Tanya Nouwens ~ Montreal Real Estate Broker & Stager

It is telling that these days the majority of calls I get for Montreal home staging come in the form of home stagers looking for work. I know home staging in Montreal has yet to really kick off. We Montrealers are not at all impressed with, nor do we feel the need to follow, what our fellow citizens in other parts of the country nor the continent are doing. It's part of what makes us unique.

But it's also part of what makes it tough if you're a Montreal home stager looking for work.

I went from being a Montreal home stager to a Montreal real estate broker who stages for my sellers...and I have not regretted the decision for one moment, though during the transition the pocketbook was very lean and my energy reserves completely depleted.

Having just completed my second full year in real estate, however, and having reached my lofty business goals for the year, I humbly offer struggling Montreal home stagers the following suggestions:

1. Get a website and a professional-looking business card.

These are your "credibility" essentials, and you can't go anywhere without them. Make sure you've got loads of befores and afters on your website. If you need some work to get these befores and afters, ask your friends and family if you can transform their spaces for free.

If you're a Canadian Staging Professional (TM) or CSP like me, as part of your training fee and CSP membership, you have pages on the CSP website that you can use as your own personal website. I did this for the first two or three years with great results. The CSP website has truly awesome SEO power for google searches related to "home staging" and "home stagers." This alone is worth the price of the training, truly.

2. Do consultations with real, live results.

When we start out, often our biggest source of business will be in the form of staging consultations for homeowners getting ready to put their home on the market. Sometimes when I'm doing these consultations, there comes a point where I can see the homeowners' eyes glaze over. It's just all too much, and up to this point it's been all talk - good, important talk, but still talk nonetheless.

It is at this point that I roll up my sleeves and say to the homeowners, "How about we transform a room right now?" I get them to help me (if they are physically capable), and together we transform one space such as the master bedroom, the entry or the living room. I declutter, open curtains and blinds, move furniture around to create a better flow, and I rehang art -- and all the while, I am talking to my clients, educating them on why we are doing these things and doing them in this way. They are truly amazed at the end of the process and they end up taking my recommendations for other areas of the house a lot more seriously.

3. Get to know your local real estate agents, and be flexible in your offerings to them.

I got to know many Montreal real estate agents by going to their open houses and making some simple suggestions related to the home, respectfully presented of course, and always out of earshot of potential buyers. Most important, I explained to them why I was making these suggestions in particular.

One agent had taken on a hardship case. I did a hands-on staging for her, using the client's belongings. And then I came back and lent to them a few key pieces from my inventory at no charge. The goodwill this generated was astounding.

I was once hired by a real estate team for four hours: "Tanya, we've got a $400 budget for staging. Go to the house and do what you can please." That was enough for me and an assistant to work for four hours. What an adrenaline rush! And the results were amazing. We went in, sight unseen, and transformed every room using what they had. Both the agents and the homeowners were delighted, and the house sold quickly.

The key is to be open to working in different ways and to working quickly.

4. Build your own inventory.

OK, I know this is hard to do when you're struggling, but you can gain a lot of credibility and a lot of traction with the words, "I have my own inventory of accessories, art, lighting and bedding."

5. Leave your staging perfection at the door.

I know this one will raise some flak, but the fact is that I became a better Montreal home stager after I became a Montreal real estate agent. I just became more realistic and had more experience in terms of what buyers expect...and what they don't really pay much attention to.

Kids' bedrooms, for example? Unless the rooms are extremely small, buyers don't really care if there are 30 stuffed animals on the bed. A home office? Again, unless the space is really small and cluttered, buyers will forgive you the full shelves.

The key is to do your craft justice, but at the same time to do what you can to ensure the homeowners aren't so overwhelmed and find your suggestions so over-the-top that they end up ignoring everything you've said.

Good luck to you. It isn't easy, but when you find what you love and get to make a living at it, it's heaven.

I've been working with buyers for a couple of months now, a lovely couple merging two families. I spent many Sunday mornings with them touring Montreal West Island homes for sale, looking at comparables, discussing neighbourhoods vs price vs features.

We had an appointment scheduled on Monday to write up an offer on one particular property, a great home for sale in Beaconsfield, Quebec. It was going to be a great start to my week.

One hour before the appointment, she called, her voice breaking, to say that they would not be coming to the appointment, that they were putting off their home search until next year some time, and that the house in question was definitely out.

I know this happens, but still I was devastated - after all that work, all that energy, all that excitement, all that time away from my own family.

I called her later that afternoon to see how she was doing. She was still in tears.

And that's when I was blessed with perspective. I had lost a deal (and perhaps a surprise Christmas vacation for my family), but these people had lost something much more significant. I don't know whether it was their relationship, or a job, or financial security, but it was enough to bring them to tears and to put their future together on hold. And it was definitely more significant than "a deal."

And with that, I'm off to count my blessings...

Have you got clutter? A linen closet that takes a full-on tackle to close? A cabinet under the kitchen sink that looks like a product testing lab for household cleaning products? Bin upon bin in the basement that may or may not contain your grade 7 report card?

Well then, it might be time to move!

I'm only partially kidding here. A friend of mine is getting ready to put her Baie d'Urfé home for sale (with me as her listing agent - hooray!). I was at her house on the weekend and she showed me the work she and her daughter were doing to purge, organize and give away the clutter that accummulates after 10 years of living in the same house.

It got me to thinking about all the stuff taking any and all available space (and more) in my own house. It used to be that I moved A LOT. When I was in university, I moved every year. When I started my career, I moved every two years. When I started my family, it was every four years. Well, now that I'm living in the most wonderful neighbourhood in Kirkland, Quebec, it's been seven years and counting...and I've got the clutter to prove it! I don't plan to move, but I do plan to behave like I'm getting ready to put my home on the market. So I'm strapping on my body armour and heading to the linen closet this afternoon.

How about you? Have you got clutter? Then maybe it's time to move! If you'd like to know what your home might be worth, I know just the person to call. She lives and works in Montreal's West Island, selling great homes and helping people find a place to call home. And though she may be lost under an avalanche of pillows at the moment, she'll be out soon enough.

Originally posted at www.readysetsold.ca/blog

Did you consider location before your flip flopped? I didn't think so.

When you first saw the house on MLS, it was probably too good to be true. Or rather, it was so bad it was good. But here's the thing: Even when you flip houses, the 3 most important things in real estate are still location, location, location.

So it doesn't matter how well you did the wood floors. It doesn't matter that you put in new bathrooms. And it doesn't matter that the paint is fresh and lovely.

What matters is that you invested all of that time and energy - and your MONEY - into a house that sits on a busy street and faces the highway. And that's why it's been on the market for months and hasn't yet sold.

Home buyers will pay a premium for homes that are move-in ready.

Home buyers will deduct a premium - or worse, not even come to see your project at all - if the location sucks.

Next time, ask a Montreal real estate agent to guide you through the process and to help keep the big picture in mind. It's what we do.

Last week, a writer from PropertyWire.ca interviewed me for an article on home staging and its impact on the home selling process. PropertyWire is a new Canadian on-line community of real estate and mortgage professionals.

The PropertyWire article on home staging, "Staging as Added Value to Your Business," is geared more toward real estate agents, but anyone buying or selling a home may be interested to see home staging discussed from the viewpoint of industry insiders.

For the record, though, I'm not big on the whole cinnamon / baking cookies thing before a buyer comes to visit. It can seem so contrived.

And I don't think all family pictures need to be removed either. This is one of three common home staging myths that are referred to, but not linked to, at the end of the article.

I'd love to hear what you think of the PropertyWire article. Thoughts, anyone?

Originally posted on www.readysetsold.ca