Setting the stage for a flawless home resale Outside help can move a home faster - and bump up the price, too

Quinn Fletcher and Daniele Behn Smith were hoping for a quick sale on their Edmonton home. The couple, who were moving to British Columbia, not only found a buyer in less than a week, but they also got well over their asking price.
"We already had a move date and we didn't want it to be vacant on the market," Fletcher said of the 1934 character house he shared with fiancée Behn Smith in the Westmount area.
"And we didn't want to have an overlap in terms of mortgage or rent or whatever."
Fletcher had heard of home stagers, professionals who re-decorate a house using either a homeowner's furnishings or rented props, to make it look its best for public viewing.
Stagers will re-hang artwork and reposition furniture, place flowers on a table or towels in a bathroom. They'll remove furnishings from cluttered rooms and paint walls to give living spaces an updated look.
The goal is to create a pleasing atmosphere with universal appeal that leaves prospective buyers with the feeling that they could live there.
Fletcher contacted Revealing Assets Home Staging and Decluttering Services. Owner Rhonda Wilson spent a day staging the house, using Fletcher and Behn Smith's belongings.
"She did pretty much the entire house," Fletcher said. "She went through and basically moved furniture."
The end result was impressive, he said. "It made a difference. If I was a potential buyer coming though, I think it would have looked much more inviting."
The house sold last month in a matter of days. The couple got $20,000 more than their asking price.
"It went on the market on a Tuesday and by Saturday afternoon we had multiple offers," Fletcher said. "Everybody was going to come in with something pretty close (to asking price), but once they knew there was multiple offers, then they kind of bumped up," he said.
The staging "absolutely" helped in the sale, Fletcher said.
"You could just see the difference quite visibly between before she came in and afterwards. She used accent pieces, candlesticks and some of our photos.
"There was just a lot less stuff and the house just looked a lot cleaner and more open."
A home stager showcases the house, not its decor, Wilson said.
"You don't want attractive distractions," she said. "If you go to show homes, they've got fantastic furnishings and decor and a lot of times you end up remembering that beautiful armoire rather than the room that you were in when you saw it."
That doesn't mean a stager won't use props to drive home a message. Wilson will place a bowl on a table in a front foyer so that prospective buyers can envision throwing their keys in there at the end of the day. Or she'll put reading glasses and an open book on an end table beside a wingback chair to draw attention to a quiet nook.
"You want to give the buyer a sense of welcome home," she said.
Whether it's an older house or a new one loaded with the latest amenities, the goal of staging is to draw attention to the features of a property, said Jill Gargus, owner of Simply Irresistible Interiors.
"We're trying to sell those floors, sell the countertop, sell the fireplace. We tailor our staging so that it's about the property."
At a time when the majority of consumers start their search for a home on the Internet, pictures of a pleasantly staged house are a great way to draw attention, said Gargus.
"One of the biggest things that has changed in the last eight years is that buyers go to the Internet first to look for a property. So their initial impression is based on the interior photos that they see.
"Buyers . are not even going to go to your property to see it in person if they didn't like what they saw on the computer."
the computer." That's something Ben Officer, a realtor with ReMax, sees time and again. Between 85 and 90 per cent of house hunters look on the Internet before contacting a realtor, he said.
"By the time they phone or contact us, they've already looked at lots of properties. If they're looking for stuff on the Internet, the first thing is if it has no pictures I ask them, 'What do you do?' And they go, 'Click on the next one.' "
Officer suggested that owners who wanted to sell their downtown condo apartment in The Parliament have Gargus stage it.
"She staged it and it looks fabulous," Officer said.
Putting those pictures on a real estate website will help move the property, he added.
"So if the house is staged, the pictures are on there. From my experience they sell faster and I think they sell closer to list price."
Wilson charges a staging fee of between $600 and $900. Gargus's fee is $269 an hour in four-or eighthour blocks.
Both also have monthly rental fees of up to $3,000 for furnishing unoccupied houses.
"Staged, vacant houses spend up to 50 per cent less time on the market," Wilson said.
Staging will not make a home sell for more than it's worth, cautioned Gargus. Her company has worked with clients whose houses remained unsold because they were overpriced.
verpriced. "Our goal is just to make the seller the best price," she said.
Home staging fees are not insignificant, said realtor Ben Officer.
"But at the end of the day, when you see what the value is when the house is done being staged and the feedback from the buyers, I think it's money well spent.
money well spent. "So if the house shows well, it's staged and it's priced well, then you stand a really good chance of getting pretty close to list price."
Source http://www.edmontonjournal.com/