Home Staging Seminar at Douglas Elliman

I had the pleasure of speaking at Douglas Elliman Real Estate last Friday, May 2nd, where I discussed the value of using a Home Stager, like me, to sell property. Here are the topics and some of the highlights:

• Have you failed to land a listing that you REALLY wanted?

• Are you ALWAYS making the right first impression?

• Are there items missing from YOUR tool kit?

In more cases than not (70% of the time, in fact) a seller’s first impression of a space is the right one. With fierce competition for listings, agents need to put themselves in a position to succeed.

To make a sale, agents need a dependable group of professionals to put in their Tool Kit:

• Graphic designer - develops promotional materials

• Photographer - shoots property prior to an open houses

• Admin assistants – prepares co-op packages

And lastly, an agent needs a HOME STAGER. No one is adept at all things, and competitive agents know that a good Home Stager will make them look more professional than another agent.

Sellers should be comfortable with their agent doing what they do best. Agents will price the property correctly by knowing the health of the building or co-op, the school districts, and the transportation access. Most importantly, agents know how to make the deal.

What an agent shouldn’t be is the “bad cop.” The last thing sellers want to hear from their agent is “you’ll need to paint this” or “you just need to clean up this room.” That should be the Stager’s job. Let the Stager be the bad cop and take care of those issues prior to the open house.

The real estate agent should be overlooking everything as the captain of the team to make the biggest profit for the seller. A home that is properly staged can sell within a week or two of the first open house, cause a bidding war, and sell over the asking price.

Using an Interior Designer who stages homes is also more cost effective than using a professional Home Staging service. Interior designers won’t rent large amounts of furniture to agents for a profit. Vacated homes and new estates will need this, but not homes with current tenants. Also, not every space needs a total overhaul. Most of the time, they just need fine tuning by opening the energy flow and clearing the clutter, and this falls under the expertise of an Interior Designer.

A talented stager can enhance what is already in the space to a point that potential buyers can envision their own lives moving there, making the buyer much closer to closing.