Selling a house is stressful. Try these 6 house showing survival tips for life in the real estate market from Debra Gould, the “Staging Diva”.

Whether you’ve already put in a conditional offer on your dream home or you’re being forced to move for a job transfer, if your house is on the real estate market you’re probably hoping to sell fast for the most money possible.

Home staging is known to reduce the number of days a home spends on the market before it sells, but it can be very difficult to live in a home that must remain in showing condition at all times. This can add a lot of pressure to the already stressful process of selling your home.

Home staging expert Debra Gould shares the following house showing survival tips that will make it easier for you to maintain your beautifully staged home (and your sanity) until your investment in home staging results in a fast sale:

Get rid of the clutter

If this step wasn’t already taken care of when your house was staged, it’s the first thing you should do now. It’s much easier to maintain a clutter-free home than one that’s stuffed to the gills. Go through every closet and cubbyhole in your home and get rid of the things you never use and won’t be moving with you. Decide what you want to put in storage and do that as soon as you can.

Office- After Staging. Photo by Mary Ann Benoit, Northern Lights Home Staging and Design

Don’t even think about having a garage sale

If your house is currently on the market or will be listed anytime soon, do not even consider having a yard sale. You want to clear out your unwanted items before you put your home on the market. Nothing screams “desperate home seller” like a “garage sale” sign next to a “for sale” sign in your yard. You don’t want buyers to know you’re in a hurry to sell, so if you need to unload your extra stuff, put it in storage and sell it when you move to your new location. Better yet, donate it to charity.

Remove your valuables

You will never really know who is walking through your home during showings, so be sure to gather all your personal items and small valuables before the first open house. You can put them in storage or leave them with a trusted friend or family member while your house is on the market.

Create a new junk drawer

Get a basket or a box that you can use to store daily clutter, such as the day’s newspaper, magazines and other mail. When these items are restricted to one container, it will be easy to stash them away for last-minute showings.

Remove excess toys

Clear out most of the toys from your home and store them until you move. While your home is on the market, allow each child to have one basket of favorite items that can be neatly tucked away for showings. These items should not include toys or building sets with lots of small pieces that are time-consuming to collect and put away.

Let there be light

Before all showings, open the window coverings and turn on all the lights. You want your home to be shown in good lighting conditions so it seems bright and cheerful instead of dark and stuffy.

Hopefully these tips will help make things easier while your home is on the market. The good news is, if you worked with a professional home stager, it shouldn’t be long before the sold sign goes up in your lawn.

Northern Lights Home Staging and Design provides your local expertise in Alaska home staging, Interior Design and decorating for The Kenai Peninsula and Anchorage. Call (907)-362-0065 today or email us at info@northernlightsstaging.com. Visit us at https://northernlightsstaging.com.   

Internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould is president of Six Elements and creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program with over 4,000 students worldwide. Gould is the author of four home staging guides and offers a Directory of Home Stagers to help homeowners and real estate agents locate home stagers who will decorate homes to sell quickly and for top dollar. To learn more, visit www.stagingdivadirectoryofhomestagers.com

Written by internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould, The Staging Diva^®, www.stagingdiva.com. © Copyright Six Elements Inc. Used with permission.

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For most of us, our home is our biggest financial asset. When it’s time to sell and move on, we want to sell it for as much as possible and as quickly as possible. None of want to spend any more on the house we our selling…. None of us want to continue to pay a mortgage and taxes on a home sitting on the market or take a price reduction of thousands if it does not sell quickly.

So why home stage? What’s in it for you? A small investment can potentially reap an increased sale price up to 20% more and may help you sell 79% faster or more!  Much of the staging costs may potentially be written off on your taxes as advertising fees on your home sale.

What is Home Staging?

Home staging is a real estate service and powerful marketing strategy that prepares your house for successful sale by highlighting your home’s best features and minimizing its flaws. It helps buyers see the home’s true potential so they can visualize themselves living there.

How does it affect Buyer Perception?

Buyer’s perception of the location, price and condition of your house affect their desire to buy it. Home staging can influence the price and condition. Staging helps gets your house in the best condition, focusing on things that give you a good return on your investment. Staging also helps set and maintain your price at the top end of the range for similar houses on the market by making your house outshine the competition.

Does Home Staging Really Work?

The National Association of Realtors 2015 Profile of Home Staging noted the following based on a study of 49,000 real estate agents nationwide:

• Up to 71% of Realtors think staging increases the dollar value buyers are willing to offer between 1-20%.
• 81% of Realtors think it helps buyers to visualize the property as a future home.

