Agent Open House - Feel Home

I have the fortunate privilege of being able to attend Wednesday’s Agent Open House most every week. This is when the different offices around our county pile up agents in several cars and go tour the new and sometimes not so new listings. Most of the time a snack or food is offered and very often a door prize or two is offered. This is supposed to entice the agents to come and view these houses and I have to say, it works.

What surprises me is that with all the shows on A & E, HGTV and info about home staging and selling a house in a challenging market, that more homeowners leave their home in “live in” condition, than not. The family photos, collections, personal beauty products, even litter boxes and trash cans remain out for all the world to see.

As a professional home stager I believe that successful staging is the art of using marketing and decorating to create an environment that buyers can aspire to….”If I buy this house, I can live like this”. Home Stagers use the art of positioning to create several emotional connection points throughout the home so that when a buyer steps into the house they “feel home.” Not like they are in your home.

Here are a combination of eight things that are analyzed in each room to create a lasting impression for the home buyer.

First Impressions - Room by room, we will walk through and take note of our first impressions,what grabs us, what glares at us and what gives to us a feeling of home?

Eliminating Clutter - The packing starts now as we pack away a good percentage of everything in the room in order to create a more clean, open and spacious feel.

Emphasize The Positive – While Downplaying the Negative - Finding your beautiful focal points, we will emphasize what we love about the room and hide or distract the negative aspects of the rooms.

Lighten Up - Focusing on lighting and color, we will make each room into a bright, warm and inviting space that buyers can respond to.

Home Buyers Appeal - In order for a buyer to “feel home” they need not be reminded of this being your home. We’ll depersonalize the space while retaining the warmth and fun of photos.

Odor Free/Cleaning/Repairs - The dirty work speaks for itself but is many times overlooked because you’ve lived here for so long. Let’s get rid of the buyer’s mental “repair list” by doing it
ourselves.

Modernizing - Updating your style and building simple accessories out of what you already have to create clean lines and form. In some cases, we’ll recommend purchases as valuable
“investments” in the staging process.

“Emotional Connection Points” - Creating the “Wow Factor”. This is the fun part and is a huge focus of our positioning strategy. We’ll show you how to build in these subtleties in order to make the buyers subconsciously desire to live here and “feel home”. The “emotional connection points” are where marketing strategy really comes in to play.

So, if you are a real estate agent with listings, send this to your home sellers. Encourage them to either do this work themselves or call Southern Staging & Redesign to help.

If you are a homeowner with your house on the market or contemplating listing your house for sale, give me a call, let’s discuss my services and choose one that benefits you the most.

Unless you really don’t want to sell…….

Five Reasons You Should Never Sell A Vacant Home

By Nan Johnston of Southern Staging & Redesign

You can’t turn on the news or log onto the internet without hearing about how bad the real estate market is today. It can be very depressing, especially when you have your house on the market along with the many others available. Buyers have more homes to choose from now, than ever.
If you have a vacant home on the market or are contemplating selling your vacant home, consider the following reasons why you should never sell a vacant house.
1. People Don’t Buy Houses, They Buy Homes
Buyers purchase homes based on emotions. The number one reason a buyer purchases a home is because it “felt like home”. If the room is vacant it can feel cold and lonely. Once the home is professionally staged, it becomes warm and inviting. Bringing in just the right amount of furnishings and accessories can make the difference. Have you ever heard of an empty room being described as warm and inviting?

