December is one of the slowest months in home sales, but if you ask Michael Callahan, franchise owner of Showhomes Home Staging in the Fox Valley suburb of Chicago you may get a different answer. Why? Showhomes had four homes sell this month.
What made the difference? Home staging. The four homes that sold were all very different, ranging in style, size, location and price. All had been tough to sell and all four had been sitting on the market for lengthy amounts of time. One of the properties, a townhouse, was a small and featured small rooms. The challenge was highlight that the two-bedroom home had good, usable space. Callahan’s team staged the house to accommodate enough furniture without the townhouse feeling cramped or crowded. The staging was so successful the buyers, who had complained that other homes in the complex were too small, fell in love with this one and placed an offer, even though it was smaller than the others.
The next home was a unique, historic property that had been on the market for several years. Even staged, the house stayed on the market for about a year with a live-in Home Manager. The house had small rooms and an awkward layout. Michael and the Home Manager focused on creating functional rooms that could accommodate furnishings and a comfortable lifestyle. With careful staging, the living room, dining room and kitchen eating area made sense to prospective buyers. Without it, visualizing the spaces working was much more difficult.
A 10-year-old, three-bedroom house in Fox Valley was the next one to sell. The neighborhood featured mostly houses with four or five bedrooms, and though Showhomes does not typically stage basements, in this case, the team created a fourth bedroom from the basement. This detail showed that the home could accommodate a larger family and put the property in a more competitive position in that neighborhood. The fourth home was the most expensive, though it had one of the lower values in a high-end neighborhood. Again, in this house, the basement was staged with all the furniture facing the window because it looked out over a beautiful wooded area. In the end, this house, valued at just $1 million, was competing with houses in the $2 million range. “All three Chicagoland area Showhomes franchises are standing out in the industry because we are producing such good sales results,” says Michael. “Homes that have been really difficult to sell are moving when staged.”
Home staging with live in Home Managers works at all price points. The four houses ranged from $200,000 to $1 million. “But it doesn’t have to be a million-dollar home to receive the value of good quality staging,” says Michael. For more information on Showhomes, visit www.showhomes.com and for franchise information, visit www.showhomesfranchise.com.
Jennifer Ding and Michelle Sifford collected this home owner testimonial from a happy home owner:
"Showhomes Richmond did an outstanding job placing a home manager with beautiful furniture and decorations in my vacant listing. After being vacant and on the market for 15 months, my client agreed to have a Showhomes manager live in their house. The first couple to see the home after it was staged bought it! I will definitely recommend Showhomes Richmond to future clients."
Dara Nicely, home owner, VA
This home, which had been on the market for a LONG time, sold in four days once staged with a live-in Home Manager and sold for $195k - just $3k under the list price, or 98% of list. WOW - that's impressive and way to go Showhomes Richmond!
Here's some before and afters of their work: 
This was a smallish townhouse that originally had furniture too large for the space, making the rooms feel smaller. At one point, the home became vacant, making a sale even tougher. The home owner and Realtor hired Showhomes Richmond to recruit and place a live-in Home Manager in the home and it made all the difference.
We're recruiting franchise owners - if there is not a franchise in your city, consider opening one: www.showhomesfranchise.com.
Former Lake Forest Realtor uses staging to drive home sales
Nashville - Showhomes, a national home staging franchise, awarded its Chicago North Shore - Barrington location its coveted Franchise of the Year Award for 2010.
Showhomes recognized the North Shore - Barrington location because “it excels in home staging, maintains the highest standard of quality, has shown steady growth several years in a row, and has produced outstanding home sales results for its customers,” said Bert Lyles, Showhomes CEO.
The home staging franchise has a twist that is producing results in today’s real estate market: it uses live-in home stagers to help sell vacant houses. The company helps home owners and their Realtors in the Chicago market sell homes substantially faster than comparable vacant homes and often for a much higher price.
The Chicago North Shore - Barrington franchise is owned by Barbara Bliss, a former Lake Forest Realtor. "It's thrilling to be a part of so many success stories," said Bliss. "My franchise has flourished during the boom and the bust. We have roared through the recession; we've seen double digit growth every year since 2005."
"I have a passion to help Realtors, home owners and buyers visualize the very best possibilities for presenting a house," Bliss said. "A beautifully staged home with a live-in home stager makes all the difference in a market that's overflowing with inventory.”
It is also the most economical way for a home owner to stage a large home: the live-in home stager pays the monthly staging fee so the home owner doesn’t have to, saving thousands.
Houses staged by Showhomes are often the first to sell in the northern suburbs of Chicago, where Bliss' franchise has its blueprint. Case in point: recently, she staged a $3 million home that had been on the market for 806 days before staging and it sold in 78 days once the live-in stager moved in. In addition to selling faster, the home sold for very near the asking price.
Bliss' current listings top $40 million. She has six employees and a bustling storefront in downtown Lake Forest. She credits much of her success to a boundless passion for home staging and her willingness to educate Realtors about the benefits of Showhomes.
