The value of staging ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A good stager will not remove your furniture for their furniture. I used to intern for a staging company and we always worked with a seller’s furniture. We would just tell you how to rearrange things to improve flow, what needs to be pared down, and maybe even what NOT to do. (There are some things sellers think they need to do that may not matter as much as they assumed.) After a staging consult, which is usually not more than a few hundred dollars, the seller will have a roadmap to get the home ready themselves.

The houses we staged with staging furniture were empty to begin with. Perhaps the seller moved out first or it was a rental property. I don’t think Stagers are coming in and swapping out perfectly good furniture. That seems to be a misconception in this thread.

I totally disagree with this comment. Whether we use the seller's furniture or not really depends upon the furniture they have. Is it dated, tacky, worn out and dirty? I personally think that 90 percent of the staging that agents are using today is hideous-cheap gray crap from Homegoods. But believe me when I say that good, tasteful staging will absolutely get you more money for your house. No question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Irrelevant in a low supply / high demand SFH sales market— like today.

If the house has been maintained well, is in a desirable neighborhood, has a good school catchment, and appeals to its targeted market (families w school aged kids, single people, retirees), you do not need to wasted time staging the house.

Just declutter, freshen the paint, put it on the market.

You're wrong about that. Yes in a low inventory market, houses are going to sell but whether they sell at list or $150k over is totally dependent upon how the house looks. I always laugh when sellers are so happy that they sold the house in two days or something. You likely just screwed yourself out of significant money. Tell your agent that you don't want them doing both sides of the transaction. Will help prevent the unethical agents from encouraging you to take an early offer where they are writing for the buyer.

[Anonymous]

Our realtor helped us stage our house when we were ready to sell. She rearranged some of our furniture, recommended we paint our basement, and brought in some art and large plants. I thought we had a nice house to begin with, but it did wonders for making each space feel larger and warmer.

[Anonymous]

We hired a stager and they did our whole condo. I think it was worth it. The smaller second bedroom they did magic with.

Especially because it was a condo I think there are more first time buyers with less knowledge and they need to see something that looks like their dreams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A good stager will not remove your furniture for their furniture. I used to intern for a staging company and we always worked with a seller’s furniture. We would just tell you how to rearrange things to improve flow, what needs to be pared down, and maybe even what NOT to do. (There are some things sellers think they need to do that may not matter as much as they assumed.) After a staging consult, which is usually not more than a few hundred dollars, the seller will have a roadmap to get the home ready themselves.

The houses we staged with staging furniture were empty to begin with. Perhaps the seller moved out first or it was a rental property. I don’t think Stagers are coming in and swapping out perfectly good furniture. That seems to be a misconception in this thread.

I totally disagree with this comment. Whether we use the seller's furniture or not really depends upon the furniture they have. Is it dated, tacky, worn out and dirty? I personally think that 90 percent of the staging that agents are using today is hideous-cheap gray crap from Homegoods. But believe me when I say that good, tasteful staging will absolutely get you more money for your house. No question.

Ed-stager again. Well we had an expansive view of what was acceptable. Sure if a couch is totally stained or from 1960 maybe we advised differently but as a general rule, we tried to make use of a sellers stuff

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A good stager will not remove your furniture for their furniture. I used to intern for a staging company and we always worked with a seller’s furniture. We would just tell you how to rearrange things to improve flow, what needs to be pared down, and maybe even what NOT to do. (There are some things sellers think they need to do that may not matter as much as they assumed.) After a staging consult, which is usually not more than a few hundred dollars, the seller will have a roadmap to get the home ready themselves.

The houses we staged with staging furniture were empty to begin with. Perhaps the seller moved out first or it was a rental property. I don’t think Stagers are coming in and swapping out perfectly good furniture. That seems to be a misconception in this thread.

I totally disagree with this comment. Whether we use the seller's furniture or not really depends upon the furniture they have. Is it dated, tacky, worn out and dirty? I personally think that 90 percent of the staging that agents are using today is hideous-cheap gray crap from Homegoods. But believe me when I say that good, tasteful staging will absolutely get you more money for your house. No question.

Ed-stager again. Well we had an expansive view of what was acceptable. Sure if a couch is totally stained or from 1960 maybe we advised differently but as a general rule, we tried to make use of a sellers stuff

If they have good taste, of course, but most of the time people think their stuff is great and it's not.

[Anonymous]

Ai replaces staging

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A good stager will not remove your furniture for their furniture just because. I used to intern for a staging company and we always worked with a seller’s furniture. We would just tell you how to rearrange to improve flow, what needs to be pared down, and maybe even what NOT to do. (There are some things sellers think they need to do that may not matter as much as they assumed.) After a staging consult, which is usually not more than a few hundred dollars, the seller will have a roadmap to get the home ready.

