Archive for May, 2008

One of the groups that I am involved in is pow.wow: networking the power of fabulous women. Next Tuesday, we are having an event on this new and increasingly popular concept of doing business: GREEN.

(photo by Tomatoskin)

But what does it mean to be Green? Do you actually save money? Or it just makes you look good? Another way of marketing?

I know, I write mean emails. But if you are not serious about making a career change into something you are not familiar with and you are easily intimidated, think again.

(photo by oberazzi)

—–Original Message—–
From: Aspiring Stager
To:cindy@staged4more.com
Subject: Re: Business of Staging homes

Thank you Cindy for your prompt response. Basically I want to know how
to go about getting into the home staging business. Do you need a
background in interior design or can it be something you pick up by being
in the industry. I have a background in Advertising and art, so I was
wondering if that could benefit me in any way or I need more.

If you have any suggestions and/or advice, I would greatly appreciate
it.

Aspiring Stager

————————————————————————-

First of all staging is very different from interior design. If you
can’t see the differences between the 2, you will be in trouble when you
get in the business. I would recommend to do some research and see if
this is something that you want to do.

I would recommend you to figure out first: continue

Welcome to the May 26, 2008 edition of carnival of real estate home staging.

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!

This edition is small because most of the submissions were not related to home staging. **Please note that in order to reduce unqualified submissions, we have said over and over again that any articles that does NOT relate to home staging will be considered as SPAM. And we do mark those as spams and report them to the blog carnival folks.

Home Staging

Reba Haas presents We?ve been busy and have the new listings to prove it! Check out locations in Greenwood, Bridle Trails, Mercer Island, Snoqualmie and more? posted at Team Reba Real Estate, saying, “Staging often goes outside of just the definition of moving furniture around and helping declutter a home. This post talks about the large number of tasks that can fall into this category when you’re prepping a home for sale.”

Reba Haas presents Color and its impact when viewing properties online and selling a home posted at Team Reba Real Estate, saying, “Color impacts all of us on a personal level so choosing colors to prepare a home for sale can be quite important. The wrong colors can turn off buyers in droves and the right colors can bring in the offers.”

Cindy Lin presents Ann O’Connell’s legal advice for stagers who are considering storage and its legal issues for their staging businesses: Honey, I need a little (storage) space! over at Staged4more’s Staging Tips + More blog
That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of real estate home staging using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: carnival of real estate home staging, blog carnival.

Congratulations! You’ve grown your staging business to the point where your inventory, when it’s not in use (hopefully not often!), is filling every nook and cranny of your home. It’s time to rent a storage space. Whether you’re based in a city or a rural area, choices abound for spaces to rent to keep your inventory. Some options to consider are other people’s unused garages, sheds, extra rooms, public storage units, and warehouses. With my own staging business, I rented a small self-storage unit at a storage complex a couple blocks from my home. Location, size, and cost were the key considerations for me at first, but I quickly learned that there were other important factors I hadn’t thought of at the beginning.

First of all, signing a contract to rent a storage unit is not something to take lightly. It’s an extra overhead expense that you probably haven’t had to incur until this point. You’ve got to be sure that you can cover this expense, or that your business is growing at a healthy enough rate to cover it. You’re signing a contract which is a legally-enforceable commitment – take it seriously! In my opinion, it’s best to find a storage space which you can rent on a month-to-month basis, with a time period in which to give notice of leaving it that is as short as possible.

As for the size of the unit, you probably won’t need as much space as you think. If business is good, hopefully the unit will be empty much of the time! But, as we’ve all experienced, there are ups and downs in this business, and you should anticipate that much of your inventory may be back in your possession at some point – especially around the holidays.

You should feel comfortable in the space you’re renting. Get to know the manager by sight. Security is key: Who else has units near yours? During what hours can you access your unit? What type of security is there? When is a manager on duty? Is there adequate lighting in your unit? At one point I had some transients essentially living in the unit across the hall from mine – I always felt a little uncomfortable opening my unit when they were around to reveal all the beautiful new furniture I had!

Make sure that you will have access to the units in the early mornings and evenings. I would always be loading my truck at the crack of dawn, and often returning at dusk. Believe me, it sucks after a long day to realize you can’t unload the truck as you’d planned! Also note how you will load and unload – are you near a loading dock or parking area? Climate, water and pest control are other things to inquire about before renting – how awful it would be to have termites destroy your inventory!

Be sure to notify your insurer of this exciting development in your business. If a fire destroyed your unit, it would be devastating to lose everything only to find that your insurance didn’t cover items kept off the premises of your home or business address. Many storage rental contracts state explicitly that their insurance will not cover loss of your stored items. Finally, as always, read the fine print in the rental contract before you sign. Remember that you most likely have a lot of options in this area, and you have the ability to negotiate terms you may not like. Happy storing!

I am very excited to say the Shell is coming to bay area to teach San Francisco bay area stagers a few tricks up her sleeves! Shell has had extensive experiences in the real estate and home staging industry. I believe this will be a great beneficial session for both new and seasoned stagers.

