(FROM HSR Staging and Real Estate Newsletter, January 2010)
There are five things your home seller needs to know about selling their homes in a slumping housing market:
- 1. DON'T WAIT - Every Realtor will tell you truthfully that the longer your home "sits" on the market the lower your price will be. Statistically homes get the best price if they sell within 30 days of listing so it is critical that you take action BEFORE you list your home or right now if you have already listed. The market is not going to get better.
- 2. DON'T "DO IT YOURSELF" - In a Sellers market this may be an option for you but in today's changing buyer's market it is imperative that you use a Realtor to bring buyer traffic to your door and you use a Professional Home Stager to market your home so that the few buyers who enter in will have a desire to buy. Don't waste buyer traffic by having a home that is not professionally staged!
- 3. SEE THE BIG PICTURE - If your financial advisor guaranteed you would make at least 6% on your money over the course of the next two months by investing in a stock would you do it? Did you know that by spending as little as $2000 on professional home staging up front, statistically you will sell 50% faster and for AT LEAST 6% more than you would have without professional staging? For a $200,000 house that's $12,000 for simply spending less than $2000 on professional staging!
- 4. GO WITH EXPERIENCE - You are competing now against 5 times more homes (in some areas) than you would have been last year. It is more critical than ever to use professionals who are highly trained in what they do to work with you. In the home staging industry, professional home stagers who have gone through HSR Certification have gone through training that is typically 5 times longer than the average staging training available. HSR Certified Home Stagers are most often professionals with a long history of success and training in home staging and redesign and that is why they choose the Home Staging Resource. In the Real Estate industry choose a Realtor who specializes in your area with a long history of success.
- 5. USE TECHNOLOGY - So many buyers are savvy enough to search the home listings online FIRST before they waste time driving from home to home. If your home does not have multiple, beautifully staged, pictures that entice the buyer on Realtor.com or similar sites then you might as well lower your price right now. If you have old "before" pictures of your home, then have your home stager take new "after” and email them to your realtor to post anew.
