Archive for April, 2008

UPDATE: THIS CONDO IS SOLD! FULL ASKING, LESS IN 20 DAYS! WOOHOO!

Just Staged! #1106, 88 King Street, San Francisco. Click here for Virtual Tour.

This is a very interesting and challenging property to stage. The sellers already had very nice stuff, I added artwork, accessories, some small pieces of furniture to bring more style and stage the home. The most challenging part was dealing with the AT&T ball park traffic, looking for parking every 2 hours and mainly unloading and loading. Me and my assistant continue

Today is Earth Day so I will share what I personally do in my business to be more eco-friendly!

(from google: what would you do for earth day ‘08?)

Staging can be a wasteful industry, because we purchase, use and transport a lot of furnishing day in and day out. Here are a few things that I do to be more eco-friendly:

*Reduce garbage, reduce overhead– I plastic wrap most of my hard furnishing to protect them during transport, consequently we used to go through plastics like crazy. Moreover, we have a lot of cardboard boxes that came with the furnishing that we ordered. When I buy accessories, they also come with a lot of wrapping papers and plastic bags. I now reuse plastic wraps, re-purpose the cardboard boxes and reuse the plastic bags & tissue papers.

The Results worked toward my favor: less plastic wraps to buy, MUCH less garbage to throw away, much easier on the overhead. When the plastic wraps are super tired out, we use those as wrapping materials instead. I also cut apart cardboard boxes to put between the artwork to protect them. Moreover, I don’t buy trash bags at all, I just reuse the ones we got from the store. Oh, as a former yoga teacher, I also accumulated a lot of lost and found yoga mats from teaching. Those became the bottom layers of my artwork shelves to protect the frames from being scratched on raw wood.

*Build things consciously– I hired people to build custom shelves in my warehouse and we use screws instead of nails for putting the shelves together. Because screws can easily continue

It’s always pretty cool to get great news on our staged listings:

“Thanks again - it was listed for $599K, closed in 21 days for $635K.” — Jenn Davis, Listing Agent for 43 Garden Grove, Daly City

WOOHOO!

See some of the Before & After Staging photos below or check out the nifty slideshow via flickr:

I received this workshop notice from my Alumni program, should be an interesting workshop!

Discover Cal’s Spring 2008 Lecture Series

Discover Cal is a lecture series that brings the extraordinary experience of a UC Berkeley education to the extended Cal family. Lectures offer insights into new research and scholarship from Berkeley’s renowned faculty.

“How did the subprime problem become everyone’s problem?”

Join Professor John Quigley and Dr. Cynthia Kroll as they discuss the macro and area specific subprime issues affecting the mortgage industry and consumers alike.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Lafayette Park Hotel & Spa
Lafayette, CA

Wednesday, May 7, 2008
The Spinnaker
Sausalito, CA

Program for all events:
6 – 7 p.m. Reception with light fare and no-host bar
7 – 8:30 p.m. Lecture and Q & A
REGISTER NOW and learn more at http://discovercal.berkeley.edu

This week has been a very hectic one.

Basically any day before Tax day on Tuesday was INSANE. By 3pm on 4/15, my office looked like a bomb had exploded and there were paper and envelopes and tax return forms everywhere on the floor and all over my desk. Right after I finished up with taxes, I jetted over to San Francisco to my furniture vendors to pick up some inventory.

Then off to leadership meeting with the lovely ladies at pow.wow women’s network and had some fantastic networking time afterwards at Candy Bar. (LOVE their desserts! You should definitely try: Chevre Cheesecake coconut sorbet / nicoise olive caramel, Blood Orange Baked Alaska candied fennel / honey comb. May I just say that Fourme D’Ambert Panna Cotta caramel dates / cinnamon toast is a must on my list from now on. I have never had cheese panna cotta, but it worked so divinely with the caramel & cinnamon toast.)

Wednesday I staged #1106, 88 King Street, San Francisco. Very beautiful building with great finishes and awesome outdoor spaces & pool. It also is situated right across the street from the AT&T ball park. I didn’t realize Wednesday was game day until I got there and seeing all these Giants fans down the street. Game day parking made the job that much more interesting — me and my assistant spent 1 hour to re-park our cars. We actually spent most time loading and unloading, shuttling stuff through the 2 towers and looking for parking than the actual staging time! Moments like circling around for 45 minutes for parking, or paying $3 for 1 hour meter parking really make me feel blessed I now live in peninsula where we have ample parking without the worrying about meter maids.

Here is a preview of what we did on Wednesday, more before & after will come later:

Afterward I had a really fun meeting for planning RE BarCamp with Brad Coy of San Francisco Real Estate Services, Eric Bryant of Geek Estate Blog, RE Coach, Staycee G. of Green Valley Prudential, Pat Kitano of Transparent RE blog. It was really a great and exciting time to talk about social media, real estate. (Staycee, if you are reading this, you SO have to come to BarCamp now!)

RE Bar Camp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from attendees. Visit the wiki for more information.

Today, was a rather insane day. I staged 1.5 houses for HGTV (why 1.5? Long story, that’s another blog ).

Overall it went well, but I completely spaced out and forgot my camera. It was stressful but colorful and interesting. Hey, I am just always happy to be staging. I will post more before & afters soon!

Cheers,

Cindy