Chicago Metro Area Real Estate » Home Staging

Can you over stage a home for sale?

Fran Bailey, Baird and Warner Realtor — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 00:13:22 +0000

Lisa Lynch

Michael M. wrote me last week, “I was just wondering, is it possible to over stage a place, or go too far with the decluttering?” Yes and maybe.

According to Stager Invasion’s Lisa Lynch, a home can be over staged when there’s something in every space. Check out her video on over staging. What Lisa refers to as over staging is in my opinion an example of over decorating.

Another example of over staging via over decorating is decorating a home for sale in a style that is inappropriate for the home. An example would be decorating a bungalow as if it were a mansion. It’s not what buyers are expecting and would distract them from the home itself.

Over staging via over decluttering is another matter. The ultimate example of over decluttering would be vacating a home for sale. I don’t think that this is always bad. A vacant home may appear less homey, but it may be easier for buyers to visualize it as theirs or visualize changes they might like to make. I think it depends on the home. An example of going too far with decluttering that I think hurts a home’s appeal is emptying some rooms, but not others. It creates confusion as to whether someone is living there or not and disrupts the flow of the home as buyers walk through it.

If you’re considering selling a home, schedule a time to talk with me. If you have a question, email me.Similar Posts:

The master bath was perfect except for…

Fran Bailey, Baird and Warner Realtor — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 12:29:34 +0000

Who didn't change the roll?

My buyers, Lisa and John, and I were curious to see a duplex condo that looked great online. The photo of the master bath showed dual sinks and a huge, tiled shower. However, the “spa bathroom” (as the listing agent described it) lost a little of its luster when we spied the toilet paper roll with the last piece dangling ever so perilously! Similar Posts:

Time to clean the gutters

Fran Bailey, Baird and Warner Realtor — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 12:24:56 +0000

Dirty gutters do not add to a home's curb appeal!

Here’s a photo of the front gutters on a house I showed yesterday. To be full of debris is one thing, but to be sprouting new growth is another! Similar Posts:

Paint fumes are a great way to drive away home buyers

Fran Bailey, Baird and Warner Realtor — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:05:35 +0000

I showed several houses in Naperville on Tuesday evening. My buyers quickly ruled out the first home which as shown left clearly wasn’t ready for market. Not only did it not show well, the drying paint fumes were horrible!

Can you imagine car dealers selling cars that smell like exhaust fumes inside?

A fresh coat of paint is great, but don’t make buyers endure the odor while it’s drying!Similar Posts:

How not to stage a dining room

Fran Bailey, Baird and Warner Realtor — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:20:33 +0000

Each room in a home for sale should have a clear identity. If not, it makes it harder for buyers to imagine how they would use the rooms. Just one item such as the scale in the dining room of a house I showed in Glen Ellyn shown left can make buyers wonder about a room, besides being highly distracting! Of course the single pink shoe in front of the scale doesn’t help either!

Don’t make it easy for buyers to rule out your home and remember it as “the house with the scale in the dining room” (or some other odd combination).

While having a scale in the dining room may be highly effective for weight loss, it certainly isn’t helping the owners lose this house! Similar Posts:

Viking and Subzero Appliances cannot fully compensate for a messy home

Fran Bailey, Baird and Warner Realtor — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 17:33:50 +0000

Yesterday one of the houses I showed advertised a high end kitchen with Viking and Subzero Appliances. It also had 42″ kitchen cabinets and granite countertops which were very nice.

However, what my buyers and I will remember the most about the home was the basement. The moment we reached it we all noticed the less than desirable smell. Worse than that was the mess in the laundry area, crawl space and one of the rooms. They needed serious cleaning and junk removal.

Shown left is the laundry area. The photography isn’t the best since I took it with my cell phone instead of my regular camera, but you get the idea. The pant leg hanging out of the dryer is an especially nice touch don’t you think? Similar Posts:

Bathroom Ranks Among the Worst

Fran Bailey, Baird and Warner Realtor — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:00:47 +0000

A house in the west suburbs sure looked nice online. Priced in the $300Ks it even featured a private tennis court. My buyers and I were intrigued, so I scheduled the showing first on our list of homes to see that morning. The basement bathroom (shown below) left us speechless. Yes, that’s pieces of wood the toliet is sitting on. Notice the peeling wallpaper and shower door off its tracks and leaning on the wall, not the mention the filth.

Last I checked they dropped the price $35K. It would have been less expensive to fix the problems.

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Survived a Badly Staged Home in Lake Zurich, IL

Fran Bailey, Baird and Warner Realtor — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 20:06:09 +0000

This morning I showed houses in the northwest suburbs including a badly staged house in Lake Zurich. Yes, the fake bread and cheese shown left greeted my buyers and I was we walked into the kitchen. Of course, there was also a bowl of small fake fruit on the counter.

I understand that not all sellers have great furniture or can afford interior decorating that has broad appeal. However, either the listing agent or a home stager deliberately added these cheesy looking (no pun intended) “accessories”. Whoever it was did their sellers a great disservice along with not convincing the sellers to remove some other items from the home that were very distracting.

The house would have shown much better vacant.
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Messy Home For Sale in Arlington Heights

Fran Bailey, Baird and Warner Realtor — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:48:26 +0000

I feel bad for some listing agents. Some of their clients make it next to impossible to sell their homes. Such is the case for a house I showed yesterday in Arlington Heights.

Priced in the upper $600Ks, the 4 bedroom 3 1/2 bath home in a nice neighborhood looked great online. It had nice curb appeal when we pulled into the driveway. My buyers even commented on the elaborate hardwood flooring in the living room. Then we entered the kitchen.

What a disaster! Part of the kitchen’s island shown left was typical of the entire kitchen! The rest of the house didn’t show well either.

When a home isn’t cleaned up before a showing it not only makes the house show poorly, it communicates to the buyers that the seller doesn’t care how they see the house. That’s not a good way to make a sale. Similar Posts:

Looking Beyond a Badly Staged Home

Fran Bailey, Baird and Warner Realtor — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:28:20 +0000

About a month ago I showed a house in River Forest to a couple. The house was nicely rehabbed, but the home staging detracted from rather than enhancing the look of the home.

The furniture and accessories used to stage the home weren’t of the caliber one would expect for a home priced at just under $600K. They looked like they belonged in an apartment for a recent college graduate.

Even more distracting were numerous signs such as the one shown left reminding the buyers that the home was staged. One of the objectives of staging a home is to help buyers visualize it as their home. It’s hard to see a place as your home, if it looks more like a retail display.

Perhaps it was just a coincidence, but my buyers ended up buying a vacant house that had no staging.Similar Posts: