Dayton, OH

...Dressed to Market

Dressed to Market...

...Dressed to Market

As soon as you make that decision to sell your home, whether you decide it yourself or if the decision is made for you, many emotions can be/will be sparked. Some of those emotions will be positive ones and others may not be so positive. That is where home staging comes in to help out. By hiring a professional home stager you can reduce the stress that putting your home on the market brings.

Just like I dress a particular way for certain events, your home is no different. OK ladies, think about all your jeans in your closet. You have your jeans that you do yardwork in, jeans that you go to the grocery in and jeans that are nice enough that you will go out to dinner in them. I just mentioned three very different pairs of jeans. Your home can have different looks as well. It looks one way in the middle of the week when you aren't expecting visitors, and your childrens' schedules have you running all over the place. When you are having a dinner party, it is set up to look very different. When your family is visiting and bringing the newest addition to the family, another niece, it may look even more different.

So the point I am trying to make is that when it comes to preparing to present yourself to others, you do similar things to present your home to others.

Think of going to a job interview and putting your house on the market to sell as very similar things. How are they in common??:

1. First Impression, First Impression, First Impression ...need I say more?

2. Buyers of a home can tell in as little as 10 minutes whether or not they can see themselves making on offer on a home. I am sure that the stat is very similar for someone in Human Resources when it comes to making an offer for a job.

3. Almost 70% of all buyers say that they would be prepared to spend more $$ on a house that is in good condition vs. one that needs work. Hiring Managers will offer a larger salary to someone who has experience and a proven track record than someone who will need a lot of training.

4. It comes down to little details like, are your nails groomed and are your shoes clean? Just like with your house, are the baseboards clean and does the shower need caulked?

5. When you walk into an interview you have no idea what you will be up against. Who will you be speaking to? What will the questions be like? You will have a lotof questions before your open house to sell your home. What type of buyers will be coming through? What will they be looking for?

People spend hours upon hours getting ready for a job interview. Putting your house on the market shouldn't be any different. You want to make your house the most appealing product to the biggest number of potential buyers. This could possible be the biggest financial transaction that you ever make, selling your house. Let's make it as rewarding and seamless as possible and get your house...

"DRESSED TO MARKET"

Bathrooms are fun for me to work with and they really don't take much time.

As I've mentioned before in a blog, I am not a realtor but I do know that Bathrooms, as well as kitchens, do sell houses!

Bathrooms are not just about a sink, a toilet and a tub and/or shower anymore. Bathrooms are a great place for furniture. In my opinion, if the space allows you should have at least one furniture piece in every bathroom. The photos below show a small powder room. This room already had great color on the walls and a few nice accessories. I just added a small chest and some more accessories to it to really make it something to look at.

Bathroom before

Bathroom after, showing furniture piece

Bathroom after, introducing Blue to the room

Bathroom after, you can see just the corner of the rug. By adding a larger rug, one that covered most of the floor area and not just in front of the sink it seems to warm up the space. I am not against small rugs in bathrooms, I just think that it is best to go as large as you can. This is not only for appearance reasons, but I don't know about you...I don't like to have COLD FEET!

Bathroom Selling Tip: and this can NOT be stressed enough. After hiring a professional home stager to work with you and get your house ready to sell, KEEP IT CLEAN!! Clean has two meanings, tidy and most importantly...no dirt! If you can do that, then your house will be...

"Dressed to Market"

I am not a realtor, I don't claim to be one, but I do know...kitchens sell houses! This kitchen was nice to start with. Many times all that is needed is some de-cluttering and a few accessories to really make it better.

We are all guilty of keeping too much on our kitchen counters. Face it, when we want to make a cup of coffee the coffee maker is right there. Every now and then we need the blender for a smoothie and it is right there. Toast is much faster when we can just pop it in and don't have to dig out the toaster from a cabinet. We never make hot tea, but the kettle looks good on the stovetop. Isn't that where it is supposed to be? You know the routine. I am guilty of it myself in my home. But for some reason, when shopping for a house we don't want to see any of that. It looks cluttered and makes the countertop space seem very small.

