Home Staging Tips in Palm Beach County- 4 Things To Do BEFORE Your Home Staging Consultation. (and 4 Bonus “Don’ts)
Congratulations, you are taking the right steps you need to take to help get your home sold. Investing in a Home staging consultation will give you the tools and information you need to prepare your home for sale.
To help you make the best use of your time with your professional home stager, here are 4 things YOU can do before your Home Stager arrives:
1. Step outside the front door of your home.. take a few Yoga breaths... then open the door and step back in. Only now.. tell yourself that this is a house that you are soon going to market. From this point on you want to look at your house as something you are marketing for sale.
2. Remove all distractions... if you have young children at home that will need your attention, enlist a relative or your babysitter for the few hours that the stager is with you.
The same can be said for your pets. It’s hard to concentrate when your dog is demanding your attention.
3. Allow for time. Most staging consultations can take about 2 hours, sometimes more depending upon the size and condition of your house. Neither one of us wants to feel rushed.
4. We don’t need you to pack everything up before we come but help us see what we have to work with. Laundry that needs folding, dishes in the sink, personal papers on your desk and counter tops will only take up your consultation time as we try to see what’s under everything.
Congratulations, you are taking the right steps you need to take to help get your home sold. Investing in a Home staging consultation will give you the tools and information you need to prepare your home for sale.
To help you make the best use of your time with your professional home stager, here are 4 things YOU can do before your Home Stager arrives:
1. Step outside the front door of your home.. take a few Yoga breaths... then open the door and step back in. Only now.. tell yourself that this is a house that you are soon going to market. From this point on you want to look at your house as something you are marketing for sale. 2. Remove all distractions... if you have young children at home that will need your attention, enlist a relative or your babysitter for the few hours that the stager is with you.
The same can be said for your pets. It’s hard to concentrate when your dog is demanding your attention.
3. Allow for time. Most staging consultations can take about 2 hours, sometimes more depending upon the size and condition of your house. Neither one of us wants to feel rushed.
4. We don’t need you to pack everything up before we come but help us see what we have to work with. Laundry that needs folding, dishes in the sink, personal papers on your desk and counter tops will only take up your consultation time as we try to see what’s under everything.
And now.... 4 Things NOT to DO
5. Put the Paint Brush DOWN! You’re hiring a Stager to give you their expertise
on how you can best prepare your home. Painting everything white or painting the exterior of your house a fresh bright blue color will only add to your expense when we suggest you repaint.6. Just for now... put the staging and design cable shows you’ve been watching on the back burner. These shows have been helpful in educating the public on the need to prepare your house to sell; but the reality show is in your home not on television.
7. DON’T give everything away.... yet. Let us see what furniture and accessories you have and what we can use. Tell your children, neighbor or relatives they’ll have to wait until after the house sells for that piece they’ve been wanting for their home.
8. If you want support during the consultation for note taking or to lend another ear.. that’s ok but make sure they understand that you want to hear what the Home Stager has to say. Every time they open their mouth to tell me what they know from watching HGTV is costing you money.
Enjoy Your Home Staging Consultation!
Good morning, Kathy....another great list of tips and solid direction for potential sellers to follow..... you do a great job and I can understand why so many homeowners call you for guidance in preparing their home for marketing.
Good morning Kathy. Great post and targeted. I also found I laughed and laughter is good. It is a good model for Realtors as well.
BARFF, I love how you get your point across with humor..............it works for me every time. Great suggestions.
Love this post Kathy :)! HGTV is great fun, but that "Reality" is rarely the average person's reality. These are perfect tips to help get ready for a home staging consultation :)! Suggested :)!
Kathy, great tips for any home owner wanting to sell!
Home owners call Kathy Strieb for staging and advice on getting their home ready to sell.
Kathy, great list!
Kathy, love your voice-and hear you loud and clear. You are so right about the unreality of reality!!!
Hahaha - "put the paint brush DOWN"!!! So true - I've often told folks they need to change something they've already done...
Super post Kathy and every buyer should read these tips and suggestions and take them! I just had a seller how painted every room stark white before calling me. While it was much better than loud colors, it was very cold. I also love how you pointed out to have someone take care of the kids and pets because they are distractions during a consult.
BarbaraT- thank you!! Rocky recovered yet?
Sheila- any time I can make someone laugh is a good time as far as I'm concerned.
BARFF- only way I know how to do it... we're both from the same pod.
Brenda- many thanks for the suggest. Often we have to spend so much timing wading through their treasures that it's not until we return that we can see the actual house.
Cathy- good... now bring on the Consultations!
Toni- thank you and now.... could you speak into my big microphone and shout that out!
Joanna- I love the cable shows but they're not always "real". Thanks for the reblog.
Julia- I remember a staging I had.. the house was already quite unusual for the neighborhood and was painted an In-Your-Face blue. Unfortunately when I arrived they proudly told me they'd just painted it and I could only suggest they go for a more subtle color.
Kathy another great post my friend. All good points on both the To Do and Not Do's! Must Suggest :)
Love advice piece #8. Love it.
Well Kathy, It looks like I'm not the only one that been asked to stage a house that is practically empty. The sellers were trying to help, but they didn't leave me anything to work with! You've got to appreciate the enthusiasim.
OK, this is just great stuff Kathy. You've presented both sides of the coin on what to do and what not to do prior to a Home Staging consulatation. Well done! Feature worthy! I'm hitting that button right now!
Love your tips - and you certainly understand sellers! Tip #1 is the best!
