Home Staging For Quick Sales

[JScott]

JScott - when you have a chance, would you mind taking a few minutes to explain your staging process? Approx. much did you budget for a full house of furnishings? Do you have storage costs (when the furniture is not in use)? Who moves the furniture from house to house? Who sets it up?

We are starting to see deals in more 'retailable' neighborhoods. Thinking staging might be a great way to set us apart, if we decide to pursue some of these opportunities.

Hey Phlgirl --

Sorry, I missed this post the first time around...didn't mean to not respond...

My wife is in charge of all the staging, and I'm really not very good at it, but I'll try to relay some of the things she thinks about and does:

1) First and foremost, look for furniture that is both lightweight (you'll be moving it often) and small (makes the rooms look bigger). Surprisingly, it's difficult to find either of these things.

My wife has found two local stores (don't know if they're national or not) that have supplied most of our staging materials (American Signature Furniture and FurnitureLand), and then spends several hours per week on Craigslist, where she finds the real gems -- those one-of-a-kind pieces of furniture or accessories that just seem to fit perfectly into specific houses. She also picks up prints and some other accessories at places like Walmart and Target.

We used Ikea for the first house, but realized two problems: things that are put together inside a room can be tough to get out of the room, and Ikea furniture is HEAVY!

For things like beds, instead of a mattress, you can use two boxsprings or a boxspring under a blow-up mattress. With the comforter on top, you can't tell it's not a real bed, but it's much cheaper and much easier to move than a real bed. Though be prepared to rebuild it every time a buyer sits on it (which is about 3 times a week ).

2) Now that we're on our third set of staging furniture, we can do an entire house (furniture, accessories, pictures, etc) for about $2500.

A lot of times, my wife will buy things that are discontinued, pieces of larger sets where other pieces are damaged, things with small scratches or imperfections, etc. She even has salespeople from stores call her when they have "small and cheap" stuff available, as they know what she does and what she's looking for.

We even found a woman who does woodworking who offered to make us furniture if we ever needed a custom piece, though we haven't had to use her yet.

3) Each set of furniture is color coordinated, and depending on the house (lighting, color of the floors, color of the cabinets, etc), she'll choose one of the sets.

For example, the red and brown set goes really well with hardwood floors and dark cabinets:

REI Startup: The Second Chance House: Staging Pics

And the blue/green set goes really well in the very neutral houses:

REI Startup: The Bulge House: Staging Pics

4) Definitely use the staging to hide flaws in the houses. For example, in this bathroom (http://reistartup.com/wp-content/upl...bath_thumb.JPG), there was a cracked tile behind the magazines and under the plant. We made sure the buyers knew about them after the contract was signed (so they could back out if it was really a deal-breaker), but it kept the buyers from focusing on it when they first viewed the house.

5) Also, definitely use staging to highlight good characteristics. For example, in a recent house, I thought putting a TV over the fireplace would make for a really nice living room setup. We ordered one of these prop TVs (the one on the wall) off the Internet, and hung it up:

http://reistartup.com/wp-content/upl...ing2_thumb.jpg

It gives the buyer the ability to imagine how they could actually use this room, and I've had two buyers (men, specifically) ask if I could have one of our contractors actually mount their TV exactly where we have the prop staged.

6) Notice in all the pictures how the curtain rods are hung well above the windows and the curtains sit to the sides of the windows. This frames the windows and makes them look much larger than they are, which is really appealing to buyers:

http://reistartup.com/wp-content/upl...ning_thumb.JPG

http://reistartup.com/wp-content/upl...ng3_staged.jpg

7) If you have new carpet in the house, put down plastic carpet protector. Not only does it keep the carpet from getting stained, but multiple buyers have noted that the fact that we made an effort to save the carpet indicated that we probably took extra care when renovating. Not sure there's a correlation, but if buyers think so, that's great.

The other nice thing about carpet plastic is that you can use it to define the walk-ways through the house, and basically set up a clear path for the buyers to follow.

8) Use staging to define spaces. For example, in each 3-bedroom house, the master is very "adult-like" with the furniture, the secondary bedroom is staged as a kids room, and the third bedroom is staged as an office. Since buyers don't have much of an imagination, this allows them to see all the possibilities for the rooms:

For example, here's a kids room, including a play table, puzzles and building blocks:

http://reistartup.com/wp-content/upl...room_thumb.JPG

Also, we've been able to take a couple really dingy basements and make them look like very usable space:

http://reistartup.com/wp-content/upl...ent2_thumb.JPG

9) Always throw some plants in the house. Having living things in the house really makes the house feel informal and comfortable. My wife uses cactus-like plants, because even we can figure out how to keep them alive:

http://reistartup.com/wp-content/upl...bath_thumb.JPG

http://reistartup.com/wp-content/upl...fice_thumb.JPG


10) Houses with lots of light(s) show much better than darker houses, so make sure of two things:

- When doing your rehab, put in as much fixed light as possible
- When showing the houses or holding open houses, turn on all the lights

http://reistartup.com/wp-content/upl...ly3_staged.jpg

11) Here's are two tips for open houses...

Pour a can of apple pie filling into a pot, and heat it up on the stove. The smell is amazing, and is very comforting to buyers when they walk in (reminiscent of childhood for many people).

Also, hot, fresh brewed coffee (in real porcelain mugs) gets people to stick around and talk (it takes a while to drink hot coffee and people just leave with the real mugs).

