Staging/ Real Estate Enhancement

What is Home Staging?

Home Staging (also called house fluffing, real estate staging, house staging and real estate enhancement), is the art of decorating a house to sell quickly and for top dollar.

For some clients, a home stager will come in and make recommendations on improvements that the homeowner can do on their own. Recommendations typically include things like:

• what excess clutter to get rid of
• rearranging furniture within or between rooms
• solving lighting problems
• removing some furniture to off-site storage
• rearranging art and accessories
• styling book shelves, fireplace mantels and display cabinets
• painting, cleaning and repair suggestions
• other cosmetic changes that are relatively inexpensive but yield significant results

For other clients, the home stager may furnish the entire home from top to bottom including bringing in furniture, accessories and art after having the home repainted, repairs done, lighting changed, etc.
Most projects lie somewhere between these two extremes. It really depends on the client’s needs, buget and the time available.

A professional home stager understands that all recommendations and changes are geared to improving the marketability of the property. Home staging should increase the selling price, and speed up the time to sell— because the home is decorated to appeal to the greatest number of buyers within the home’s target market.

Home staging offers a potentially significant return on investment. For example, homes staged by Ron Zaremba typically sell at $10,000 to $70,000 above previous offers or above where the agent initially suggested the home would sell prior to staging.  

Why Home Staging Sells Your Home Faster and For Top Dollar

Remember back to the last time you went house hunting. You drag yourself through 6 houses in one day. The listings all sound great. With each one you have renewed hope that you might actually be able to find something you love and that you can afford. But with each new stop, your disappointment and frustration grows. "What were they thinking?" you ask the agent cringing at the decor, the smell, the clutter... Then it happens! You drive up to a house that looks like a home before you've even stepped out of the car. You enter and within minutes decide, "this is home!" That's what a Home Staging professional can do for your property and why it works! People imagine they can look past ugly decor or empty rooms and see 'potential', but usually they can't! That's why successful builders use Model Homes and Model Suites to sell their projects. Savvy home sellers realize that creating a show home environment will entice buyers.

People shop with logic and buy on emotion
Home buyers start house hunting with a logical list of criteria, but the home they actually buy is chosen largely by emotion. A Home Stager's goal is to allow potential buyers to walk into your house and have that "this is home" feeling. Once a buyer falls in love, forget logic! Suddenly the "must haves" on their list don't seem so necessary.
In addition to decorating your house to sell,  Home Stagers also pay attention to the "little" things like poor lighting cracked ceilings and overstuffed closets. Problems help the buyer emotionally disengage from your house. Remember they buy on emotion so don't expect them to overlook all the problems that have annoyed you about your house for years!