31 Days to a Staged Home :: Day 2, Why Stage?

Hello!
Welcome to Day 2!
If this is your first time to this series and you'd like to start from Day 1,
click HERE.

Welcome back!

Today it's my desire to convince you that, if you are selling your house,

it posilutely, absitively NEEDS to be staged

BEFORE it's listed!

Here are the (factual and emotional) reasons that I have collected

and observed through the years:

• Fact: A house sells more quickly. Consider these facts from the National Association of Realtors.

• Observation: Buyers spend approximately five minutes looking at your property and already have their opinion within the first two minutes. Your house needs to be practically perfect in every way.
• Observation: Staging sets your house apart from most other homes. Here's a testimony from a client friend of mine after their home sold: "Our second showing sold our home! On the way out of the neighborhood, in our moving truck, we passed six homes that had been on the market many months before ours. We are POSITIVE that staging our home helped us sell it. We had an advantage that our former neighbors didn't!"
• Fact: Multiple price reductions stink. The more quickly your home sells, the more profit that is made on the house. Look at the graph below. The top line of percentages is quite interesting. According to the NAR (National Association of Realtors) Profile, for homes sold within one week, 89% of sellers never had to reduce their asking price. For property sitting on the market longer than 17 weeks, 94% of sellers reduced the price at least once, and 1/4 of those sellers reduced their price at least four times.

• Fact/Observed: Longer time on the market means additional efforts to market your home. And you'll also have to keep in it showing condition longer.
• Fact: Simple home improvements are worth it.

• Observed: Buyers think there is something wrong with a home that doesn't sell right away. They wonder if has been reduced because a major defect was discovered.
• Fact: Buyers aren't selecting homes via the internet and other sources; they are eliminating them. Your home's assets must be captured with fantastic photos of beautiful, bright rooms so that buyers WANT to come see your house, not SKIP it. You want the Realtors who bring their prospective buyers through your home to have nothing but positive feedback for your house. Word gets around among Realtors about which homes are heaven or hell to show to their clients.

• And one of the best reasons? It just feels good to live in a staged home while it's being marketed! It's already clean, clutter-free, easier to maintain, to clean, and to prepare for a showing. 

(The pictures above are from a home that SOLD in 1 1/2 hours,
$2,000 over asking price, at the very first showing!)

I hope I've convinced you how important pre-preparing and pre-detailing your home is!


By the way, Day 31 is Q & A day.
If there's anything you'd like to know, just ask me in the comments,
and I will compile them and address them on the 31st.
Thank you!


Tomorrow's topic is What's Wrong with My House?

Hope to see you there!