Seaside Home Stagers LLC

Posts Tagged ‘preparing a home for sale in Myrtle Beach’

As I continue my home staging in Pawleys Island, last week I had the privilege of presenting “Staging for Realtors” to the Coastal Carolina Association of Realtors Nuts N Bolts session.  A key topic of the presentation was the top five staging mistakes real estate agents make.  They are:

1.  Not using home staging as a marketing tool in your listing presentation. 

•  Most realtors believe staging works, but they don’t routinely use staging or a stager in their businesses.
• Make staging part of your listing service and get an edge over your competition.

 2.  Not using staging as part of the marketing mix. 

• Include a basic staging consultation in your marketing plan.
• Work with your stager in co-branding and marketing activities that will generate more listing appointments. 

3.   Waiting until the last minute. 

• Often agents ask for a staging consultation two to three days prior to the targeted listing date.
• Most sellers need two to three weeks to prepare their home.

4.   Giving up too easily when the client is resistant.

• Many agents simply list the house if the client is resistant to staging and they end up with a “toxic listing” that just won’t sell.
• Your stager can help by providing you with a staging packet for your sellers or by accompanying you on your listing presentation.

 5.  Not fully understanding the scope and benefits of staging.

• Realtors who are not fully educated on the benefits of staging won’t be able to communicate them to sellers.
• If you understand the underlying concepts and benefits of properly packaging a home, you will be able to confidently explain to your seller why it is important to replace that tattered carpet, remove their personal photos or repaint the electric blue bedroom!

During the session, we talked a lot about how real estate agents and stagers could and should work together to the benefit of clients who want to sell their homes in this tough marketplace.  Many of the agents present confirmed that it is difficult for them to “sell” staging to their clients.  While they know that staging greatly improves the presentation of a home, they say they don’t feel fully equipped to explain the advantages of staging, what it really costs and what a professional stager can do.  

So I am now in my office preparing a package of materials that will help them broach the subject of staging with their clients and help them understand how it can help sell that home.  However, don’t forget, you can always take your stager with you to the listing presentation or the second visit with a newly signed client when you sit down to discuss actual marketing plans for the home. 

Don’t forget, presentation is second only to price when it comes to selling a home.  Take a look at the statistics elsewhere on my website and you can see how much home staging returns on its investment and how much more quickly staged homes sell versus their unstaged competition.