I always have a stager go through my listings
Kristine- having consulted with 5 dogs at my heels (2 of them weighed 85 pounds) and a good friend who brought the seller to tears, it is so much better for the seller to be able to devote his or her full attention to the consultation. I know what you mean about the all white walls. I see a lot of homes here that have the same builder basic white paint that was there when they bought the house.
John (the Q)- and many thanks to you.
David- good to see you!
Kathy- Oh yes... it definitely is harder!
Craig- Thank you for the suggest! Hope to see you soon in South Florida.
Kathy-thanks for mentioning again how the client need not pack everything up. People often feel that their own things could not compare with what they see in real estate magazines. There is so much a stager can do with what you have, which is cost effective too!
Excellent tips, Kathy! I also like the idea of not totally packing things up before the stager has an opportunity to see what you might have, and can use in staging.
Great ideas. It always amazes me how little sellers tend to declutter when we tell them to declutter. One person's clutter is another's decor, I guess. It often takes extra push from a stager.
Gretchen
Kathy - and here I thought only real estate agents had to contend with the resident expert who obtained all thier knowledge from HGTV
Congrats on the feature! You make some great points. I especially like the one about stepping back and viewing your property as an item for sale. This allows the seller to disconnect a bit emotionally from the property and make clearer decisions. Thanks for sharing and have a great week.
Kathy, I met with a client over the weekend. They were in the very beginning stages of preparing their home for sale. I think they were a little discouraged at everything I asked them to do. But the more that gets packed away now, the less they have to do after they sell.
Hi Kathy - These are fantastic points that will help many sellers who hire home stagers.
I like your "what to do" and "what not to do." You haver to let people know this because they think they know your job and what they should do. But often they are wrong and should just wait! Nice post!
Hi Kathy-great post and wonderful Feature. I love them all, but #5 is my favorite. You walk into the home and the first they say is, "We just had it painted", and, of course whatever the color is it doesn't go with the furniture, or the flooring or with current tastes. I usually wait until the end to tell them they need to repaint.
Kathy. You have done it again - another well written and informative post for the consumer. I particularly like number 6 as TV has turned us all into armchair real estate agents and stagers.
Great advice for people that will be staging, Kathy. Very well said, thanks.
These are GREAT tips, Kathy. It's so important for sellers to truly listen. Fortunately, in my experience, most do.
Kathy
Kathy, great tips! i especially like the one one about putting everything you see on TV on the back burner.
Boy are you right about the reality TV stuff! The fact is, TV sells drama. It is not necessairly REAL!
Congratulations on another feature! Something tells me you had another one of 'those' consults. Great list ;).
Kathy:
Great suggestions for sellers. If you don't mind I will use your post as a guide for my sellers. Thanks. Number 8 is very important to remember. Everyone thinks they are a great home stager because they watch design shows on TV. They are not.
Kathy, I love this advice and would love to send this to my buyers. I am new to activerain. How do I bookmark this.
Thanks
Kathy, another great post on home staging both the before's and the don'ts are great advice. Palm Beach County is lucky to have such a great resource.
Jack-Yea! and thank you for using a Stager.
Rick- Stagers can and love to try to use what the seller has.
Myrl-right you are. I’ve often found great artwork we could use tucked away in a closet.
Gretchen- I think many of our sellers “get it” but need the extra “push “ from us.
Joy- Hope they serve you well!
Kathy-oh no.. many of my sellers love the cable shows and at least they’ve learned how important staging is.
Laurie- Thanks for stopping by. I think the first and most important step is getting the seller to back away from the emotional attachment we all feel about our homes.
Tammie-I think it’s overwhelming for sellers, and then we begin to give them a “To Do” list it just adds to their stress.
Marc- I think that it’s important to prepare our sellers for what to expect from our consultation.
Sandy-so glad you liked it. Staging is still relatively new so we need to help our sellers get the most from our consultations.
Janet- thank you! One of my sellers had done the painting themselves and in all honesty, it was a terrible job.
Valerie-thank you for your kind words. I guess doctors and lawyers get the same thing..LOL.. since we all know everything there is to know because we’ve seen it on television.
Gabe-Thanks you... hope this helps our sellers.
Kathy-don’t you just love it when we get a seller who is so willing and will listen to you!
Michael-I think this one has hit a nerve with Realtors as well. We’re all arm-chair Realtors/Stagers/quarterbacks, etc.
Angela and Stephen- Thank you and hope we can all put it to good use.
Joni-the good thing it has pointed out to the public the importance of that first impression your house makes.
Janice-oh... several! Like we all do.. right!
Evelyn-hope your sellers will find it helpful! I think it’s only human that they feel they can stage now that they’ve seen it on television but they’re paying us for our experience and expertise.
Donna- Welcome to ActiveRain. If you scroll to the bottom of my post under Short URL, you ‘ll see in faint blue the work “bookmark”. Just click on it!
Nancy-that is so kind of you! Many thanks.
Hi Kathy, great post with very useful information for sellers and their agents. It really pays off to educate your agents about selecting paint colours. They are with the seller before us so if we can get them to speak with their client about waiting for the professional stager to arrive before buying paint it is well worth the wait.
I have it in my contract that pets and small children are the responsibility of the client as we will have the front door open and are not responsible for pets or children wandering outside and away from the house.
Hi Kathy, great tips. It is amazing how "everyone " becomes a tv expert. But every
house is different and has its own challenges. And they are paying you for your
experience.
Irene Durocher Bristol Properties
Boca Raton, Fla.
Wow! Your re-design of your original post was a Feature! Who would have thunk it? LOL! It's so important for the seller to be prepared for the consultation so that it's productive time for all parties.