Selling Square Footage

Staging a House Boosts Saleability

To receive top dollar for your home and to get a leg up on the competition, it has to "show well", especially when there are thousands of buyers in Calgary to impress this spring.

It is critical to dot your "i's" and cross your "t's" before that For Sale sign goes up in your front yard. For if that first impression isn't good, the likelihood of getting a good offer, or any offer at all, is not high.

Set the Scene

For that reason curb appeal is the most important first impression and encompasses everything from the sidewalk up to the chimney. You must do what it takes to get the would-be buyers to get out of their car and through the front door.

The first step is preparing the exterior of your house. Take a clear-headed look at the house from the street. Stand at the curb and look at your house as a buyer might. One of the best ways is to take a photo of the curbside view. What stands out and catches your eye? The beautiful landscaping and the new roof? Or does something else strike you? The faded exterior paint? The broken shutter? Drooping eaves troughs?

Remember this is how your home will "introduce" itself to a potential buyer. If the appeal isn't there, they will likely drive on to the next available house, no matter how beautiful the interior might be!

Burnished Leather, Apple Pie, Miles Davis.

While staging a house is primarily a visual medium, it is not exclusively so. To be truly dynamic, the house has to stimulate all our senses. With impact staging, buyers should be constantly surprised by what they may find in each room. Effective staging creates strong and memorable feelings that touch all the senses.

For example, smell draws images as powerfully as any furniture arrangement. Smell brings you in. It takes you back. Homes crammed with potpourri are about as desirable as a too heavy application of aftershave. Instead, let pleasant aromas emerge from the freshly washed sheets, spring breezes, and kitchen herbs.

VISUAL

• A really good photograph is a terrific way to make a big impact with a small amount of work - and money.
• Flower Power - Opt for the latest look in flowers and greenery. Go big and simple. Display oversized tropical leaves in ample vases or float a large bloom in a shallow glass bowl.
• Quite the Pear - For a less obvious and less expensive decorative touch, try a bowl of pears by the sofa, or a dish of blood oranges on a bedside table.

OLFACTORY

• Breathtaking - Create an informal centrepiece in the kitchen by arranging fresh herbs in drinking glasses. Fragrant mint, parsley and oregano are lovely.
• Scene Stealer - Buy thyme, basil and sage and plant them in three small clay pots. Place on a windowsill to clean the air and provide a visual still life.
• Good Scents - A heaping bowl of fresh lemons married with limes set on the kitchen bar counter creates a clean, fresh scent. This citrus fruit is an inexpensive, longer lasting alternative to flowers. These fruits add colour, aroma and sculptural interest to any room.

AUDITORY

• Intoning - An indoor fountain on the kitchen counter, home office desk, or bedside table adds natural melody and rhythm.
• Sound Advice - A gently ringing wind chime mounted outside the front entry greets buyers with soothing tones.
• The Sound of Music - Music playing softly in the background is nice, but choose something that enhances the mood that you are trying to create. Classical music for the stately home, jazz for the sophisticated condo, or easy listening for a family infill.

GUSTATORY

• Taste Tempting - A basket of biscotti set beside the cappuccino maker or coffee press evokes the image of leisurely weekend mornings.
• Eye-Popping - Set a huge bowl of popcorn on the coffee table in the television viewing room. Buyers will easily imagine themselves spending fun, informal evenings with family or friends.
• Apple a Day - Set nine green apples on a flat rectangular plate for a great minimalist look on the coffee table.

KINESTHETIC

• Luxuriating ? A soft chenille throw draped on the couch, chair, or bed adds a delicious layer of texture.
• Throw in the towel - Nothing makes a bathroom more inviting that a heap of fluffy towels. Soften the clean lines of a bathroom adding a soft chenille rug and a sumptuous bathrobe draped casually over the tub.
• See Through It? Drape a round display table with a gauzy organdy table topper.

The home gets personal the moment one touches the front door.

Like a roaring fire, every room needs a focus. Just as every house has one heart, every room has its strongest feature. It may be a fireplace, a piece of art, or a view. Once this is established, then the seating arrangement is built around it.

If the furniture arrangement sets the stage, the lighting makes the action.

The right light also determines how each room and area feels. It can show relaxation, activity, or just decorate. For these reasons, lighting needs to be considered very carefully. Do you want to show that this area of the room is comfortable for reading? - aim a task lamp down at an open book placed on the seat of an armchair. Is there a beautiful painting over the mantle? - Centre the spotlight on it.

Help buyers see your house as their home.