The houses we staged with staging furniture were empty to begin with. Perhaps the seller moved out first or it was a rental property. I don’t think Stagers are coming in and swapping out perfectly good furniture. That seems to be a misconception in this thread.

Stagers did that (swapped out perfectly good furniture) on my mom's condo 3-4 years ago. She had great furniture. But my sister wanted to go with the 7% realtor, so....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When we sold our last house for $715K, the realtor paid for staging (2013). It was my understanding that a certain price point the realtors cover it. I'm not sure what price point that is.

You paid for it through your realtor's fee, which you could possibly have negotiated to be lower.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

The realtor gave us the list of items to remove/fix/repair/paint, organized their mover to come and pick up the extra furniture to storage/move in their furniture, picked paint colors, arranged/scheduled the painters, picked the carpet/kitchen flooring (forgot we did this!), arranged the installation of flooring, and provided all of the accessories, art, pillows, towels, area rugs, lamps, and furniture. They also came and arranged those things before pictures were taken. My realtor also hosted two open houses personally.

OK. But most of this isn't "staging," it's simply fixing up your house for sale. All of us do it anyway. It's what our parents did when they sold their houses--they painted, they decluttered, they rented a storage unit for all the stuff. You make the house look as nice as possible--this is different from staging.

I can see hiring the realtor to do these fixing-up and decluttering tasks because it takes a lot of the logistics off of you. But know that you're paying more if you go through a middleman (the realtor) and use their contractors. For example, if the realtor recommends paint colors, that's great, but your own painter will probably do it more cheaply than paying a middleman (your realtor) to call up their own painters (who won't give you the long-term customer discount we always get from the painters we always use). When we sold our starter house, we rented a storage unit and DH and his friends moved our extra furniture in temporarily. Installing new kitchen flooring sounds extra and does requires professionals, but again you don't need to pay a middleman (your realtor) to text their flooring contractor.

Actual "staging" is the part where they move out your furniture and put in beige, white and grey furniture. It sounds like they gave you a few pieces, like a sofa and some throw pillows?

Impressed that your realtor hosted two open houses personally, though. Ours hosted one (makes me wonder about how your realtor priced your house, but that's a different topic), but it sounds like lots of realtors just send a trainee to sit in your house during the open house.

That's not true about the contractors at all. My contractor does an amazing job and gives my clients a very reasonable rate bc I give him lots of business. He is competent and reliable so I always know that the work will be completed in time for professional photographers to come in. And, most of the time, unless your realtor is doing huge business, he/she will be doing the open. If they are not, you probably picked the wrong agent.

So now "staging" also means bringing in the realtor's contractors to paint or whatever fixes you're recommending be done? Do you know how shady this sounds? Also, some of us have long-term relationships with painters and handymen who take care of us for a good price and quickly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Irrelevant in a low supply / high demand SFH sales market— like today.

If the house has been maintained well, is in a desirable neighborhood, has a good school catchment, and appeals to its targeted market (families w school aged kids, single people, retirees), you do not need to wasted time staging the house.

Just declutter, freshen the paint, put it on the market.

You're wrong about that. Yes in a low inventory market, houses are going to sell but whether they sell at list or $150k over is totally dependent upon how the house looks. I always laugh when sellers are so happy that they sold the house in two days or something. You likely just screwed yourself out of significant money. Tell your agent that you don't want them doing both sides of the transaction. Will help prevent the unethical agents from encouraging you to take an early offer where they are writing for the buyer.

Do you have any studies showing that staging improves the sale price by $150k or even something less than that? Because this sounds like realtor-speak.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A good stager will not remove your furniture for their furniture. I used to intern for a staging company and we always worked with a seller’s furniture. We would just tell you how to rearrange things to improve flow, what needs to be pared down, and maybe even what NOT to do. (There are some things sellers think they need to do that may not matter as much as they assumed.) After a staging consult, which is usually not more than a few hundred dollars, the seller will have a roadmap to get the home ready themselves.

The houses we staged with staging furniture were empty to begin with. Perhaps the seller moved out first or it was a rental property. I don’t think Stagers are coming in and swapping out perfectly good furniture. That seems to be a misconception in this thread.

I totally disagree with this comment. Whether we use the seller's furniture or not really depends upon the furniture they have. Is it dated, tacky, worn out and dirty? I personally think that 90 percent of the staging that agents are using today is hideous-cheap gray crap from Homegoods. But believe me when I say that good, tasteful staging will absolutely get you more money for your house. No question.

Ed-stager again. Well we had an expansive view of what was acceptable. Sure if a couch is totally stained or from 1960 maybe we advised differently but as a general rule, we tried to make use of a sellers stuff

If I need to hire a stager, I'm hiring your company and not the other poster's company

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

The realtor gave us the list of items to remove/fix/repair/paint, organized their mover to come and pick up the extra furniture to storage/move in their furniture, picked paint colors, arranged/scheduled the painters, picked the carpet/kitchen flooring (forgot we did this!), arranged the installation of flooring, and provided all of the accessories, art, pillows, towels, area rugs, lamps, and furniture. They also came and arranged those things before pictures were taken. My realtor also hosted two open houses personally.

