Front room lacked identity before staging

Front Room After Staging

We worked with a business woman and single mom who had found a new home she really wanted. She had put in an offer conditional on sale of her present home. The problem was that her home had been on the market previously and the listing had expired without a sale. By this time the local real estate market was favouring buyers.

This was a very nice home, but it had a bit too much stuff in places. I suspect this had been one of the problems the previous time on the market. Much had been purged before I even arrived on the scene. Also, the front room was not showing well because the use was not well defined. It seemed like a bit of a wasted space. The homeowner worried about her red walls in the great room, but in this market and this particular room, I was confident that they would not be a problem.

Great Room Before Staging

Great Room After Staging

The homeowner worked extremely hard to get everything done quickly to be ready for showings. We came in first for a consultation and helped get her organized. Later we came back and worked with her and the listing agent for half a day to stage the home.

We finished taking after pictures on Thursday and by the end of the weekend the homeowner had accepted an offer.

Before Staging, square desk and clutter already removed

Foyer after staging

We worked with a couple with a small baby. They had been remodeling another home and it was now time to move into it and sell this one.

This was a newer home in a good location. It was tastefully decorated in most areas. The homeowner was just having trouble pulling things together in a couple of areas, particularly the baby’s room and the basement family room.

Nursery of Office Before Staging

Baby Nursery After Staging

Basement Room Before Staging

Basement Family Room After Staging

The home sold in 9 days at full asking price.

The owner said: “Martha did a fantastic job with staging my house. I came back to find it transformed. What’s more, the house sold after only one day on the market, with multiple offers and above the asking price! I don’t think we’d have had that result without the work Martha put in to make the house look so good. Overall a great experience.”

Author, Martha Stanton-Smith, owner of Rearrangements, is a Certified Canadian Staging Professional who helps serious home sellers in Kingston, Ontario get full worth for their homes. She completed her staging training in 2006. Visit her profile here:

Kitchen Before

Kitchen After Staging

We were contacted to put the finishing touches of staging on a four plus one bedroom home with fully finished lower level, large deck, swimming pool and double attached garage at asking price $449,900.

Homes over $300,000 in this market were taking two to three months to sell on average. These homeowners needed to sell more quickly as they had already purchased a new home in another city. The home had some vacant rooms and they had planned to buy some additional furniture to fill them up. It had a cold drab feel and lacked focal points and colour accents to warm it up and sell a lifestyle.

Living Room Before

Living Room After Staging

While the homeowners finished some last minute touch ups, we staged the whole home. We used the furniture they already had in the home and brought in some accessories and art. The homeowner also made a few decor purchases that could be easily moved to the new home, but did not have to purchase large pieces.

The homeowners were able to sell their home in 28 days for $430,000 or 95.6% of asking price.

Family Room Before

Family Room After Staging

Author, Martha Stanton-Smith, owner of Rearrangements, is a Certified Canadian Staging Professional who helps serious home sellers in Kingston, Ontario get full worth for their homes. She completed her staging training in 2006. Visit her profile here:

Kitchen before

Kitchen After

We worked with an investor who purchased two basement condos and rented them out for awhile. When he decided to sell, we managed some redecorating work for him and then staged the vacant property.

We wished to keep these basement units bright and welcoming with wide appeal in order to get a good price for them.

Living Room Before

Living Room After Staging

After staging the one bedroom unit sold for 96.9% of asking price with an offer accepted after 8 days on the market. The two bedroom received an offer in 11 days and sold for 95.5% of asking price.

Author, Martha Stanton-Smith, owner of Rearrangements, is a Certified Canadian Staging Professional who helps serious home sellers in Kingston, Ontario get full worth for their homes. She completed her staging training in 2006. Visit her profile here:

This homeowner was a university student who was eager to sell her suburban townhouse so that she could relocate closer to campus. The home could be suitable for persons of almost any age who wanted to live in an excellent neighbourhood without having a high mortgage or too much yard work.

Dining Room Before Lacks Ceiling Light

Dining Room After Staging - Ceiling Light suggested with a drum shade

The home was under furnished, with some key rooms totally empty. The master bedroom lacked a feeling of luxury and elegance. The dining room lacked a light fixture over the table. The living room was small with a tricky layout. The home seemed more like a student rental than a warm, comfortable and convenient town home.

Before staging empty room accentuates odd colour

After Staging Basement Room Appeals

We staged a number of rooms while the homeowner was away for Easter holidays. The home sold in 3 days. The homeowner commented on the speed of the sale.

“I really can’t believe my townhouse sold in 3 days. The neighbour’s similar house has been on the market since January, but my sale was so quick and easy.”

Before Staging Bed Jammed Into Corner

After Staging Master Bedroom

Author, Martha Stanton-Smith, owner of Rearrangements, is a Certified Canadian Staging Professional who helps serious home sellers in Kingston, Ontario get full worth for their homes. She completed her staging training in 2006. Visit her profile here:

Living Room After Staging - Added lamps.

We worked with a family who wanted to sell their large home quickly. It was in a neighbourhood where such a large house would normally appeal to investors. This family were really hoping to attract a family buyer who would fall in love with the home and be willing to pay a little more than an investor.

