How Listing Agents Unintentionally Sabotage Their Own Staged Listings

Wednesday Series: Why Staged Homes Don’t Sell. In the series, we are going to cover:

2. What A Well Staged Home Does for a Sale
3. How Listing Agents Unintentionally Sabotage Their Own Staged Listings
4. What is the Seller’s Problem?!
5. How A Stager Can Potentially Kill Your Deal
6. Other Real Estate Professionals’ Play in the Mud Too

A common problem that I see why staged homes don’t sell is THE AGENT. It’s not the agents don’t do any work to market the listing. Sure, they put the listing up on MLS and run the flyers and ads for the staged homes. They host open houses and try to get people into the door. But what they don’t realize is that they had done something terrible, unthinkable (at least to a stager anyway) and something that has hurt their own commission dollars & their sellers’ equity — market it poorly to counter the staged home effects, which is to SHOW THE HOME WELL and attract foot traffic to the open house.

Deadly mistake #1: The home was shown before it was staged. Would you go on a date BEFORE you showered and put on your best outfit? I think not. Same with marketing your house. Put your best foot forward. I cannot say this enough! In my post, Making the Blink Count, I talked about the power of first impression and how it can help to sell the listings. Case in point, celebs without makeup:

Deadly mistake #2: The agent doesn’t market the home as a staged home. We all know that staged homes shows better to non-staged homes, therefore, staged homes are easier for buyers’ agents to show since buyers are more likely to buy when the homes are properly staged, and therefore adding to the agents’ commissions. Here is a real life example of my recent staged home (staged just today!), a lot of de-cluttering can do a LOT for the home! Also shiny furniture can help too:

Another great idea that I have seen agents done was that initially the sellers were not willing to stage, but after sitting on the market for awhile, they got antsy, so the home became staged. Once the home is staged, the agent re-markets it as a staged home to attract agents to come to broker’s opens again.

Deadly mistake #3: The agent is not using internet marketing to its full potential. It always puzzle me that sellers & agents invested in staging, but I check the MLS photo, and I see this…

Okay, what is the point of staging if you are just going to do that?!

Deadly mistake #4: The agent presents the home poorly. Just like fine wine goes with great food, great photography adds and enhances a beautifully staged home. Imagine yourself drinking a bottle of $1000 of wine, but paired with Burger King fries.. Hmmm, it’s a waste of wine (or vice versa I suppose )Similarly, a home that is well staged is meant to attract buyers to open house through its online presence. But a home that doesn’t show well on the internet is not going to attract buyers. Look at the following 2 photos, which open house would you go to?

Eeek. The second home doesn’t look inviting enough to attract buyers into the door.

Deadly mistake #5: Thinking staging is a fix-it-all. NO, staging is not going to conceal flaws in the home such as tricky floor plans, small bedrooms, leaky roof, lousy locations or rotten neighbors who runs a drug gang out of their basement, nor sell overpriced properties. Staging also doesn’t mean that you can ask for a higher listing price. The market will ONLY pay what it’s willing to pay.

Here are how to avoid these mistakes:

1. Invest in good photographs: Trust me, it is an investment that PAYS. It’s a great investment that is going to get you traffic to the open house. More traffic means higher chances in receiving offers. More offers mean more competition for your buyers. More competition for buyers create demand, which can lead to higher sold prices.
2. If you are a seller, invest in qualified and good agents who fulfill their promises to you: An agent can make or break a deal, and good agents almost always will be able to hold your deal together while protecting your best interests. Make sure not only your agent represents you in the best light possible, especially a great online presence. After all, 80%+ of buyers now start their search on internet first. A GOOD AGENT IS WELL WORTH YOUR MONEY.
3. If you are an agent, know that the public is watching! Yes, we are watching. Various boards of realtors have begun opening up their MLS and allow public searches. It’s becoming more and more common to be proactive as a buyer and search on sites like trulia.com, redfin.com, realtor.com, etc. You gotta make your online listing photos look good!

Got more tips to share? Feel free to write down your opinions in the comment section below.

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Happy selling! Cheers,

Cindy*Staged4more

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