In the examples below, this house sold the first day on the market for full asking price after home staging. The way it looked before staging, I seriously doubt this would have happened.

Do staged homes really sell Faster?

In 2011, the Real Estate Staging Association conducted 2 studies.

• In study #1, 174 vacant and occupied homes (not staged) were put on the market. They were on the market an average of 156 days. These same homes were then staged and relisted and sold on an average of 42 days. The staged homes spent 114 days (4 months) less time on the market!
• In study #2, 126 vacant and occupied homes (not staged) were put on the market. They were on the market an average of 273 days. These same homes were then staged and relisted and sold on an average of 60 days. The staged homes spent 213 days (7 months) less time on the market!
• The study shows it does not benefit you to list the property first to see if it will sell ….then stage. In this study, the staged homes sold 79% faster. 

Do Staged homes really sell for more?

• In the 2011 Home Sale Maximizer Survey of 600 real estate agents nationwide found that 80% recommend homeowners invest in staging prior to selling. The return on investment is nearly 300%.
•  Up to 71% of Realtors think staging increases the dollar value buyers are willing to offer between 1-20%.

How Much Money are You Leaving on the Table?

Consider that you could be leaving up to 20% on the final sales price of your home on the table without staging, and the cost of staging is usually less than 1%.  And if your house is on the market a while, your first price reduction will likely be $5000-$15000. Will you also be paying a mortgage and taxes too?

Home staging works in a buyers or seller’s market

Regardless of the market, you want to make the most money possible on your home sale. Your home is worth what a buyer is willing to pay. Home staging helps you get the most for your home in either a buyers’ or seller’s market.

Buyers’ Market- Lots of houses on the market 

When there are lots of homes on the market, buyers are more choosy and they can take their time before deciding to buy.  There is more competition. Staging helps make your house outshine the competition and helps you sell faster so you won’t lose money with a price reduction while potentially still paying mortgage costs and taxes for every month the house is on the market.

Seller’s Market- Few Houses on the market

When there are few houses on the market, sellers often think, why should I invest any money in staging, repairs etc. when I should be able to sell it quickly? Because you can make more money on your house if you do! Staging can offer a better starting price, multiple offers, and higher than list offers. There will always be a range of prices for similar houses on the market based on their condition and how well they show. The better your home shows, the more it will sell for. Staging can help put your house on the top end of the price range for similar houses. If your house is the most appealing and there are few houses on the market, you can generate a “bidding war” and get even more for your house.

Who pays for staging?

The National Association of Realtors 2015 Profile of Home Staging noted the following regarding staging costs nationwide:

• 62% of Seller’s agent offers the home staging service to sellers
• 39% of Sellers pay before listing the home

Personally, I think the seller should pay for the staging. They have the most to gain from their investment and it is a good idea for them to hire the best professional stager they can. If the cost of staging is left to the realtor, they may look for the cheapest, but not necessarily most effective stager.

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If you’re preparing to put your home on the market, there are a number of reasons that you can benefit from enlisting the services of a professional home stager. Here are the top 5 reasons:

1) To make your home stand out in a flooded marketplace

In a slow real estate market, it’s not unusual to see several houses for sale on the same street. Buyers have less incentive to buy today because they know increased inventory means asking prices may go down even more tomorrow. Thus, home sellers are trapped in their non-selling houses for longer. To avoid this scenario, you must make your home stand out from the competition. Home staging offers a way to end this costly inconvenience because staged homes have been proven to sell faster.

2) To preserve your equity

A home stager is a light at the end of the tunnel for a desperate home seller being told constantly by their real estate agent that they need to lower their price to attract buyers. If a home doesn’t show well, often these price reductions, which eat right into an owner’s equity, don’t have the desired effect anyway. The house continues to sit on the market, while the anxious seller copes with the lack of interest in his listing and contemplates how much money he’ll lose when the house finally does sell. An investment in home staging always costs less than another price reduction, which is money right out of your pocket.

3) To meet the deadline for a conditional offer on another house

In a hot market, buyers usually have to present unconditional offers to get the properties they want. A slower market brings a return to offers that are conditional upon the sale of a buyer’s existing home. If you’ve fallen in love with a new home but you have to sell your old one by a certain date in order to avoid nullifying your offer, staging provides a way to speed up the selling process so you won’t lose out on your dream home.

4) To increase the number of showings on your property

There was a time when buyers and sellers were totally dependent on real estate agents. Those days are gone. Approximately 80% of prospective buyers shop online before ever calling an agent. Now that the public can access MLS listings and shop from the photos they see online, it’s even more critical for your property to show well in listing photographs. Otherwise, your agent won’t even get a request for a house showing.

