A Stager's Commentary

Last Friday was a bit crazy, 3 consultations and spending 2 hours each way driving to Roseville for the Stager’s Round Table, I totally collapsed by the time I got home. I took a “nap” at 6pm and woke up at 3am next to a cold burrito that my sister was kind enough to buy me for dinner.

But it was SO SO SO cool to meet fellow stagers who believe in propelling the staging industry forward. People cared enough to take time off to show up and discuss what are important concerns in the industry: such as inconsistency in the staging education, what qualifies someone to be a stager, how to deal with longevity in the industry and establishing legitimacy in the real estate industry as a whole. It was also great to finally put people to the photos that I have been seeing on Active Rain, a myspace-like online community for the real estate industry. I especially loved seeing my old friend and fellow stager in Chicago, Craig Schiller, who has went above and beyond to try to unify the industry through the Stage It Forward forum. continue

**This blog is posted in conjunction of Blog Action Day

Even though stagers may not has a dramatic impact as an architect & a real estate developer who can influence the making of a house directly, there are still a few ways that we can contribute to make it a greener & better world by advising the clients to do some of these things in a selling process:

1. Paint the home with eco-friendly paint:
   I am a big fan of Benjamin Moore’s Aura line. Great colors, long-lasting, coats dry within the hour (saves time & labor costs), and eco-friendly. Not to mention very minimal odor which is great for both the people who apply the paint, and people who live in the environment. Price is also great, even beats the always cheap Kelly Moore (which I don’t personal like since the paint feels watered down).
2. 
   Decrease the volume of trash in landfill:
   one man’s (or woman’s) trash is another’s treasure. Freecycle is solely based on this idea and to decrease the size of our landfills. You can post what you need or what you no longer need on FreeCycle message boards and within a hour (or a day at most) you will get your wish fulfilled!
3. continue
   

Something lite for the Friday…

I suppose if you are raising 5 children, or 7 by now? You might as well raise them in style.

Warning: Gaudiness, gold-laced furniture, and blinding shiny marble floors may be included.

Some points of interest include:

• every US President since Herbert Hoover has checked into this suite, also include Winston Churchill, Nikita Khruschev, Queen Elizabeth and Imelda Marcos.
• 6000 square feet with 5-6 bedrooms and up to six baths
• On the floor plan, the “garden room” can be easily converted into a bedroom and half bathroom which can be easily converted to a full bath

Frankly I think my respect and love for Brad Pitt is rapidly decreasing by his choice or residence. I always imagined him living in a more modern space…
(Photos & info courtesy of Real Estalker.)

Sometimes I feel that living in San Francisco bay area is like living as a rat. Too many people, too little houses, too much money to buy a house. New York is even worse. My friends can’t even turn around without bumping into each other in their tiny kitchens. Hmm. So I came across this on the web today… Is this really land well spent?

continue

I recently read a blog from a stager saying that using fake fruits is an amateur move, and I have read similar things about using a bed-and-breakfast tray on the bed. Because, according to the stager, really, who lives like that?

I frankly laughed at first, since when did people go to graduate school or a 4-year university for staging? People go to a 3-5 days course and bam! We are stagers. Or someone read a book, bam! A stager is born. There are no real credential nor certification exams for someone to become a stager. Essentially anyone, who can print up a business card and set up a website (or some stagers don’t even have websites) ranging from my 82-year-old grandmother to my 10-year-old nephew can be a stager. For someone who calls another an amateur because his/hers staging props, is in fact, completely silly to me. Staging after all, while aiming toward to be objective in order to appeal to a broader range of buyers, is subjective, since it’s based on the aesthetics of the stager.

I frankly have no problems using fake fruits or trays on the beds, since I already use fake bed, fake mattresses, fake trees, fake flowers, fake table, fake computer, fake MP3 player, fake TV.. and some stagers even use fake couches made out of the cardboard. What makes me an amateur if I use fake fruits and do it tastefully? More over, my job title is “stager,” which implies the home is “staged,” i.e. “faked for showing purposes.”

