Oregon

Craig Schiller offered some excellent staging advice in his post Picture What You Preach. I thought it was worthy of a re-post Practice What You Preach - With Great Pictures! I think we Realtors could learn a few things too! Thanks Craig!

Because the end result of a staged home can be a great visual impression, home staging is seen as an image industry. Image companies in the fields of advertising, interior design, and landscaping have for long known that to sell and grow their own businesses; they must present a good visual image of themselves. As image businesses they know and rely on their logos, business cards and websites to communicating their knowledge and creative skill to apply basic design principals in their respective fields.

If home stagers are going to sell to home owners the need and importance of investing money to beautify their homes, which is the product they are selling, then the stager needs to invest money in to do the same for what they sell... which is their staging services To be competitive, a home stager needs to invest in their business image. A stager's image, communicated through a business card, brochure, website and portfolio, must demonstrate knowledge of and skill to apply basic design principals. Doing anything less is hypocritical.

Home stagers also need to practice what they preach to Realtors. If stagers are going profess and advise the importance of using good photography to capture and present a home for sale on-line, then again, a stager needs to do the same for photography they show of the their work on-line. A stager's on-line portfolio is a key, yet often overlooked, tool communicate quality, skill and ability.

Stagers can maximize their on-line credibility is by addressing the following 3 points with their portfolio.

• Show Versatility & Proficiency - Every market is different and a stager's work should represent the types of homes being sold in the markets they serve. However the more depth and diversity a stager can show the better. The most compelling portfolios will show staging work that was done in both big and small homes, vacant and occupied homes, low to high end homes, and the ability in to work with a variety of design styles.
• Use the Same View Point - Proof of a stager's skill and ability is often shown in Before & After photographs. But quite often the Before photo is taken from a totally different position in a room, from the After photo. The best sales testament and visually dramatic impact Before & After photography will have is when the Before & After photo is taken from the EXACT same angle.
• Take Quality Photos - While it may not be possible to take perfect and compelling Befores, the After image needs to be well photographed. Over flashed, under flashed, and blurry photos will hurt even the best staged After transformation. Stagers that invest the time and money to take quality photos visually communicate their commitment to their profession.

Practice What You Preach - With Great Pictures!

Stage It Forward...

Southern Oregon - A Beautiful Place to Visit and Live!

Medford, Oregon is the center of the Rogue Valley and Southern Oregon's largest and most diverse City where you can shop tax-free and experience nature at its best! Start your day off golfing, fishing, rafting the Rogue River, hiking the Table Rocks, exploring the Oregon Caves and Crater Lake, or enjoying a scenic wine or agricultural tour. In the evening, take in a premier live performance at the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater, sit under the stars and enjoy the Britt Music Festival, and feast on a culinary delight from one of Medford's fine dining establishments.

Southern Oregon - A Beautiful Place to Visit and Live!

Fablehaven is a great book! It's about 2 kids, Kendra and her brother Seth, who go to their rarely seen grandparents' house. They solve a little mystery about their grandpa and the large preserve he lives on. It turns out he is caretaker of Fablehaven, a magical preserve, where there are trolls, satyrs, witches, imps and fairies. Since Kendra and Seth don't know this at first, their grandpa wants them to figure it out so he can have someone to take over Fablehaven when he's done. But he can't just tell them, he needs to have them figure it out to see if they are the right type of people to take care of Fablehaven.

But, Seth keeps breaking the rules and he gets into bigger trouble than he thought he would. He needs to fix his huge mistake. Kendra is watching the housekeepers and thinks they are acting really strange around herself and Seth. They keep feeding the butterflies and hummingbirds and dragonflies. Kendra wonders why there are so many different kinds and why they all stay in her grandpa's yard.

Finally Kendra cracks the code her grandfather gave her. It opens a blank book except for 3 words tucked deep in a corner near the binding. “Drink the milk”. Kendra wonders if the milk she had seen Dale (one of the housekeepers) put out and act suspicious around. So she had Seth drink it first as a test because Dale said it could make you sick with bacteria it had in it.

Seth went crazy claiming the butterflies were fairies, so Kendra tried the milk and she saw fairies too. So they asked their grandpa what it meant. He told them all about Fablehaven and how dangerous it could be. So now they drink the milk every day in hot cocoa, while at their grandfather's house.

Now that they know about Fablehaven, they start to help take care of it. But, something bad is about to happen to Fablehaven and Kendra and Seth need to help save it.

I LOVED this book. It was full of adventure. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did if you read it.

Meesha Clark

Here are past reviews

10/30/2009
10/23/2009
10/16/2009
10/09/2009

Come back every Friday for another book review brought to you by Meesha Clark and www.LivingTigard.com

This chart below breaks down Beaverton Oregon Real Estate homes sales by neighborhood, for the week ending 11/06/2009. Sales have been off since last year with the pending sales in Beaverton, Oregon were down 7% from 2008 for the month of August when the last stats came out. The good news is that the average sales price was down only 8.6% from the same time last year, but this was a 1% drop since July We are starting to see a few more foreclosures hit the market, but things still seem to be picking up just a little.

Here is a breakdown of real estate homes sales in Beaverton, Oregon for the week broken down by neighborhood. Just click on the link to your neighborhood for the complete breakdown of what the average of homes that are on the market, how long they have been on the market, how many have sold, what their average price was, and how long they were on the market.

Neighborhood # of Active Listings

©2009 Todd Clark - Beaverton Oregon Real Estate Sales by Neighborhood (11/06/2009)