To sign up, please visit RESA online at www.realestatestagingassociation.com!
RESA, stands for Real Estate Staging Association, was formed in order to:

“support all professional real estate stagers in North America regardless of their designations, backgrounds or training. RESA is a portal to the staging industry and is a source of education and business tools focusing on the needs of stagers. Members have access to up to date information relative to the staging industry, marketing support services and access to continuing education providers.

Why have trade associations?

Most established professions or trades have a professional association. Associations are formed in order to represent those in the target industry and to bring legitimacy to the profession. People working in their specific trades choose to belong to the trade associations for many reasons. Some offer discounts, group benefits, political agendas, regulations, etc.

When new industries are created they are either unregulated or government regulated. Unregulated industries often experience a lack of consistency and standards, a lack of ethics, and renegade practices. Government regulated industries typically arise from the need to protect the public or when un-regulated industries become so unmanageable the government needs to step in to correct it.” (From RESA Website)

It will be a great event and I hope you will be able to make it!

Our lovely and talented new Graphics Coordinator Jenny had designed some really cool designs for our new business cards. And we need your vote!

Please either comment or vote on the polldaddy poll here.

Here are the choices:

1

2

3

4 None of these

Post your thoughts, additional comments below at the nifty white box.

Thanks for voting! The voting will close on 5/20/2008.
Cheers,

Cindy

It’s only been 7 days since my Certified Staging Professionals (CSP) training, and frankly my brain still hurts from so much information. All and all it was an excellent training and continue education. Christine Rae, the creator of CSP staging training really packed in a lot of materials and I literally felt like I went on a Jedi Training in a galaxy far far away (Walnut Creek can do that to ya).

I also got my tests in the mail last Friday. That’s right, I had a midterm and a final and overall I scored a B. (Gosh darn it I really wanted an A!) But she wrote “very good :)” on the test so I feel slightly better

What I love about the training is that there were a lot of information on both design & business sides of the staging business and all the classmates are in the business at least 2 years, so we can fast forward all that newbie stuff and learned from each other’s experiences and dealing more advanced issues in our businesses. It was a really solid continue education.

I was the youngest of the bunch (in actual age and business age).

(photo by grebo guru)
Before the training I was feeling a bit frustrated with my business. I felt that it had plateaued. It was great to be in the presence of other more experienced stagers to know that it is perfectly normal to feel so and that breakthrough is possible.

The course challenged my old way of thinking & approaching staging process and the way I go about doing business. I also love the CSP structure where you can advanced into different levels of specializations through continue education and additional designations within CSP. The additional designations are structured like Realtor’s CRS designation where not only you have to complete the classroom work, you also have to provide additional field work to gain the designation. (So I can eventually get to yoda level.)
Overall it was a great 3-day with intense conversations about staging and how we can make our businesses better. It was also great getting to know Terrylynn Fisher & Kym Hough whom I have been admiring since I was a baby ASP stager and later only known through blogging on Active Rain.

I throughly enjoyed the company of people. It’s always great to be in the presence of people who love what you do and understand your frustrations. I still feel that my business is at a plateau but I feel I am more prepared to face the challenges ahead.

Christine Rae said something that was very poignant, which is that most people get into the real estate business when the time is good, and get out when it gets bad. People are not ready nor equipped to deal with down times, and that’s very true in my case.

I am caught a little bit off guard with the slower times, but that’s part of the business cycle and learning Even though the business has slowed down a little, but staged4more is still doing well and I still am very busy with things to do to grow the business. We just finished projects with HGTV, our last few staged listings had sold overasking or at full asking less than 25 days, and we came in from very strong #s in 2007 (2/3 of our staged and sold listings sold overasking with addition 3.34% increase in asking price). Staged4more is also set to expand into a much bigger warehouse (3,600 square feet!!) in early June, as well as expanding business lifelines (keep your eyes peeled for those!). I am also in the process of systematically restructuring the organization as well as hiring more support and team members so we can service clients in a short time notice. Lately I have been turning old clients away because I keep getting booked. I do feel bad about that So there are still lots to do!

My 3 BIG goals for rest of 2008 is:

1. Establish a warehouse system that is equipped with an *efficient* inventory system. Since we are transitioning into a professional warehouse space, we are going to have professional racking and we will need to start barcoding (or something) everything to increase efficiency, as well as figuring out what’s the most efficient ways to transport and store all of our hard and soft inventories.
2. 3 Additional lifelines/services of the business: It’s very exciting. I have been soft launching the virtual tour that we are now offering with every job and it’s working out very well so far. You can see examples of 88 King SF here. I am planning to implement that permanently once I find a permanent virtual tour guy for my San Mateo area staging jobs. I am also in the process of launching 2 more companies that are real estate related. So keep your eyes peeled for that!
3. Set up a Operations Manual to ensure consistency in both inside and outside operations.

Keep you posted!