Bedroom Under the Eaves after Staging

This was a large, busy family with two working parents. They had little time for fine tuning the decor. Although the home retained a lot of period character, the dark woodwork made the formal rooms somewhat dark and unwelcoming. We had to make it warm and welcoming to attract a new family. We staged it with lots of little lifestyle touches to appeal to all the members of a big family.

Attic Storage Became a Games Room After Staging

In the homeowners own words the home “sold for more than asking within one week of going on the market with several viewers, and competitive offers. Those that saw the house said it looked warm and inviting, without it appearing too particular to one family.”

Author, Martha Stanton-Smith, owner of Rearrangements, is a Certified Canadian Staging Professional who helps serious home sellers in Kingston, Ontario get full worth for their homes. She completed her staging training in 2006. Visit her profile here:

Basement Room With Hardwood Floor Before

Basement Room After Budget Staging

We worked with a young couple who had remodeled a small starter home in a less desirable part of the city. They were eager to sell quickly at a good price in order to move on to their next home.

Most of the home was well presented. However, they had finished a basement room with reclaimed oak flooring, but had no furniture to show off it’s potential. Their agent called us to see if we could put in a small vignette to warm up the room and make it seem like a valuable addition to the home’s square footage.

We staged a vignette with a rug and a pair of light chairs from Ikea as well as some colourful canvas art.

The home sold in 13 days for 98.4% of asking price.

Author, Martha Stanton-Smith, owner of Rearrangements, is a Certified Canadian Staging Professional who helps serious home sellers in Kingston, Ontario get full worth for their homes. She completed her staging training in 2006. Visit her profile here:

Dining Room Before

Dining Room After Staging

I wanted to sell my two bedroom bungalow quickly before the August real estate slowdown occurred. It was in a neighbourhood where young buyers were replacing the older generation. This home was expected to appeal to a young couple or a young single professional.

The home had a lot of wallpaper, wallpaper borders and dated colours. The hardwood floors had been covered with carpeting and needed refinishing. Some rooms were quite small. The second bedroom on the main floor was being used for an office. An additional bathroom and bedroom had been added to the basement, but to access them you had to go through an unfinished utility area.

Unfininished Basement Area Before

Basement Area After Finishing

A complete redecorating and the additional finishing work was undertaken. I completed some of the work myself and hired contractors for the rest. Upon completion of the prep work the home was staged with a more modern look. The office was turned back to a bedroom. The basement was set up with a seating area and a round table for a games area. By coincidence roses came on sale for $4.95 a dozen on staging day so I used them.

An agents’ tour was held the first day on the market. Within 36 hours I accepted an offer at full asking price and my roses hadn’t even drooped. The buyer was a young single professional.

Living Room Before

Living Room After

Author, Martha Stanton-Smith, owner of Rearrangements, is a Certified Canadian Staging Professional who helps serious home sellers in Kingston, Ontario get full worth for their homes. She completed her staging training in 2006. Visit her profile here:

“There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin.” — Linus van Pelt in It’s the Great Pumpkin …

When it comes to staging a home for sale, most stagers will go along with Linus. They recommend that homeowners not only refrain from such discussions, but also remove overtly religious and political material from display in their staged homes. What is the reasoning behind this? Surely viewers would be tolerant enough in this day and age not to let a few religious items deter them from a purchase?

Logically most viewers could rationalize that the crosses or statues don’t come with the house. But the buying process is largely based on emotion. Emotion is the first thing that activates in human brains, even before we light up our logical neo-cortexes.

When viewers see symbols of something that is either unknown or disliked, they may have an overt conscious reaction, or more likely, a subconscious one — a vague, unexplained feeling of uneasiness or perhaps just an absence of familiar and comfortable feelings. This subtle emotional first impression sets the tone for the whole experience. It predisposes the decisions viewers make about the home. If there is not a comfortable feel, then the buyer will be looking for some specific negatives to explain his uneasy first impression.

I suggest to my clients that if it is more important at this time to sell their homes than to proclaim their personal beliefs, then they should seriously consider concealing their religious and political items. I’m not telling them what they should believe or that they should discontinue their practices; just that the public will be coming through the home and they may not want to display such personal things to all-comers.

Religious and political items fall into the category of personal items which allow the viewer to profile the homeowner. By allowing this profiling to happen, you are hampering the potential buyer from imagining the home as his own. After all, how can he see it as his own when there is clearly evidence that it belongs to someone else, someone with a different profile – religious, political, or even on the other side of the Great Pumpkin question?

Speaking of the Great Pumpkin, there are many people who do not celebrate Halloween because of its association with the devil. There are obviously also millions of people in the world who do not celebrate Christmas. When we are selling our homes during these holidays, decorating is a calculated risk based on our estimation of the preferences of our target buyers. In North America for example, Christmas decorations abound. A home here without any decorations in December might seem odd, even to non-Christians.

What we can do if we choose to decorate is use elements from nature as the basis of our decorations. For an example, look at the Williamsburg Christmas style. For Easter, we can use spring flowers. Thanksgiving and Halloween decorations can be based on fall grasses, leaves and colourful corn or gourds. And, if we choose to celebrate a festival of lights, we should get them down as soon as possible after the holiday.

Author, Martha Stanton-Smith, owner of Rearrangements, is a Certified Canadian Staging Professional who helps serious home sellers in Kingston, Ontario get full worth for their homes. She completed her staging training in 2006. Visit her profile here: