the stager was going to use. The stager replied “Well, it’s going to be a surprise on the day of.” The perspective client told me she was shocked by the response since

“as a customer, shouldn’t I know what I am paying for?”

Frankly, as I wrote before in other blogs like #1 Question You Need to Ask Your New Stager, How A Stager Can Potentially Kill Your Deal, 6 Tips On How To Hire A Stager, Did You Hire Mr. Joe the Plumber to Stager Your House and many others, there really are no industry regulation as to how someone would charge for providing staging services. A realtor friend told me she had gotten quotes ranging from $2500 to $5500 for a 1,100 square feet condo in San Francisco. So, how do you know if you are paying for the right person and for the right price? The answer is IN YOUR PROPOSAL.

A good proposal should tell you at least these 3 things:

1. Is payment terms laid out clearly for you as a customer? Items such as payment methods (cash, check, credit cards, etc.), terms (how long does the payment last for), etc. should be clear. If not, they should be able to answer you without blinking.

2. Is the proposal professional? After all, you are selling a HOUSE that you became in debt for. It was the biggest and most expensive item you had ever purchased. This is a business transaction, so the people you hire should help you maximize your return on investment.

3. Do you understand what type of furniture or style your stager uses? Even if they can’t pinpoint the exact chair they are placing into your home, you should at least be able to see a similar sample of style of furniture you will get. A good way to tell is by their websites. As of getting “ripped off,” this is where you should ask for portfolio and references. A good stager should have strong references, portfolio and success stories to back those up. You risk a lot only judging by pricing when you hire a stager. Stagers are essentially “packagers” for your product. They make your property look good so your buyers will be appetized to make offers. Just because the stager came in with the lowest bid, that doesn’t mean the stager will perform or will not perform. Same goes for the highest bidder.

A well staged home should work for the buyers’ lifestyle, so it’s important to figure out what kind of stuff will be in the home. But don’t get too hung up on the stuff either, because the main purpose of a stager is to showcase and feature a home, not selling the furnishing.

My other two tips are:

Do your homework. They invent Google for a reason, use it to your advantage. Other sites such as LinkedIn, Yelp.com, are good reference points as well.

At last, once you hire the stager, you TRUST his/hers professional opinions. For an experienced stager, this is not our first rodeo. There is no need to question the design decision every step of the way and then turn around and say: “I don’t know, you are the designer. Shouldn’t we do it like this?” If you compared all the proposals, you decided this is the best company to stage your home, then you shouldn’t have any more doubts, especially if you already did your homework and make sure he/she is reputable. I always smile when people ask: “Are you going to do a good job? Make it beautiful?” Because, really, I spent all this time building up a business, I am just going to throw all that away by staging your house horribly?

Having a stager should be easy and pain free. Don’t you think?

Note: Staged4more is an eco-friendly company and we believe in recycling everything, including blogposts. This post is part of a weekly series of refreshed posts we’re calling “Restyled” from our earlier blogging years. This post was originally written in November 12, 2008 and has been “Restyled” for your reading pleasure. Let us know what you think!

Photo by jinkazamah
Photo by dno1967

Hey

Happy Bastille Day! Although the French and Americans are not besties in the world, we San Franciscans still find plenty of ways to celebrate. Our friends over at Noise 13 + Table One Three is hosting a nice little party at RN74. Details here: