The reality is the moment you commit to marketing your home for sale, you need to commit to transforming your home into a place that potential buyers can easily picture as their home. This means that you need to be prepared to emotionally detach.
Most home sellers that I encounter tend to take the staging process personally, and this is precisely the point. Our homes are personal, yet how we live is not how we sell. Our homes represent who we are. They showcase our stuff — all that stuff we have accumulated over time that speaks to us. The goal of staging is to make the home speak to everyone else, in a compelling and positive way.
Too often the tendency is to take the process personally, but you shouldn’t. Staging is not a do-it-yourself sport, and only a third party specialist can bring the neutrality and objectivity needed to accomplish the goal. Which gets me to my offer to you. As an added service to listing with Rick you receive a free home staging appointment from me. As a team, we will create the best presentation for your house, thereby maximizing the sales price and minimizing the time to sell.
In addition to the example in the photo above, please see more examples of our professional home staging below:
Maja is an interior designer and accredited professional stager who has specialized in Home Staging® since 2006. She is an expert in taking a personalized and finished interior environment (home) and returning it to a sellable product by staging® the property (house). This process generally results in higher financial returns with minimum time on the housing market.
March 8, 2020, Maja discusses helping seniors to stage their homes:
“As a senior specialist, I am familiar with the challenges of getting some senior’s homes market-ready. Properties that have been occupied for several decades often appear cluttered and dated. Owners may lack the time, energy and resources to thin out possessions and make profitable updates.
The first challenge is convincing senior homeowners that staging is essential. Perhaps they stopped paying attention to home design trends years ago. They may assume it’s better to “just let the next people pick new paint colors.” After all, that’s what they did.
It’s an attitude that ignores two crucial market realities: Staged homes are much more likely to sell faster and for a higher price.
Additionally, senior homeowners may not realize that buyers’ preferences and expectations have changed. According to NAR Research, older members of Gen Y and Millennials (people currently age 29 to 38) are the largest group of home buyers, representing 26% of all buyers. 1
These buyers often prioritize “move-in-ready” homes and will pass on properties that require them to make improvements on their own – or to postpone a move-in date, waiting for work to be completed.
When discussing possible list prices with senior clients, Rick counsels them about what they can expect under various scenarios – doing “nothing” versus making small or substantial upgrades and improvements. After we agree, I step in to facilitate the staging process.”
Rick is a Queen Creek realtor with a SRES (Seniors Real Estate Specialist) designation — click here to learn more about SRES.
1. Source: NAR’s 2019 Home Buyers and Seller Generational Trends Report