Staging makes all the difference in how rooms look both online and in the real world. Savvy real estate agents are recommending staging to their clients as a way to draw attention to their listings and to sell homes faster.

5) To avoid paying commissions

In a slower market and a tougher economy, a growing number of home sellers want to avoid the average 6% commission they’ll have to pay their real estate agents when they sell their homes. With an increasing number of websites and services available to assist the “For Sale By Owner” (FSBO) market, this option becomes even more appealing for sellers. Home stagers can offer the support and objective eye to these sellers who need to prepare their homes and make their photos stand out online. After all, the cost of staging is small compared to the commissions they’re saving.

For all these reasons and more, home stagers are a beacon of hope for beleaguered home sellers trying to get the most money when they sell and trying to sell their property as fast as possible.

Internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould is president of Six Elements and creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program with over 4,000 students worldwide. Gould is the author of four home staging guides and offers a Directory of Home Stagers to help homeowners and real estate agents locate home stagers who will decorate homes to sell quickly and for top dollar. To learn more, visit www.stagingdivadirectoryofhomestagers.com. Written by internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould, The Staging Diva^®, www.stagingdiva.com. © Copyright Six Elements Inc. Used with permission.

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A PICTURE’S WORTH A MILLION WORDS…& HOME BUYERS LOVE IT!

There’s a lot of hype these days about the value of Social Media in promoting an event, an idea and; how about this – a home sale! And why not; social media reaches a larger and younger audience of home buyers.  Its smart selling!

If you are planning on selling a home, you are smart to use social media to capture the attention of potential home buyers. Include social media in your marketing arsenal for a faster home sale. And for sellers who will use the For-Sale-By-Owner strategy; social media is a must.

If social media is not your thing, find someone who is skilled in using Facebook. As the seller, you can provide the other key elements of packaging your home sale and see that it is part of your social media marketing. Doing this will positively shape home buyer perceptions and emotions; those psychological triggers that prompt buyers to make you on offer on their future home!

MARKETING TOOLS FOR HOME SELLERS

• Professional home staging by an expert home stager with real estate knowledge
• Professional photos of the inside and outside of a property for use on the Internet, in social media & on marketing flyers
• A real estate “listing” (agent’s advertisement) which accurately describes the home’s features
• A “Facebook Page” that home sellers can capitalize on to do the following;
• Capture the “essence” of your home through photos, video and messages
• Promote your home sale through Face Book “Ads” so a larger audience is aware of your sale. Target your home buyers using location, age, income, demographics, and more.
• Send “invitations” or advertise your home sale “events,” such as an Open House
• Create and post videos or virtual tours of the interior and exterior of your home that highlights property features. A video helps make the home come alive for home buyers.

Facebook Pages, ads & videos offer powerful marketing photos, messages and information to home buyers that they won’t see in a typical real estate agent property listing (the Multiple Listing Service, or the MLS).

Together, these additional photos, videos and messages can portray the “essence” of what makes your property stand out from other properties (your competitors) with authentic marketing highlighting the best your house has to offer….something you as the owner know more about than anyone else!

Use links to these Facebook Pages, Ads, Events and videos in real estate listings, For-Sale-By-Owner websites, yard signs & flyers, marketing brochures, online Pay-Per-Click ads (PPC), newspaper ads and emails. Link them to other social media sites such as Twitter, Pinterest and Google Plus to expand your advertising even more.

Call 907-362-0065 to launch your home sale with my social media tools and services. I can create a great Facebook page and video that captures the ‘essence” of your home for sale and do social media marketing of your page. Combine this with my home staging services and you will have a winning combination to sell your home fast and for more!

 

Purchase an Online Home Staging Service

Click on the pictures below to learn more or purchase a service. Feel free if you have questions and would like to discuss what would be best for you.

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Home staging aids homeowners facing foreclosureForeclosure is an unpleasant topic, but one that some of us will have to deal with.

According to home staging expert Debra Gould, the key to avoiding foreclosure is to be proactive. “If you know that you will have difficulty making your mortgage payments in the near future, contact your lender immediately,” Gould states. “Explain your situation politely and clearly, and ask if you can negotiate a modified mortgage payment plan. Don’t be embarrassed to take this important step. Lenders are much more likely to work with you if you have contacted them before the foreclosure process has begun.”

Many people facing the prospect of foreclosure will decide that the best solution is to sell their houses. If this is the only viable option for you, then you have a particularly strong incentive to sell your home as quickly as possible and for the best possible price.

