Staging can take your home from drab to fab
Breaks down why you might need to consider home staging to sell your house in a changing market.
In a softening real estate market, sellers need to do all they can to present their homes in the best light, and many are deciding it’s time to pay for professional home staging.
House prices nationwide have fallen by 7.6% since the beginning of this year, and are now just above where they were last August, according to Quotable Value.
At the same time, listings have more than doubled: There were 25,441 listings last month, up from 12,249 at the same time last year, according to Realestate.co.nz.
If a vendor can afford it, home staging can take a home from drab to fab, and widen the pool of interested buyers. It costs anywhere from $1500 (for advice and a partial staging) to $20,000-plus for larger, higherend homes.
Harcourts Smales Farm real estate agent Bec Whitley says one of the main benefits is getting prospective buyers along to a viewing.
She estimates about 70% of her clients use home staging. ‘‘It’s not for everyone. Some people have nice stuff already.’’
For the majority of vendors, whose homes are not fit for a house and garden magazine, Whitley does recommend home staging. ‘‘Especially when people have been there 20 years and have collected a lot of stuff, using a stager just helps zhuzh things up a bit,’’ Whitley says.
‘‘At the moment, you need to be presenting things as well as you can: You need to be ahead of the competition and presenting things 100%.’’
However, she says the cost of staging, typically $4000 to $5000 for a four-bedroom house, and payable up front, is ‘‘out of reach for some people’’. ‘‘In that case, we suggest decluttering. People just have so much crap in their houses, and that’s normal, that’s how we live.’’
She says, while she may suggest a vendor add art or replace curtains, the best thing is ‘‘getting rid of stuff’’.
Nelson home stager Ana Stevenson has been running Open Home Ready for five years, and before that worked for seven years as a real estate agent, which she says gave her the eye for what works in a home.
She charges from $2000 (twobedroom home) to $3600 for a four-bedroom home for ‘‘props and furniture’’ for four weeks, although she says she has charged as much as $20,000 for a large, higher-value home.
She has only experienced two weeks during which inquiries ‘‘just went dead’’ – she believes in response to interest rate rises and the general economy – but they soon bounced back.
The public is more and more aware of the benefits of home staging, Stevenson says.
‘‘[Staging] is more important than ever in a softening and changing market. In my trade, I say: Make your home the best it can be.’’
She says while it’s essential for empty houses and new builds, it also adds value for ‘‘tired and dated homes’’.
In fact, she and her staff get huge satisfaction from seeing the transformation in those homes.
The main benefit of staging is allowing a broader demographic to imagine themselves living in a particular house.
‘‘When it’s dated, for example, with old people’s furniture in it, the 30-somethings come through and can’t see how they could live in it.’’
Once their home is staged, clients see how they could live differently, Stevenson says.
‘‘Quite often I have clients, when I’ve staged their home, in tears, or wanting to move back in, or asking, ‘Why didn’t we do something like this years ago?’’’
Similarly, Nat van Peer, from
Auckland’s Ash Road home staging company, says clients often ask her to do the interior design work and choose furniture for their next house.
She says she and business partner Katie Salter are the ‘‘busiest we’ve ever been’’, which van Peer puts down to houses taking longer to sell in a down market.
‘‘We’ve probably come out of a time when anything and everything sells. It’s not good enough any more to slap your home on the market as is.’’
She agrees with Whitley that it’s about getting buyers along in the first place.
‘‘The [marketing] photos are so important. If a place looks uninspiring online, why would you take time out to go and look?
‘‘Once people are there and the sun’s shining, they have a bit more context, feel for the house, and garden, and the neighbourhood.’’
She says her and Salter’s style is ‘‘aspirational, but it has to feel homely, with warmth and some personality’’.
‘‘We do high-end staging, with really good, quality furniture. We don’t want places to look either incredibly sterile or old-fashioned.’’
She says it’s impossible to say whether houses that have been staged sell for a higher price.
‘‘We’ve got some lovely testimonials where client says they got 40% over CV, but it’s more about getting lots of people through.
‘‘We often get called in when a place has been sitting for 10 or 15 weeks. They move all their furniture out, we move ours in, and it’s gone within 5 weeks. It’s the same house, it’s just one that’s been staged.’’
Having their home staged can be an eye-opener for clients during the sales process.
‘‘It gives people a taste for how they can live with less in terms of clutter, but having a few nice things that work for them.
‘‘It makes them want to open the door and come home.’’