2. Without Furniture, There Is No Frame of Reference
What is this room? Is it a dining room or home office? How big is this room? Without furniture it can be difficult to tell the scale and size of a room. Empty rooms actually appear smaller than those with furniture. When the buyer does not have the answers to their questions…they walk away. Don’t keep a buyer guessing, it only distracts them from considering your home as a purchase.
3. When A Room is Kept Empty, Buyers Focus on Negative DetailsA crack in the wall or the chipped tile on the floor is much more noticeable when there is nothing else to look at. If a room is professionally staged, the positive features are highlighted and any flaws are de-emphasized. The buyer has an emotional connection with the room and will linger a little longer and start imagining their families enjoying this space.
4. Only 10% of Home Buyers Can Actually Visualize the Potential of a HomeMost buyers walking into your home have no imagination of the wonderful possibilities that is may have to offer them. They aren’t able to visualize there is enough room for their table and chairs.
They just can’t picture it. Are you willing to take the risk of losing a sale because there was no furniture and accessories to help a buyer visualize the remarkable potential that your home has to offer?
5. Paying For Two Mortgages Can Get Expensive
The fact is that a vacant home typically takes twice as long to sell and the longer it “sits” on the market the lower the sales price will be.* Why risk paying two mortgages only to have the sales price lower than it would have been if you had the home professionally staged?

Home Staging is about adding the minimum amount of furniture and accessories to highlight the best features of the home. It’s not about creating a “model home” environment. Furniture is added and arranged to emphasize the best features of the room, but that is just the beginning. Accessories are then added to create the emotional connection points, that keeps a home buyer in the space a little longer so that they start imagining their families enjoying all that the room has to offer.
Furniture and accessories are rented on a monthly basis, from the home staging firm. The fees are often based on square footage of the home or the listed price. The larger the home or higher the price, the more inventory needed to provide the correct look and most especially provide the correct “feeling”.
At Southern Staging & Redesign we are professionally trained at offering a vacant home staging service that is quick, affordable and focuses on building emotional marketing connections throughout the home, so that buyers will “FEEL HOME” when they walk through the front door.
Before you consider reducing your vacant house, consider having it staged by a Professionally Certified Home Staging Consultant. For more information about vacant home staging, call Nan Johnston at Southern Staging & Redesign or check out her website at http://www.southern-staging.com/ to see some before and after photos of a vacant home.770-251-0608

*according to NAR survey

Shake It Up Baby!

A couple friends of ours are always having a gathering of sorts, that usually has a theme name and some décor and the same but diversified group of guests. We always enjoy our time with them and most of their friends, but you know how it is… you usually stand around and talk with the same people that you talked with at the last party and usually don’t find out anything new or get to know anyone else.

Well, all that stopped last night! We were invited to “A Soup Contest”. The theme being self explanatory, approximately 10 of the guest prepared and entered a crock pot full of soup with any condiments that may need to be added. Our host set out disposable shot glasses and all guests were to sample the soups and vote for their top 2 favorites. Every guest was asked to contribute to $5.00 to a pot for the winners. This was great fun and a wonderful way for us to interact with guests that we may not have, at a regular party. You could start a conversation by comparing the soups and talking about ingredients and then introducing yourself was only natural. I met several new acquaintances that I might not have gotten to know other wise.

I said all of that to get to this point. We all need to shake it up a little and do something different in order to receive different results. If we keep on going through life the same way, we can expect the same results. This can apply to our personal life or business life.

I met a future business client as well as some great new friends and learned a good lesson about life.

So…. shake it up baby!

Up the Game Of Selling Your Home

In the struggling real estate market of today, it often takes a little extra enticement to sell a house. Home owners and real estate agents have to evaluate their options and "up the game" of selling and marketing a house. There is so much inventory on the market, that they have to wow a buyer from the front door. Your house needs to stand out among the many other houses on the market for sale.

Start by contacting a Professional Home Stager before you list your property for sale. As an HSR Home Staging Consultant with a real estate background of over 20 years, Nan Johnston of Southern Staging & Redesign works with home sellers in Newnan and surrounding areas of Georgia, by preparing their properties to compete in the real estate market by emphasizing the details and best features of a home.

Homes that have been decorated purely for the purpose of selling stand out against comparable properties and look great in web site photos. Hiring a staging consultant can make the difference between your home sitting on the market and becoming stale or selling faster and for more money. Spending $1000.00 to beautifully prepare your home to sell is a lot less than the usual $10,000 price reduction.

For more information go to http://www.southern-staging.com/.