I don't know about you, but the kitchen is such a place that all my family's "stuff" ends up landing. What is in my kitchen?, all the mail ends up there first, the contents of kids' backpacks, newspapers, coupons, etc. No matter what it is, if someone can't find something it is probably in the kitchen. When you decide to put your house on the market this is the hardest area to keep tidy. Once you have a staging professional come in and make the changes necessary, then how do you keep it looking "ready to sell"?

Go to a home store and buy a couple of baskets. You don't have to spend alot of money on these baskets. What I've found is that there are usually 2 categories of things in a kitchen. 1. things that need addressed at some point in the near future. For example, a lot of your mail is in this category. Some things are bills that you need to pay, things that need to be responded to, things that come home from your child's school that need your signature. 2. things that you plan to keep but you don't have time to address right now and/or you don't need to address immediately. In other words, magazines, newspapers, childs artwork, coupons are good ones. If you have other things that fit into another category then just buy another basket. These baskets don't have to be nice "showy" baskets because they really aren't something that you are going to display. Ideally, you can put them into a closet or somewhere out of sight so when your realtor brings a potential buyer through they won't see all the mess. And if they do open up the closet that you put them in, your "mess" looks somewhat organized.

A really easy, cost-effective way to still live in your kitchen and keep it looking

"Dressed to Market".

Kitchen before

Kitchen after

I decided I should take advantage of this blog and post some pictures...

This Dining Room didn't have much left in it. It didn't take much to make it more inviting. Just by changing the chairs and adding some accessories this room takes on a total transformation. The homeowner had all of these things, just in other parts of the house. Even if the items were not present, it would not cost much to create.

I think that too many homeowners get scared at the thought to make their home "staged" it is going to cost them a fortune. That is so not the case. Maybe it is our friend HGTV that has done this. We have all watched many episodes where they produce these marvelous re-dos that you are wondering..."where in the world did that budget come from?!?! No way could I afford that!" Admit it. Sure, some of the shows do give you a budget breakdown but still those are TV dollars, if you know what I mean. The products purchased in stores may be a reality but no where in my area could you get contractors as cheaply as they do. It all just makes for good television viewing. I love it and will continue to watch it myself.

Back to the "real life" homeowners, yes you can afford it. And yes, it is very easy if you talk to the right people. Give me a call. The concept of home staging is supposed to make selling your house less stressful and much quicker, and hopefully for more money. You've seen all the statistics. Staged houses sell anywhere from $5,000-$65,000 more, depending on the original price of the house. In a study of realtors done in 2007, it was found that sellers who spent on average of $500 on staging recovered over 343% of the cost of staging in the sale of their home. WOW! I have known as "the Queen of Justification" in the past, but that beats anything I've ever come up with myself.

Don't keep your house in the same condition that you live in it. By doing so you are helping the competition sell! I don't know about you, but we all have some competitive spirit in us, lets sell first.

Get your house "Dressed to Market"!

Dining Room before

Dining Room after

When I see obvious problems my mind automatically switches into an investigative mode. I look at things a little differently after seeing certain problems. Of course, there could be many reasons that a certain system in a house would fail, so I start looking to see if there is a larger problem. This picture leaves little to investigate, because I know the history of this 100+ year old house.

If you look closely (or maybe you don't have to) you'll see the door frame is lower on the left than on the right. The major problem is the what is going on with the ceiling. The high point in the ceiling is directly over the door and almost exactly in the middle of the room. After a little measurment and some inspection of the stone foundation it is obvious that the foundation is settling and there is a support in the center of the home that isn't (well at least not at the same rate). The kitchen is on the other side of that door and this next picture show the settling even better.

No that is not some trick with the camera. The outside walls are actually settling that badly. I'll put one more up to demonstate the age of the home. This is the passage toooo the the cellar. That wall on the left is actually the one in the center of the home keeping the house from settling uniformly.

The really dark hole to the right and further down the passage is the actual cellar. The floor slopes down here, starting at about 4' tall to about 6' at the end.

Jack Gilleland

Home Inspection Services, Clayton

Clayton, Ohio