Staging a house to sell fast in a slowing market

Experts help attract buyers

Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff Photo by Darwin Weigel Homeowner Dee Hardesty, left, hired Teri Short of Lexington Park, a ‘‘home stager,” to help prepare her home for the best possible sale. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

She and her Realtor knew when listing the Barstow house on Sept. 1 that selling it might be challenging in the cooling real estate market.

So they called Lexington Park-based home stager Teri Short, hoping she could do the trick.

Home stagers are trained to consult homeowners on how to change and rearrange things in the house to make the house more appealing by de-cluttering, de-personalizing and refreshing it. The result is a faster sale, Short said.

‘‘You want to sell your house? It’s an investment in your house,” Short said. ‘‘They don’t realize the potential the house could have. The house is on a job interview. It has to look nice. Buyers can afford to be choosy.”

Having a home in its best shape for serious buyers is a good investment and the cost of staging is reasonable compared to the high return received when the home sells, Short said.

‘‘We really need to get moving. We need to get this sold,” Hardesty said, who’s lived in the house for eight years and wants to move to her father’s farm nearby.

Short makes home owners realize that each bullet on a buyer’s to-do list knocks the sale price down.

‘‘That’s why people like new construction. If you’ve lived in a house for a number of years you’re going to have to do some sprucing up. Not a lot of people [buyers] have vision,” Short said, which is why making a home on the market as neat and coordinated as possible is important.

‘‘Selling your house is like putting merchandise on a shelf in a store. It’s all about the wow,” said Susan Young. Young is a Realtor with Remax 100 in Waldorf and earned her home staging accreditation in August 2006.

‘‘We could see that the market was changing and there would be more and more competition,” Young said of why she decided to take the certification course through the Association of Staging Professionals.

She offers home staging for no extra charge — it comes with listing the property with her. Short charges $250 for a two-hour consultation on a house up to 3,000 square feet. She does not purchase items for the house based on her suggestions — she leaves that to the home owner. But along the way she may rearrange furniture or alter decor. ‘‘Some sellers love to work with us and others think it’s unnecessary,” she said.

Chris Guldi, president of the Southern Maryland Association of Realtors and owner⁄broker of Keller Williams Realty in Waldorf, said he’s considered contracting home stagers to work with his listings, especially since the end of 2005 when the market began to slow down considerably.

‘‘It’s something that I’ve heard about for several years. This is to take it to the next level to make it [the house] more appealing to the eye,” he said. ‘‘My job is to market that house and find a buyer for it. There’s no way I can possibly know all the ins and outs of staging and all of what’s going to be most appealing to the masses.”

Home staging may not always get more money for the house, but it will definitely sell the house faster, he said. Recently, Short offered the following suggestions during a tour of Hardesty’s property:

* First impressions are important. Short began Hardesty’s consultation by walking her around her home, starting with the outside.

Curb appeal is important because it’s the first things potential buyers see, Short said. The lawn ornaments and statues along Hardesty’s walkway were too much, Short said. A planter or two is nice, but all dead plants must be cut back and the walkway must be clear and neat.

‘‘The weather makes it a challenging time to sell” when it comes to making lawns look nice, Short said.

Short also suggested moving some of the decorations on the front, covered porch into a more clustered vs. scattered arrangement and adding a small table and chairs.

The front foyer should also be clean, neat and neutral.

‘‘When they come in, we want them to be struck by a hallway that is charming and welcoming,” Young said.

This includes turning all indoor and outdoor lights on if it’s evening, and opening all drapes in the house if it’s daytime when a prospective buyer visits. Play soft music and if it’s wintertime, use a fireplace if there is one.

* Make all repairs. ‘‘Repairs are a big thing. That thing you said you were going to do later is now because people will notice this,” she told Hardesty about peeling paint on her front porch. ‘‘When they come to ring the doorbell, they’re waiting a minute or so. They’ll be looking around. People will make a checklist of things they need to do. They’ll think, ‘I’ll just move on to the next house’ if there’s too much stuff to do,” Short said.

She later pointed out a crack in Hardesty’s linoleum kitchen floor and said such blemishes could discourage buyers.

* Get rid of clutter and personal items. ‘‘People look at homes on the Internet and if they see pictures of a lot of clutter they won’t have a lot of showings,” Short said. She suggested Hardesty remove excess photos and drawings from the refrigerator.

Throughout the rest of the home there should be minimal family photos or decorations that could distract the buyer from other attractive assets.

‘‘Less is more,” Young said, because the goal is to make the house look more spacious and streamlined.

‘‘Most of us have too much furniture. Most of us suffer from over-decorating,” she said.

On the other hand ‘‘it’s important in a vacant room that it be staged with some furniture and decoration. It’s difficult for buyers to picture an empty house as their own,” Young said.

* Be willing to move and buy new things. Sometimes Short said she asks clients to purchase items that could enhance a room’s appearance. While most staging can be done with what a homeowner has, Short said she asked Hardesty to buy new curtains for the main living areas because the ones she had blended in too much with the white walls.

Many buyers don’t have a problem with purchasing items, but sometimes it can be a challenge, Short said.

‘‘I think if she came up with some major items I think I would have a problem with it,” Hardesty said.

Hardesty said she took her husband’s deer heads off the wall before Short came in and put some other personal items away. In any case, since such items must be packed anyway, do it early, Short said.

‘‘It’s your stuff, but a buyer will think it’s clutter,” she said.

One of the keys to an appealing home is having nice furniture, Short added. ‘‘When people buy a house they almost always will buy new furniture. If you’re going to buy it anyway, get it now. The house is a product now. It’s not your home.”

But when new or immaculate furniture is not an option, Short says arranging furniture that’s already there can make a room feel more connected, especially if couches and chairs are facing each other in a way that shows people can talk and entertain freely and comfortably with each other.

Short advised Hardesty to remove rugs in the foyer to show off its hardwood floors and to repaint worn white walls in a neutral, eggshell color.

‘‘It’s interesting to see what people are looking for and how big of a difference picking up a rug can make,” Hardesty said.

* Everything should be clean, clean, clean. It may seem obvious, but Short said it’s important that carpet and hardwood flooring be spotless. Use room fresheners and hang new towels in kitchens and bathrooms. Thoroughly clean everything from light switch plates to baseboards and windows.

* Set up the rooms for their intended use with matching decorations. If potential buyers see the seller is using their dining room as a storage closet or a bedroom as an office, they will not only be unimpressed, but they most likely won’t be able to see themselves using it for its original purpose.

Buyers ‘‘like to imagine themselves living in the home,” Short said.

People especially like formal dining rooms so setting the table and placing meal-oriented art on the walls are important.

Finding a focal or center point of each room and emphasizing it is key. Short said sellers should ask themselves in each space, ‘‘What are we selling in this room? Is it space? Is it a fireplace?”

* Don’t get attached to the house — or the asking price. ‘‘A lot of people are emotionally attached to their house and don’t see it as a product,” Short said. ‘‘One really common mistake is pricing too high and holding on to the asking price for months and months.”

Hardesty’s house originally listed for $499,900 but has been reduced to $469,900. ‘‘I have a hard time getting past [the emotional attachment] because I still have to live in it. I think on the homeowner’s side you have to approach it tactfully,” Hardesty, who is also a Realtor, said. ‘‘On the real-estate end, if there was a lot of work that needed to be done that I couldn’t handle, that’s where someone like Teri would come in and do a good job.”

E-mail Kayleigh Kulp at kkulp@somdnews.com