OK. But most of this isn't "staging," it's simply fixing up your house for sale. All of us do it anyway. It's what our parents did when they sold their houses--they painted, they decluttered, they rented a storage unit for all the stuff. You make the house look as nice as possible--this is different from staging.

I can see hiring the realtor to do these fixing-up and decluttering tasks because it takes a lot of the logistics off of you. But know that you're paying more if you go through a middleman (the realtor) and use their contractors. For example, if the realtor recommends paint colors, that's great, but your own painter will probably do it more cheaply than paying a middleman (your realtor) to call up their own painters (who won't give you the long-term customer discount we always get from the painters we always use). When we sold our starter house, we rented a storage unit and DH and his friends moved our extra furniture in temporarily. Installing new kitchen flooring sounds extra and does requires professionals, but again you don't need to pay a middleman (your realtor) to text their flooring contractor.

Actual "staging" is the part where they move out your furniture and put in beige, white and grey furniture. It sounds like they gave you a few pieces, like a sofa and some throw pillows?

Impressed that your realtor hosted two open houses personally, though. Ours hosted one (makes me wonder about how your realtor priced your house, but that's a different topic), but it sounds like lots of realtors just send a trainee to sit in your house during the open house.

That's not true about the contractors at all. My contractor does an amazing job and gives my clients a very reasonable rate bc I give him lots of business. He is competent and reliable so I always know that the work will be completed in time for professional photographers to come in. And, most of the time, unless your realtor is doing huge business, he/she will be doing the open. If they are not, you probably picked the wrong agent.

So now "staging" also means bringing in the realtor's contractors to paint or whatever fixes you're recommending be done? Do you know how shady this sounds? Also, some of us have long-term relationships with painters and handymen who take care of us for a good price and quickly.

Trying to help your client is shady huh? Did you forget to take your meds today? If you have a relationship with a contractor, great. Use him. Many people dont.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

The realtor gave us the list of items to remove/fix/repair/paint, organized their mover to come and pick up the extra furniture to storage/move in their furniture, picked paint colors, arranged/scheduled the painters, picked the carpet/kitchen flooring (forgot we did this!), arranged the installation of flooring, and provided all of the accessories, art, pillows, towels, area rugs, lamps, and furniture. They also came and arranged those things before pictures were taken. My realtor also hosted two open houses personally.

OK. But most of this isn't "staging," it's simply fixing up your house for sale. All of us do it anyway. It's what our parents did when they sold their houses--they painted, they decluttered, they rented a storage unit for all the stuff. You make the house look as nice as possible--this is different from staging.

I can see hiring the realtor to do these fixing-up and decluttering tasks because it takes a lot of the logistics off of you. But know that you're paying more if you go through a middleman (the realtor) and use their contractors. For example, if the realtor recommends paint colors, that's great, but your own painter will probably do it more cheaply than paying a middleman (your realtor) to call up their own painters (who won't give you the long-term customer discount we always get from the painters we always use). When we sold our starter house, we rented a storage unit and DH and his friends moved our extra furniture in temporarily. Installing new kitchen flooring sounds extra and does requires professionals, but again you don't need to pay a middleman (your realtor) to text their flooring contractor.

Actual "staging" is the part where they move out your furniture and put in beige, white and grey furniture. It sounds like they gave you a few pieces, like a sofa and some throw pillows?

Impressed that your realtor hosted two open houses personally, though. Ours hosted one (makes me wonder about how your realtor priced your house, but that's a different topic), but it sounds like lots of realtors just send a trainee to sit in your house during the open house.

That's not true about the contractors at all. My contractor does an amazing job and gives my clients a very reasonable rate bc I give him lots of business. He is competent and reliable so I always know that the work will be completed in time for professional photographers to come in. And, most of the time, unless your realtor is doing huge business, he/she will be doing the open. If they are not, you probably picked the wrong agent.

So now "staging" also means bringing in the realtor's contractors to paint or whatever fixes you're recommending be done? Do you know how shady this sounds? Also, some of us have long-term relationships with painters and handymen who take care of us for a good price and quickly.

Trying to help your client is shady huh? Did you forget to take your meds today? If you have a relationship with a contractor, great. Use him. Many people dont.

Yes, finding a bunch of things "wrong" with somebody's house and referring them to your own contractor for fixing is shady. Take your own meds (or find an insult that's not from 2010).

Most home owners have contractors. But if they don't, better would be to provide a list of contractors they could choose from.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ai replaces staging

No it doesn't. Not when you go see it in person.