One of the things that stagers will do is to "depersonalize" by squirreling away personal photos and mementoes or potentially objectionable items in order that potential buyers can easily visualize themselves living there.

If you have ever been in the market for a home, what caused you to say, "No, not this one". There may be clear reasons such as the location, size or layout of the home, but it's also quite possible that other factors contributed to your negative view.

Let's say a buyer walks into a home and finds a collection of trophies on the mantel, an assortment of family photographs, ranging from formal to playful group shots, souvenirs from your last family vacation and other personal items. What happens to buyers when they spot these items?

They can be distracted and feel uncomfortable. They focus on these items and not on the features of the home. More importantly, buyers may have trouble imagining their personal items in the same setting because the home is so obviously an expression of its present owners.

Mail order catalogues and half-burned candles are the first to go.

Clutter cannot only camouflage features, but can create an impression of indifference that leads buyers to suspect poor care and maintenance. Clutter distracts buyers from the features you want them to see.

So its best to toss out that hooked rug from Aunt Edna, the bowling trophy and the handmade clay sculpture made in 1984 by your nephew, Jack. And knickknacks begone. They clog up otherwise sleek surfaces, and more importantly, they restrict buyers from imagining their own possessions on those surfaces.

What you are doing is removing objections and creating fewer reasons to say "no". By removing negatives, you're increasing your chances of having a sale. And while you are removing, remove all those magnets and papers off the fridge. And some things are better left in a drawer.

A stage set for living.

Marketing the home for sale requires an overall plan or careful study. Stagers carefully observe how every element on the room affects the others to determine if something is right for the room or not.

Every area should look as if it has served its intended purpose well. It is about creating an emotional attachment to the home and to involve as many feelings and senses as possible. The house must be presented as if it is waiting for someone else - to create the impression that all the buyer has to do is unpack their suitcase and they're home.

Stagers give proper presentation by highlighting saleable features, designing proper traffic paths, paying attention to lighting, views, and the arrangement of furniture, art and collectibles.

Stagers are objective marketers.

Stagers are not emotionally attached to the house, furnishings or art. They understand what the buyers for this property are looking for when they walk though the door. They also bring with them their team of resources to get the necessary work done quickly and efficiently, whether it is the updating of materials, painting, doing repairs, cleaning or organizing.

If potential buyers have viewed several homes that day, they often will have trouble remembering which house is which. That is where home stagers come in and make sure that there is always something that stands out in order that buyers can remember your particular home at the end of the day.

One way to make that shift from your home to a house on the market is to realize that it is now a product for sale and to think of the house as if "on stage".

Stagers impart the feeling of home, not as a sterile show home, but rather with a comfortable, lived-in look. The final step of literally "setting the stage" assures that the house stands out like a glittering jewel in a sea of marbles. This assures that the property gets top dollar and sells quickly.

It doesn't have anything to do with personal taste or style or period of furniture - it is just good marketing.

Set the stage yourself, hire a home stager, or do it together, but do it! Turn up the lights and set the stage. It's Showtime!

Karyn

Karyn Elliott is the owner of Albertine Design,  an interior design firm that specializes in "making the most of what you already have" by organizing, rearranging and transforming your spaces resulting in enhanced and harmonious living.  Albertine Design  is also the only Calgary design firm that specializes in Home Staging - the art of professionally preparing a home for sale. Karyn's home staging division,  CRAZY HOUSE  continues to be featured on national and local radio and television, and in national and local magazines and newspapers.

PH: 403.287.1774
karyn@crazyhouse.ca

Visit  www.homestagers.ca  for before/after photos, articles, testimonials and television clips.

Beth Larocque

My Philosophy of Design - "The spaces we live in and work in must be safe, functional and pleasing to the eye." It is on this belief that I have been privileged to experience and share the world of design with many people.

My career in nursing lead me to recognize that healthy environments could affect the health of the inhabitants. Well into my career in health care, I chose to expand into Interior Design by completing a degree program in Housing and Design at the College of Home Economics, University of Saskatchewan. Further study forged a path to the application of Ergonomics and opened more opportunities for me to assist individuals in their work environments as well as where they live. When workstations fit the worker, color appeals to and supports the individual, and the space around us suits our needs, we are prone to be more productive as well as contented.

Whether you find your home needs to be upgraded to fit your changing lifestyle, colors need to be updated or you have concerns about ergonomic principles in your work space I would be pleased to assist you.

Phone: (403) 714-5025
Email:

Real Estate Professionals Inc.
200-5810 2nd Street SW
Calgary, Alberta T2H 0H2
403-830-8360