Home Staging Helps Bring Top Dollar Sale

Learn the 5 C's to help you get multiple offers 

 

 

If your house could be sold looking the way a model home does, do you think it might bring in more money? Chances are it would. That's why home staging is a growing profession that's rapidly changing the way homes are sold.

 

"Staging is not decorating. Decorating is optional, staging is mandatory in order to sell the house for the most possible money in the shortest amount of time," says home staging instructor Joanne O'Donnell.

 

O'Donnell has been teaching courses on how to stage a home to be sold for several years. The concept first became known in 1972 by then-Realtor, Barb Schwarz who realized that homes would sell for higher prices if they were prepared to sell first.

 

Today, hundreds of thousands of real estate professionals, decorators and sellers have come to understand the once-little-known term staging that was coined by Schwarz

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O'Donnell recently taught a course in San Diego, Calif. In the course were two mother-daughter teams, Realtors and even a lawyer.

 

"When we put your home on the market it is no longer your home; it is a product and we're marketing it," O'Donnell told the students.

 

Home stagers start by viewing the seller's home inside and out. O'Donnell encourages the students to walk through a home that they plan to stage with the seller, being sure to take notes of items that need to be moved and/or removed.

 

While home staging may improve the looks of the home, O'Donnell is careful to point out it is not interior decorating. Instead she says it's much simpler.

 

"You can't go out and buy new things for every problem that you have with a house," says O'Donnell.

She tells the students to be problem solvers, reminding them that her clients are selling their homes and they don't want to spend a lot to do it.

 

Really home staging is about de-cluttering and making a home desirable to the masses. "Clutter eats up equity," O'Donnell frequently reminds the students throughout the course.

 

"The whole idea of staging is that you want to market to the largest number of people to get as many offers as possible," says O'Donnell.

 

There are five key points that must be applied when staging a home. O'Donnell refers to them as the Five C's of Staging: the home needs to be clean, clutter free, have color, be creatively staged, and finally stagers have to compromise with the sellers, because, of course, many sellers continue living in their homes while they're being shown.

 

"People don't see that a lot of things that are in their houses are part of themselves and when you try to sell a house you want to make it as neutral as possible, not necessarily in the colors, but in the way it's presented," says Gerin Canin, a lawyer from New York who is transitioning into a home staging career.

 

Canin believes home stagers play a vital role in real estate.

"I think that when people sell their homes they don't necessarily see their house as a potential buyer would see their house. They become attached to things. [The seller] doesn't notice things that other people would notice. So I do think it's important to have an opinion from someone else," explains Canin.

 

 

By Phoebe Chongchua

 

 

http://www.realtor.com/home-finance/real-estate/sellers/home-staging-selling-tips.aspx?source=web

 

 

Here are a few home staging tips from professionals:

For the inside:

• Clear the clutter.

• Put away all electrical cords and extra appliances.

• Put away family photos.

• Think open space.

For the outside:

• Shutters improve the look.

• Paint/Power wash.

• Plants, high, medium, low -- with lots of color.

• Decks -- even small ones can be a big improvement.

 

7 top housing trends for 2013

By Michele Lerner of realtor.com

http://realestate.msn.com/the-7-top-housing-trends-for-2013#1


“In 2012 we saw the housing market recover and, going into 2013, we expected continuing recovery,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors. “Instead, the recovery accelerated a lot faster than we anticipated, which was great for sellers and for the 75 million homeowners who saw their home values appreciate.”

1. Housing prices rose faster than expected

The national median listing price was $179,900 in January 2012 and rose to $180,000 by December 2012, according to realtor.com research. The pace of price appreciation accelerated quickly over the year to reach a median list price of $199,500 by September 2013.

2. Mortgage rates rose but remained low

“We expected mortgage rates to rise in 2013, and they started to increase in the late spring, but they’re still very affordable when you look at rates on a historical basis,” Yun said. “They just aren’t at the super-low point we saw earlier.”
According to Freddie Mac, 30-year fixed-rate loans were as low as 3.45 percent in December 2012 and rose to 4.49 in September 2013. Barry Habib, co-owner and chief market strategist for Residential Finance Corp., said mortgage rates are likely to stay low and perhaps even drop between now and March 2014.

3. Bidding wars returned

The combination of rising prices, low mortgage rates and low inventory led to a sense of urgency among buyers and the return of bidding wars, said Don Frommeyer, president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers. According to realtor.com research, inventory in 2012 reached a high of 2,083,710 homes on the market, then steadily declined to a low of 1,583,497 homes in February 2013. At the end of September 2013, 2,210,000 homes were for sale, approximately a five-month supply.

4. Housing affordability remained high

"Housing affordability has come down a little this year because of double-digit home value appreciation and the fact that income isn’t rising in comparable amounts," Yun said. “Rising mortgage rates, even though they’re still low, also have an impact. While affordability right now is at a five-year low, it’s still the fifth highest for the past 30 years."

5. All-cash buyers continued to be a strong market segment

Yun said a continuing surprise is that about one-third of all home purchases were made with cash, a market share that has been consistent for the past three years. While some of these cash buyers are from overseas and some are institutional investors, others are “mom and pop” investors who have had trouble getting financing. “Even some owner-occupant buyers are cash buyers because of the excessively tight underwriting standards for loans,” Yun said. “Some people are getting help from relatives to buy, and then they plan to take out a home equity loan later to repay them.”

6. Mobile apps accelerated connections between buyers, sellers and Realtors

Nearly every Realtor and brokerage in the country introduced a mobile app this year to make it easier for buyers and sellers to access information from their smartphones and tablets, including  realtor.com. “Everyone realizes that it’s inconvenient to be tied to a desktop when you’re looking for housing-market information and homes,” Yun said. A recent study by Google and the National Association of Realtors found that 68 percent of homebuyers used a mobile app during their home search and 89 percent used a mobile search engine at the onset of the home-buying process and

7. Rising rents and pent-up demand pulled more first-time buyers into the market

“Right now we’re seeing replenishment of renters who want to buy homes,” Habib said. “At the peak in 2002, nearly 70 percent of people owned homes and 30 percent were renters; now 65 percent of people are homeowners and 35 percent rent. Not only are rents rising faster than home prices in many markets, but there’s pent-up demand from people who don’t want to live at home with their parents and who want to buy a home.”