The value of staging ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hate staged houses.

Gray and white please! Circa 2015.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate staged houses.

Gray and white please! Circa 2015.

The horror

[Anonymous]

Staging grew big just as the housing market went online and realtors' role in finding buyers evaporated. Coincidence?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Staging grew big just as the housing market went online and realtors' role in finding buyers evaporated. Coincidence?

Not a coincidence at all - pictures play a huge role in selling

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Staging grew big just as the housing market went online and realtors' role in finding buyers evaporated. Coincidence?

Not a coincidence at all - pictures play a huge role in selling

Exactly what role DO agents play? Because they can’t even bother to work their own open houses. They send warm bodies with no knowledge of the property at all who don’t bother to make people sign in and let any random person wander through your house.

[Anonymous]

My home was stage but I don’t think it looked staged. Main thing was we cleared a lot of stuff out will still looking lived in. We still had clothes in the closets and dishes in the cabinets, just a lot less. We also removed everything from closet floors. Our house look fabulous and I think it helped sell the house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Staging grew big just as the housing market went online and realtors' role in finding buyers evaporated. Coincidence?

Not a coincidence at all - pictures play a huge role in selling

Exactly what role DO agents play? Because they can’t even bother to work their own open houses. They send warm bodies with no knowledge of the property at all who don’t bother to make people sign in and let any random person wander through your house.

It is a protectionist guild. But necessary, unfortunately

[Anonymous]

Our house was painted (we paid for this) where it hadn’t been painted in a while, we removed all extra furniture, pulled out the ugly ikea furniture to put in a generic sofa, pillows, took down family pictures and put up generic canvas art, removed tchotchkes except for a smattering, and put white fluffy towels where our beige ones had been. We had very nice pictures done including dusk shots of the beautiful outside space that’s really our biggest selling factor (we are in a meh neighborhood). It was very light staging, our realtor did it as part of her fee (FWIW our house was fairly nicely updated in most rooms for the neighborhood), and it sold over asking in the first 48 hours. It was purchased by someone looking online only. So I would say in our case it was worth it. Our house looked amazing in the pictures. It looked nice in person, too. Other homes in our neighborhood have been sitting longer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some of those photos are more than just staging. For instance, in one of them, they painted, changed drapes, and removed the window AC unit. Also, the examples are somewhat extreme -- lots of the before pictures show a fair bit of clutter. I think most people are fine just decluttering and rearranging existing furniture.

Yep. The ones where the home was uncluttered to begin with don’t look that dramatic, it’s more a matter of taste, and at least one of them looks worse to me after staging. The dramatic results are removing the piles of random stuff floating around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our house was painted (we paid for this) where it hadn’t been painted in a while, we removed all extra furniture, pulled out the ugly ikea furniture to put in a generic sofa, pillows, took down family pictures and put up generic canvas art, removed tchotchkes except for a smattering, and put white fluffy towels where our beige ones had been. We had very nice pictures done including dusk shots of the beautiful outside space that’s really our biggest selling factor (we are in a meh neighborhood). It was very light staging, our realtor did it as part of her fee (FWIW our house was fairly nicely updated in most rooms for the neighborhood), and it sold over asking in the first 48 hours. It was purchased by someone looking online only. So I would say in our case it was worth it. Our house looked amazing in the pictures. It looked nice in person, too. Other homes in our neighborhood have been sitting longer.

It sounds like you did 90% of the work decluttering, getting it painted, and getting fluffy new towels and sofa pillows. Moreover, it's not really "staging" if you don't put all/most of your furniture in storage and bring in the realtor's (or their contractor's) furniture. Most of this--taking down family photos, new towels, painting--is stuff sellers like our parents have been doing forever. Apart from arranging the photos, what exactly did the realtor do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our house was painted (we paid for this) where it hadn’t been painted in a while, we removed all extra furniture, pulled out the ugly ikea furniture to put in a generic sofa, pillows, took down family pictures and put up generic canvas art, removed tchotchkes except for a smattering, and put white fluffy towels where our beige ones had been. We had very nice pictures done including dusk shots of the beautiful outside space that’s really our biggest selling factor (we are in a meh neighborhood). It was very light staging, our realtor did it as part of her fee (FWIW our house was fairly nicely updated in most rooms for the neighborhood), and it sold over asking in the first 48 hours. It was purchased by someone looking online only. So I would say in our case it was worth it. Our house looked amazing in the pictures. It looked nice in person, too. Other homes in our neighborhood have been sitting longer.

It sounds like you did 90% of the work decluttering, getting it painted, and getting fluffy new towels and sofa pillows. Moreover, it's not really "staging" if you don't put all/most of your furniture in storage and bring in the realtor's (or their contractor's) furniture. Most of this--taking down family photos, new towels, painting--is stuff sellers like our parents have been doing forever. Apart from arranging the photos, what exactly did the realtor do?

My friend owns a staging business in another city. Decluttering, painting, accents is alot of what he does. If the clients have good furniture, he’ll use that. He’s hired for his ability to make the home look good, whether he provides the actual furniture or not.

[Anonymous]

For the price you pay, you can buy new furniture. I hate staged as I want to see the floors, walls, etc. and wonder what is covered up.

[Anonymous]

We had already moved out of our house before it was put on the market in Bethesda in April. We paid a relatively modest fee (~$2,200 - we had two quotes and one was $1k more for the same service) and they filled two floors with furniture and left the basement empty. We were laughing because the stagers used our space better than we did. In the end we were under contract in 48 hours w/o contingencies and $100k over list. Did staging make a difference? Probably IMO. The house looked great in pictures and I think it helped us get to $100k over ask instead of maybe 80 or 90k over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s hard to get a sense of scale in a room without furniture. Good staging shows you what’s possible.

Sometimes. Also sometimes staging tricks because homes are almost never staged in a way that people will actually live in it. Like it's common os take living rooms with just a seating area and no TV. But in a lot of homes (most) the living room is the only place to put a TV and the homeowners will put one there. It might look nice with a love seat and two arm chairs floating in the middle of the room, but then when you try to but a sectional in and find a place for the TV that isn't in front of a window, it doesn't look as good.

Staging can also be used to cover defects and problems. Filling shelves with perfectly coordinated and matching decor distracts from a lack of electrical outlets. A huge piece of art in the living room can draw the eye away from some not-quite-90-degree angles in the room demonstrating some awkward building settlement.

I'd rather see an empty home so I know what I am getting. I have a measuring tape and an imagination for the rest.

That said, we'll probably stage our place when we sell because most buyers are like PP, not me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s hard to get a sense of scale in a room without furniture. Good staging shows you what’s possible.

Sometimes. Also sometimes staging tricks because homes are almost never staged in a way that people will actually live in it. Like it's common os take living rooms with just a seating area and no TV. But in a lot of homes (most) the living room is the only place to put a TV and the homeowners will put one there. It might look nice with a love seat and two arm chairs floating in the middle of the room, but then when you try to but a sectional in and find a place for the TV that isn't in front of a window, it doesn't look as good.

Staging can also be used to cover defects and problems. Filling shelves with perfectly coordinated and matching decor distracts from a lack of electrical outlets. A huge piece of art in the living room can draw the eye away from some not-quite-90-degree angles in the room demonstrating some awkward building settlement.

I'd rather see an empty home so I know what I am getting. I have a measuring tape and an imagination for the rest.

That said, we'll probably stage our place when we sell because most buyers are like PP, not me.

I am the op and I think like you. But sometimes I wonder if I am not deluding myself, and if I can really see beyond it