Staging

BEFORE



I've never sold a house before. In fact, it's been a HUGE learning process. There are a lot of things I didn't know I needed to do before, and there are many things that I'm glad I did that I didn't have to figure out needed to be done. Decluttering -- that's one of the things I'm so glad I did before we had the house on the market; I can only imagine how the house would show if we hadn't done that.

Now, staging ... that's something that I've been completely clueless about for years! I've never really taken the time to add those little "homey" (as Eliza calls it) touches to our house. That's been one of the things that I've had to learn recently, and extremely quickly.

We had a realtor do a preview of our house this last Thursday. She said the overall quality was good, but that the staging was fair (out of excellent, good, fair, or poor). Granted, she only gave me 10-15 minutes notice before coming. I cleaned up, and the house actually was really clean, but I have to agree with her opinion that the house was a little "bare" (see above photos).

That same day the realty office called to schedule a showing for Friday late afternoon. So, Friday I went to the store and got some "homey" accents for our furniture. And, the response was immediate. We got an offer! Actually, it was a low-ball offer of $25,000 under our asking price. We got word of that on Saturday morning and spent a little time discussing how we would counter the offer. Shortly after that the realty office called again and said that they had two showing requests for Sunday. TWO! CRAZY! So, we decided to wait to say anything to the buyers that made an offer until after the showings.



AFTER


Here's what we did for staging for Friday and Sunday: (Actually, on Friday the dining table wasn't set, it only had the dish of fruit on it.)

• I added a side table to the living room. (The side table was $8 from Ikea. It was a bright red that I painted a burgandy to match the red accents in the rooms.)


• Added some throw pillows to the couches as well.


• Previously this room had just the couches ... no rug, no pillows, no table.
  

This room required a lot more. This is the family room. My good friend, Aubrey, assisted us in designing how to use the space. It is a very long room, and we needed to split it up. She found this AWESOME white corner nook table for our children to use while doing their homework, crafts, or playing games.

• So, I put a table cloth on the table to cover up all the paint and marker marks left on the table (DO NOT USE ROSEART WASHABLE MARKERS, THEY DO NOT WASH OFF!), then stacked some games and added a dish filled with candy.


• The couches needed a little color, so I added the pillows and the throw, and it totally made the room look so much better.


• But, then the fireplace mantel needed a little something as well. Before we had just our family picture on the mantel, so I added a vase of fresh flowers and a clock.

I think it turned out okay for what little budget and time we had. Oh, and this room did not have any rugs before either ... and can I say, we've not had rugs for over a year and I LOVE having rugs down.

Anyway, the end of the story goes like this:

We had our showings on Sunday (today) at 11:30 (while we were at church) and at 1:00. We came home from church at 12:30 to make lunch to take with us before the next showing and found a really nice note left on the counter from the realtor that showed our house:

"You have a very nice & beautiful home. Buyers were impressed with the staging. Can't believe the condition & cleanliness with so many children. Thank you very much for doing such a nice job!"

And, then to top it all off, we got these comments from our realtor:

"2nd showing scheduled for Monday night. Looked at 10 homes today. Are down to 2 tomorrow night to look at and will be submitting an offer following that. Very nice home. After looing at all of the junk out there it was nice to see some homes that are taken care of inside. Please let us know if there is additional interest."

Wahoo! I totally am a believer of staging now! I'd looked at professional staging companies websites on Friday and one of them said that staged homes sell 25% faster than homes that are not. I wasn't sure whether that was true or not, but if the feedback we got is any indication ... I will definitely side with the staging company ... staged houses probably do sell faster. At least, I hope ours does even if it's not professionally staged. (BTW, today is day 22 on the market.)