The
St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports on a tactic to sell one's home in a slow market:
Staging is different from interior decorating, says Sue Rector, the
owner of Lake Saint Louis-based Home Staging Innovations and Lenac's
stager.
"Decorating is personalizing, staging is de-personalizing," Rector
said. "The three main principles of staging are clean, de-clutter and
(add) color."
Staging has been used in markets like Florida, California and Arizona
for many years but only now is starting to pick up in the St. Louis
area. The change may be linked to the region's slowing housing market,
some stagers say.
In a slow market, sellers need fresh tactics and creative thinking to
help set their house or condo apart from the others on the market and
to help it sell, said Linda Rohlfing, owner of Sedona Interiors and
Home Staging in St. Charles County.
"Marketing and advertising will attract people to your house, but
staging will present it in the best possible light and help it sell,"
she said. "It is much better to spend a few dollars on staging than
having to take price reductions."
So, does staging work?
The 17 houses Rector staged in the last year sold in an average of 39
days for more than 98 percent of the original asking price, she said.
According to the St. Louis Association of Realtors, the typical house
was on the market for an average of 82 days and the sellers got an
average of 96.5 percent of their asking price.
Kurt Selzle, a Realtor with Coldwell Banker Gundaker in Town and
Country, agreed that staged houses attract more buyers. Fifteen to 20
of the roughly 100 houses he listed last year were professionally
staged, Selzle said.
"The staged homes definitely sold faster," he said.
Lenac said that of the eight houses for sale on his street -- two of
them within a few doors of his condo -- his was the only one that sold.
He originally had listed the house for $204,000 and sold it for
$199,000 in less than 60 days. Lenac attributes his success to using a
stager. "By the time I moved in July, two of the others had removed
their 'For Sale' signs, and the others were still on the market," he
said.
The Dressed to Sell Web site claims that homes that have been professionally staged sell 50 percent faster and increase the selling price by 6 to 10 percent.
Here's the blog of a Chicago-area home stager.
There are even
"staging schools" to teach the craft. And here are some
tips on staging.