This means hiring the best agent for your area. Your agent should have an intimate knowledge of your neighborhood, be able to identify comparable home sales and make this information available to you. Additionally, he or she should disclose the current market conditions and have extensive networking abilities as well as solid negotiation skills.

If you have decided that selling your home is your best option, you will need to prep your home for showings. Hiring a professional home stager is the single best way to outshine your competition. It might seem counter intuitive to hire a professional stager when you’ve tightened your budget and are facing the sale of your home to avoid foreclosure; however, it has been proven time and time again that staged homes sell faster and for a higher price than homes that are sold “as is.”

The real estate market continues to see a great number of homes going on the market, and your home needs to stand out among the rest. You want your home to be the one that people fall in love with the moment they enter, and a home stager helps make that happen.

When hiring a home stager, remember that home staging is not a regulated field. Anyone can claim to be accredited or certified, and many present portfolios of their work that they bought as part of a course. When hiring a home stager, ask questions about any before and after photos you are shown, look for a demonstrated understanding of the local real estate market and don’t make a decision based solely on price. You often get what you pay for, and in a serious situation like the sale of your home, you need the very best professional advice available. Hiring the right real estate stager can mean an extra $10,000 to $70,000 in the selling price of your home.

When you are facing foreclosure and must sell your home quickly, pricing your home correctly and marketing it effectively are not always enough to get a quick sale in this market. You must go above and beyond other homes for sale in your neighborhood to catch the eye of potential buyers. By using the services of a professional home stager, your house is much more likely to be one that sells.

Internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould is president of Six Elements and creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program with over 4,000 students worldwide. Gould is the author of four home staging guides and offers a Directory of Home Stagers to help homeowners and real estate agents locate home stagers who will decorate homes to sell quickly and for top dollar. To learn more, visit www.stagingdivadirectoryofhomestagers.com

Written by internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould, The Staging Diva^®, www.stagingdiva.com. © Copyright Six Elements Inc. Used with permission.

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Home stagers can make a number of small changes to a property that can dramatically shorten the time it spends on the real estate market while also increasing the final sales price. Home staging expert Debra Gould shares her five favorite tips for getting a house ready to sell:

1. Reduce drive-bys

Imagine you’re a homebuyer on a house-hunting mission. Your real estate agent has ten properties to show you on a Saturday afternoon. When you drive up to what could be your dream home, you see a rusted-out mailbox, broken handrail and children’s toys strewn across an un-mowed lawn. You don’t have any time to waste, so you’re probably going to say, “Let’s move on,” skipping the showing appointment entirely.

Curb appeal helps draw prospective buyers into your home. If the outside of a house looks unkempt, it creates an impression that the property is not cared for. To enhance curb appeal:

• Ensure the lawn is freshly cut and that leaves are raked. In winter, snow should be shoveled from the driveway and walkways.

• Make the entrance more welcoming with a seasonally appropriate planted urn or hanging plant.

• Repair or replace any obvious defects. Often this is cheaper to do than a prospective buyer will imagine.

• Make sure the walkways and porches are swept clean and garbage and recycling containers are tucked away at the rear of the house or in the garage.

• Ensure the exterior gets a good pressure wash and the decks are scrubbed clean. It’s a good alternative to painting. Once everything’s clean, you might discover it doesn’t need to be repainted at all; perhaps just a touch-up will do.

2. Stash your keepsakes and keep your home clutter-free

Your treasured keepsakes may look like clutter to potential buyers. It distracts them from appreciating the house itself and can lead home buyers to reject your property. De-cluttering is essential. Tackle one area at a time so the task isn’t so overwhelming.

You’ll probably have to go through each closet more than once to get its contents down to the absolute essentials, but it will be worth the effort. Try setting a timer for 60 minutes and it will no longer seem like an endless task.

If you’re having a tough time parting with things, rent a storage locker so you can keep your beloved items while you’re selling the house, and then have them delivered to your new address after your move.

3. Avoid wandering eyes

You want to make sure that little problems in a room won’t cause a potential buyer to focus on one flaw after another, thinking about all the work they’ll have to do and how much less they should offer you because of it. You want them to see the bigger picture and imagine themselves living there.

Do a walkthrough to spot these typical problems. Look for chipped paint on the door frames, which can be filled in with “white out.” Peeling wallpaper should be glued back down. Ensure there are covers on all electrical outlets and light switches, and replace any that are cracked. Repair dripping taps and moldy caulking. These little things make a big difference in the buyer’s mind!

4. Color is your friend when it’s time to sell a house

In most cases, white walls look cold and sterile. If you have to repaint a home’s interior or some rooms in a home, choose a pleasing color palette that allows each room to flow nicely into the next. All colors should go together.

Try to repeat one signature color throughout a home. Maybe the feature color in one room can be used as an accent in the others, through accessories or throw cushions.

5. Make a big impact with a little art

By strategically using art, you can enhance a home’s perceived value, draw the eye away from tiny flaws, give an otherwise uninteresting space a focal point and replace personal memorabilia.

Don’t just throw things on the wall where an old picture hook happens to be. Position art at eye level and use pieces that are appropriate to the size of the wall. Art with a large frame on a small wall can make the entire area seem smaller. Avoid religious art or anything edgy that could be offensive to some potential buyers.

These are just a few of the many things that can be done to improve your home’s appearance and to make it more appealing to homebuyers. While the steps can be time consuming, the results are worth it. A professional home stager makes the job much easier and can give you the specific steps you should take on your own. Stagers bring total objectivity and a creative eye to the process of decorating your house to sell. This increases your chance of selling your property faster and for more money.

Internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould is president of Six Elements and creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program with over 4,000 students worldwide. Gould is the author of four home staging guides and offers a Directory of Home Stagers to help homeowners and real estate agents locate home stagers who will decorate homes to sell quickly and for top dollar. To learn more, visit www.stagingdivadirectoryofhomestagers.com. Written by internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould, The Staging Diva^®, www.stagingdiva.com. © Copyright Six Elements Inc. Used with permission.

 

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 Home buyers have less imagination than you might think. That’s why home staging can make such a difference in the selling price of a home and the length of time it takes to sell. During the few minutes that homebuyers typically spend in a house, most of them aren’t able to look past ugly, crowded and disorganized rooms, or figure out that the missing dining room is actually masquerading as a family room. In a house with few bedrooms, most buyers won’t look past a desk and imagine a bed in its place. What you do with a “spare” bedroom can have a huge impact on how the house does in today’s real estate market.

A professional home stager will not assume that the rooms in your house are already furnished for the right purposes, and will be able to envision what homebuyers want to see. A home stager’s job is to lead a buyer down the garden path of how a property can look and show them exactly how they can live in it.

Add a bedroom
Debra Gould, founder of the Staging Diva® Home Staging Business Training Program, has encountered this scenario countless times since she started her home staging business,  Six Elements Inc., in 2002. “I once staged a house that had only two bedrooms, and one of them had dark paneling, no closet and was set up as a home office,” says Gould. “Consistent criticism after showings told the homeowners that it was being perceived as a one-bedroom house. For staging, I took out the desk, put in a bed and turned it into a guest room. The house sold within days.”

Add a child’s room
Home stagers pay special attention to whether or not a home might be a popular choice for young families. This is where knowledge of the local real estate market comes into play.

“If a home is in a family-oriented neighborhood and the existing owners do not have children, at least one existing bedroom needs to be transformed into a child’s room,” remarks Gould who is also known as The Staging Diva®, “When a couple with a young family walks through a childless home, it’s hard for them to imagine how their own family will live there. Are the bedrooms appropriate for their kids? Where will they play? Professional home stagers always keep the target market of a house in mind when staging. This helps paint a picture for the potential buyer by staging the house the way it would be lived in by them. With minimal furnishings and a few props, it’s easy to show a child’s bedroom!”

Disguising a small bedroom
“If you’re staging a four-bedroom home that has an exceptionally small bedroom without a closet, consider styling that room as a craft room or home office. Homebuyers would only see how tiny it is and that could put them off,” warns Gould. “If possible, include a loveseat with end tables and lamps so buyers will envision it as a fold-out bed. This will help them visualize how the room can double as a guestroom.”

The important thing to remember is that home buyers are in a house very briefly and won’t struggle to imagine how they can change the property to meet their own needs. When they go to a showing, they want to picture themselves living in that home. With good staging, they don’t have to imagine their lives there; they should already feel like they’re home. That’s what sells homes faster and for more money.

Internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould is president of Six Elements and creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program with over 4,000 students worldwide. Gould is the author of four home staging guides and offers a Directory of Home Stagers to help homeowners and real estate agents locate home stagers who will decorate homes to sell quickly and for top dollar. To learn more, visit www.stagingdivadirectoryofhomestagers.com
Written by internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®, H© Copyright Six Elements Inc. Used with permission.

NORTHERN LIGHTS HOME STAGING AND DESIGN PROVIDES YOUR LOCAL EXPERTISE IN ALASKA HOME STAGING FOR  SEWARD ALASKA AND THE KENAI PENINSULA. CALL 1-907-362-0065 TODAY. OR EMAIL US AT info@northernlightsstaging.com. 

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