"This is tough market for home owners," Bliss said. "I’m happy that our hard work makes it possible for many homes to sell that would otherwise sit. In many ways, we are helping the housing market recover one home at time."
About Showhomes Home Staging
Showhomes is a home staging business with a twist: the company uses live-in home stagers to manage vacant houses while they are on the market for sale and offset a home owner’s expense to stage the home. The innovative marketing strategy has been producing results since 1986 and the company has helped over 25,000 home owners sell vacant houses valued at over $8 billion. For franchise opportunities and more information, please visit www.showhomes.com and www.showhomesfranchise.com.
Pat Hermann poses before the mansion she rents in Minnetonka, Minn. AP
Steve Ladurantaye, Real Estate Reporter
Globe and Mail
Forget fresh flowers and percolating coffee, human stagers are where it’s at in the tough, high-end U.S. home market
Patricia Hermann is the ultimate house sitter.
In the past four years, she has lived in six monster homes in Minnesota, where she works as a nurse at the Minneapolis Heart Institute. The average emergency room nurse in the state makes about $70,000 – good money, but not enough to make the mortgage payments
on the $850,000, five-bedroom Tudor-style she’s currently calling home.
Ms. Hermann is a “home manager” for Nashville-based Showhomes Home Staging, an nationally franchised network of home staging businesses. She pays a small amount each month – the amount is different in each market, but is usually around $1,200 to $1,500, or the average rent in a city for a decent two-bedroom apartment – and moves into empty homes that are languishing on the resale market. She’s a human prop, brought in along with fresh-cut flowers and some tasteful paintings to help a property feel “lived in.”
“I’ve been doing this since 2006 and I kind of take it one year a time,” said Ms. Hermann, a 63-year-old grandmother of three. “Maybe I’ll decide to get a place of my own again some day, but I’ve gotten so spoiled that it would be hard to move into a little apartment.”
The concept of home staging, often called “fluffing”, is an old one. But in the aftermath of the U.S. foreclosure crisis, it has taken on greater importance, as desperate homeowners try to set their properties apart from millions of others on the market.
Staging used to mean bringing in some snazzy furniture and making sure there weren’t any lingering odours to turn off prospective home buyers. But that is no longer enough. The housing crash has left some 20 million homes unoccupied and for sale, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Many of these are high-end properties being sold by people who took on too much and have since moved to rental properties or smaller homes. Others are empty because of foreclosures.
Regardless of the reason, vacant homes often sell for less than occupied ones. Buyers know the sellers are motivated to unload the property. Empty houses can depreciate quickly because maintenance is neglected, and buyers have a hard time picturing themselves living in what is currently an empty shell. In the U.S., buyers already have a lot of choice: For every qualified one, there about 40 homes available.
“The bottom line is vacant houses get low-balled by bottom fishers,” said Thomas Scott, vice-president of marketing at Showhomes.
Enter the professional house sitter, whose job is to keep the property in “pristine” condition in return for below-market rent. “We don’t let just anyone do this,” said Mr. Scott. “There’s pretty rigorous screening involved. You can’t have a criminal record, you need good credit and you can’t be a slob.”
There’s no particular demographic in play, but young professionals and even families are prime candidates, Mr. Scott said. Many of the home managers are coming out of a divorce and looking for short-term housing while they figure things out. Most managers stay on for a few years, while some have been around for a decade or longer.
Showhomes charges homeowners a fraction of a percent of the selling price and also makes money from the monthly fees it collects from its managers.
The Canadian market hasn’t seen human stagers yet, but Mr. Scott said the company would target model homes and homeowners who have been transferred to other cities.
There is no shortage of actual home stagers in Canada, however. They typically work with real estate agents to make a home look more desirable to prospective buyers, removing clutter, adding new furniture and rearranging things so there is better flow.
“Ten years ago this was just a cottage industry made up of housewives looking for something to do,” said Christine Rae, president of St. Catharines, Ont.-based Canadian Staging Professionals and co-author of Home Staging for Dummies. “Now there are savvy professionals making a good living.”
The goal of professionals in both countries is to ensure the changes look as natural as possible, so that the buyers don’t feel like they are walking into a movie set.
It has been a profitable business for Showhomes, which now has 65 locations and hopes to have 80 offices open by the end of the year. Some 450 people are signed on as house managers, and collectively they help sell about 1,000 homes a year.
As for Ms. Hermann, she’s torn between loving where she’s living and hoping the homeowner is able to sell the luxurious home. She has been there for nine months, and the longest she’s ever lived in one of the homes is 16 months.
“I think with this economy, I may be here for a while,” she said. “I feel bad for the homeowners, they get worried. But I know I’m helping. The house looks amazing.”
For more information and franchise opportunities, visit www.showhomes.com
Solving the housing crisis one house at a time. Showhomes is America's largest home staging company and we have helped over 25,000 homeowners and their Realtors sell vacant homes
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