I'm sure my wife would have a lot more tips, and I'll ask her if there is anything else she recommends that I add here, but I hope this helps!

[JScott]

Mods -

Feel free to throw the above post into a separate thread if you think house staging is something people on here would be interested in...I'd love to get other people's suggestions as well...

[phlgirl]

Some GREAT information in this post, JScott. Thank you for taking the time!

It sounds like your wife caught on to all of the realtor 'tricks' pretty fast. The apple pie.... or loaf of bread always makes me laugh, when I walk into a house. The mind is a powerful tool.

Where do you store the furniture in between (or is that not an issue yet)? Do you have your contractors move it from house to house?

I agree - I think this should be a new thread. When the market is flooded with properties for sale, staging can set you apart from the rest.

My husband had an idea of going to a local furniture store - asking them to stage the house, with their product (for some negotiated discount price) and then allow them to have a sign that lists all of the furniture is for sale.... it would say something like 'Furnished by FURNITURE PLUS'. Free press for them.

Thanks again.

[PhxMJ]

Moved to new thread per request.

[hakrjak]

Staging definitely makes a difference. Your wife is doing excellent work here. I can't believe she is even hanging pictures on the walls, etc... And who is carrying all this furniture in and out of the houses? haha

1 problem I have had is that the furniture I use gets dinged up every time you move it. How are you protecting your furniture each time you move it into storage and back into another house? Using professional movers?

Cheers,

- Hakrjak

[JScott]

And who is carrying all this furniture in and out of the houses? haha

Currently, my employee and I are doing the moving...but the U-Haul breaking down during the last move reminded me of my business philosophy of not spending time on the low-wage tasks...we'll be paying the couple hundred dollars to have it done in the future. In all honesty, there is very little to move, and it's all pretty light, but it's a pain in the butt...

1 problem I have had is that the furniture I use gets dinged up every time you move it. How are you protecting your furniture each time you move it into storage and back into another house?

We haven't put anything in storage yet. We've been likely that the timing has worked out perfectly with two sets of furniture.

The furniture definitely gets small dings here and there, but the nice part of staging is that we can cover up the problems with the furniture pretty easily -- put the dinged part of the desk against the wall, put a pillow over the couch cushion that dropped into the dirt, etc.

We've also found that a piece of furniture makes an average of two moves before a buyer asks to keep it. So, a lot of stuff is being turned over to buyers, and then we just buy new stuff (and have it delivered directly to the next house!).

[Russ H]

J-

Heard about this today and wanted to pass it on:

Thieves Target Staged Homes—Is it time for a House-Sitter? : Styled, Staged & Sold

Worth taking some extra precautions.

-Russ H.

[hakrjak]

Sounds about right. I've always wondered why nobody ever steals my BBQ grill out of the back yard of staged homes, or the park bench, etc I usually put back there. LOL

- Hakrjak

[hakrjak]

Currently, my employee and I are doing the moving...but the U-Haul breaking down during the last move reminded me of my business philosophy of not spending time on the low-wage tasks...we'll be paying the couple hundred dollars to have it done in the future. In all honesty, there is very little to move, and it's all pretty light, but it's a pain in the butt...



We haven't put anything in storage yet. We've been likely that the timing has worked out perfectly with two sets of furniture.

The furniture definitely gets small dings here and there, but the nice part of staging is that we can cover up the problems with the furniture pretty easily -- put the dinged part of the desk against the wall, put a pillow over the couch cushion that dropped into the dirt, etc.

We've also found that a piece of furniture makes an average of two moves before a buyer asks to keep it. So, a lot of stuff is being turned over to buyers, and then we just buy new stuff (and have it delivered directly to the next house!).

Cool -- just wanted to make sure you didn't know of a better way. I got a pack of furniture markers I use to touch up the wood that gets knicked, and I just bought a roll of that 20" wide pallet wrap, which I saw professional movers using to reduce damage to furniture during moves, so I'll try that and let you know how it works for me.

Ditto on the hiring movers... There are guys on craigslist who work for $50 / hr 3 hour minimum.... that would be perfect!

- Hakrjak

[JScott]

Heard about this today and wanted to pass it on:

Thieves Target Staged Homes—Is it time for a House-Sitter? : Styled, Staged & Sold

Worth taking some extra precautions.

Russ -

Thanks for that link!

I actually use this in all my staged houses:

Lasershield Systems - Security In A Box

It is a portable security system that plugs into a standard wall outlet and phone jack (though we bought an expansion unit that uses wireless), and it uses infrared detection (triggered by body heat) to determine if a secured location has been breached.

Basically, if the system detects an intruder, it sets off a 105 dB siren, then makes an automated phone call to me/my wife/my brother, followed (if appropriate) by phone calls to a 24-hour monitoring service, who notify the police. It's controlled by a keychain remote or using touch-tones over the phone; I have the ability to arm, disarm, check system status, or listen via a system microphone by dialing into the system remotely.

We've only had the alarm go off twice so far -- both times were buyer agents who entered the house without calling us first to disable the alarm. After the second time, we secured a note to the door saying in big letters that there's an alarm inside.

Each whole system (the base unit, the wireless unit, and three infrared sensors) costs about $400, plus $20/month in monitoring costs per house.

I like that idea of a house-sitter though, too!

[CommonCents]

I thought there could be a good business to service all the foreclosed homes owned by banks. Security(new locks) minimal fixing, cleanouts, pool maintenance etc...