(fake fruit alert!)

Pottery Barn is the mother of all things staged and I have never had realtors or sellers telling me not to achieve the Pottery Barn-esque staging. In fact, if they do mention a style that they want, they almost always ask for that Pottery Barn style of staging.

Case in point, do most people’s homes looks like this?

(fake cheese alert!)

No, yet, buyers ate it up and Pottery Barn stuff is still selling like hot cakes. I wish I have a summer catalog picture since the showroom use fake mussels & fake lobster at their showrooms’ table settings.

My point is, fake food, is not going to deflect the buyers’ attention if done tastefully. Neither are the fake trees, fake bed, fake mattresses, or fake whatever, as long as everything is done tastefully. The point is not about all these things in the home. The point is about showcase the home for what it could be, adding little touches here and there such as fake fruits, cake, etc. are not going to distract the buyers to the point that they didn’t see the house. If that’s the case, then Pottery Barn plates or dinning tables won’t sell, because all people could see were the fake cheese, fake lobster, fake mussels at the showroom table, and not the products Pottery Barn tries to sell.

So what makes a stager an amateur or a professional? The same argument can go for should there be part-time stagers or full-time stagers?

For me, a professional stager is: continue

(Photo courtesy of idon’tlikeyouinthatway.com)

1. Do your due diligence as a seller/agent to prep the home for sale: You don’t want to have this frown face when there are no offers on the table after 90 days on market. Britney drank every night before the performance and didn’t rehearse at all. And IT SHOWED. Her fans were more than disappointed, they turned on her on the blogging platform. Similarly, it shows when you didn’t prep the home for sale, it’s not going to bring your ideal open house traffic. Stage the house, power wash, clean it throughly, landscape it, do whatever you need to to get the home in top showing status. Let it be that shiny penny that the agents want to show, not the bottom feeder that every agent uses as the bad comp.

(Photo courtesy of idon’tlikeyouinthatway.com)

2.Don’t overhype yourself. The week before Britney’s big comeback performance, the media kept talking about it, hyping it up: How great it’s going to be, Criss Angel is working with her on it, yada yada yada. Come the big show time, we see Britney flopping around in a less than attractive outfit, dancing like a zombie on screen. That’s why creating reasonable expectations for your buyers is very important. It’s very easy to be happy about something when it exceeds your expectations, at the same time, it will be harder to recover if you had a high expectation of something and it didn’t live up to its promise.

Case in point: Put yourself in your buyers’ shoes, what if this is the photo you saw online and it looks decent enough that you want to see it in person:

And this is what happened when you show up at the house? continue

This came into my mail box today, how pretty is that?!

DWR & Knoll are auctioning off these beautiful Florence Knoll benches to fight breast cancer. Here is the info from the DWR site:

On Thursday, October 25, nine auctions will be held at nine DWR Studios across the country. The proceeds will go to the local chapter of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, so your donation will benefit your community. Auctions will take place at the following DWR Studios: g

• Bethesda, Maryland
• Chicago, Illinois (North Ave)
• Dallas, Texas
• Newport Beach, California
• New York, New York (Flatiron)
• Portland, Oregon
• Princeton, New Jersey
• San Francisco, California (Potrero Hill)
• South Beach, Florida

Online bidding for one bench will begin October 16 and conclude October 25. All proceeds from the online auction will benefit the national chapter of Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Susan G. Komen for the Cure is the world’s largest grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists. Founded in 1982, the foundation has invested nearly a billion dollars toward their cause, becoming the largest source of nonprofit funds dedicated to the fight against breast cancer in the world. Learn more

Staged4more is raising funds for Stomach Cancer

Many of you may also know that my beloved grandfather passed away last August due to stomach cancer, which has become an issue dear to my heart. I have set up a memorial fund via firstgiving. If you have $5 to donate, I would really appreciate it! All the funds raised will go to Pacific Rim Disease Prevention Center.