Just saw this great dining room chair cover that would go great in that dining room.  Only $7.99 at Bed Bath and Beyond and they come in Bronze, Moss Green, Burgundy and Ivory

I agree completely that Trulia Voices is the best. Just a couple of months ago, I thought things were running smoothly there. But at an accellerating pace it was degrading, so I wanted to see some changes for the better. I think Pete’s listening, and with any luck, shortly the changes being made will result in a better community from all perspectives.

On the topic of light staging, I’ve never shopped for a client, but in hindsight, that’s a mistake on my part that I shall seek to correct.

Your Trulia Voices “stuff” is interesting. Personally I think Trulia Voices, from the consumer perspective and without regard to the petty ranking crap, is one of the best Q & A formats available. Though I wish it were Zillow.

“A Professional Acts as he MUST, not as he feels, and without regard to self interest”.

What needs to be done to sell the home at the highest price and in the shortest amount of time is really not all that negotiable, or commission dependent.

Ardelle, this is pure gospel. It would be a pleasure to work with you, if somehow our paths ever crossed.

The amount of staging often depends on the quality of the house and the seller’s furnishings. Does your seller’s $1million home have bachelor-pad quality furniture that he bought at Target when he first started college 25 years ago? If so, then you’ve got more work on your hands than someone who starts with reasonable quality basics and just needs a little cleaning, de-cluttering, repositioning, and a few accessories.

I have to be anecdotal here to be accurate with the answer.

For the clients who are both buying and selling with me, the commission discussion usually happens before I even see the property. So “to stage or not to stage” isn’t usually in the conversation. My commission in those cases is more often based on the combination of price of the two separate transactions.

For the clients who approach me only to sell and not to buy, what needs to be done to sell the house is not really up to the seller. Is it? A seller asks what they need to do before putting their home on market? Usually I am moving things in their home the day I first meet them, even before they hire me.

A listing appointment is about the house first. I don’t talk about who they might hire first. I talk about their house first. We walk through the house and as I do I say things like, “This picture moves from here to there, the sofa moves back here, the pendants in the kitchen and the light fixture in the bathroom will be changed…” this conversation coming from one I had on Friday with a seller.

I don’t know if he’s going to sell FSBO or hire an agent and if he does hire an agent if that will be me, while I am saying this. I’ve added value whether he hires me or not. He now knows what to do even if he intends to sell it himself. What you need to do to sell your home doesn’t change because you want to spend more or less to sell it.

Remember, staging the home is not about decorating at all. It is about maximizing the price. First you expand the square footage. A large living room can be arranged to feel bigger or smaller. Smaller homes sell for less; bigger homes sell for more. So creating the right perception of square footage, matching it to what it really IS, no more and no less, is the number one goal of REAL staging.

I’m going to cover more of this in my next post about the 3 steps of staging a home, so I’ll stop here. But here’s the line I learned in my early 20s as a Trust Officer:

“A Professional Acts as he MUST, not as he feels, and without regard to self interest”.

What needs to be done to sell the home at the highest price and in the shortest amount of time is really not all that negotiable, or commission dependent.