Providing Services to Prepare the Home for Sale: Michigan

It can be very expensive to have items that are only used for one thing.

Yes we do charge rent for our items when we stage but it takes a lot time to recuperate the expense and breakage.

Recently I purchased two mirrors to hang on a wall.  One was to hide an ugly circuit breaker box on the left side of a window.  The other was to balance the look and went on the other side of the window.    I took marker pens and wrote cute things i.e.   Call me when you get home, on one of them.  The other had a grocery list.

They were purcahsed at Target and we horrible to hang.  I think someone was drunk when they attached the hangers to the back.  I could not get them to hand straight without poster putty on the corners.

I thought I'd never be able to use them again.

 

This week, the dinamic duo, used one for a bed table.

Clever we are

The home owner loved it.

 

 

The house that is our competition has been reduced $35,000.   In my books that mean the realtor has lost $1050 in commissions.   Wouldn't it have been cheaper and smarter to pay for a consultation with a stager?

 

The presentation of rooms is so important. Little things mean a lot.  Fresh color on the walls.  Bold colors in the rooms and the correct placement of furniture.

We can call it de-cluttering, re-designing or staging.  What matters is that it's done.

Marianne and I finished staging a home this past week. The sellers know when they put it on the market that they wanted it sold.

They wanted to purchase a new home then put the old one on the market.  The did not want to be living in it while is was on the market.

We realize that not everyone can do this esp. in this economy.  They are lucky and smart.

I started working with them last June so they had the time to do all of my little "honey do" projects.

They painted and cleaned and tweaked here and there.

 

Yellow paint is now gone.  Bed direction is changed.

Draperies are open and clutter removed.

 

We used their furniture and used our bedding and extras.

 

This is what their small bedroom looks like now.   This will be their MLS photo

 

This is one of their competitions MLS photo.

This is the 2nd bedroom in the house we just staged. 

Before

 

 

 

After

The walls were painted.  It's difficult to see with the afternoon sun streaming in.

Exercise equipment was removed and the bed was moved to another wall.

 

 

 

Our competition MLS photo and they have just reduced their price by $35,000 and are going for a short sale.

I know that if they had called in a stager first the house would have sold and they wouldn't be in this short sale situation.

 

What do you think??

Our living room   before

 

 

 

 

After.  The walls were painted.  The couch from the FR was moved to the LR and slip covered.

 

Competition Living Room

 

Why aren't the realtors working with a stager to have the homes sell faster and for more money?

 

Sellers.   Don't wait for your agent to bring up staging.  Call a stager today

 

 

 

Yesterday I attended my Con Ed class to keep my license active for yet another year.   My license is in holding, and has been for 2 1/2 years, and I want to keep it for many reasons.  

The best reason is that it keeps me up to date on what is going on with the news laws and challenges for my realtor associates.

During the lunch period the conversations turned to the millage votes that were held in many cities the day before.

 

Troy Michigan mileage was voted down.  That will impact many of the cities services.  Many of which has been a selling point for the homes.  It's my understanding tha the Community Center will be shut down.  The Parks and Recs Dept will be run by a private business.    

It will be interesting to see what services are really cut.

What peaked my interest was a realtor who was adamant that the Bloomfield Twp. mileage  passed because 45% of the absentees ballots were not returned.  She assumed, of course, that only seniors used the absentee system.  She knows that seniors don't like to pay taxes and of course they would have voted no.

 I thought that was absolutely amazing.  Absentee ballots are used for seniors who are out of the area during the voting, seniors (like myself) who always vote absentee and business people who don't want to take the time to stand in line to vote.   Many young mothers vote absentee because they don't want to stand in line, esp. during flu season, with young children.  They also don't want to count on the snow issue.  So it's a lot easier to get the paper ballot and be able to read it through and vote with knowledge.

 

So now we know who votes absentee.

Now the facts on the vote.

There are 33,123 registered voters

10,667 cast their ballots OF WHICH 5,661 were absentee votes.  (over 53%)

The mileage passed with 5,647 for and 5,014 against.

 

That's a close vote

6206 ballots were mailed to homeowners for absentee votes

5661 of those were returned to the twp (91%) by my math

 545 were not returned.

Approx 10% of those with absentee ballots voted at the polls.

That leaves about 500 absentee ballots not used.

 

3281 of the absentee ballots voted yes

2371 voted no

That's a 3 to 2 ratio.

Considering the same ratio would have applied to the remaining ballots means that it still would have passed.

 

The blame, if there is any blame, goes to the 2/3 of the voters who did NOTHING.

 

I'm happy to say that I voted yes.  I want to keep my community, Bloomfield Township, strong. Bloomfield Township has never, in my memory, turned down a good mileage.  The extra mileage for the few years will be offset by the lowering of my taxable value do to the economy. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bill Bouscher of Prudential Great Lakes Realty gets it.  He understands staging.   Company statistics for 2009 indicate that he was number one, in closings, for December and ninth in his company for the year.

What makes Bill so successful?  He is a professional.  He understands the power of getting the home ready for the market.   His team approach of using Stage-Show-Sell, LLC to prepare the homes and his pricing strategy have made him successful.

Every home that we teamed up on, when the seller used his pricing, had an offer within two weeks of hitting the market.  The sellers who didn't use his suggested listing price stayed on the market longer.

Their homes had offers within two weeks when the sellers agreed to reduce the price to his suggested lising price.

 

Price, condition and location are the keys to a successful closing.   Bill Bouscher and Stage-Show-Sell, LLC is the successful team.

 

Are Stage-Show-Sell,LLC and teamwork the key   to his success?

 

 

 

Tomorrow I get to de-stage this Royal Oak home.   I'm very proud to say that again it had a MULTIPLE offers within  two weeks after staging.   This time it will close.

The realtor is singing my praises.   The owner loves me She knows the reason is selling is the staging.   She asked me not to de-stage until the papers are signed.  That doesn't work here.  We must de-stage before closing or she will have to pay rent to the purchaser.   That gets real messy.

 

Please all of you keep your fingers crossed that this house closes Friday at 3.

 

Transaction closed with record breaking speek.  Everyone is so pleased.

 

Staging works

 

 

This adorable Birmingham home was on the market for two years without an offer.   Two weeks after staging with Stage-Show-Sell., LLC it had an offer.

The cape cod had a bedroom and sitting area on the upper level with a beautiful bathroom.

The entry level had a bedroom and a full bath.

These were also staged.

Tha basement was confusing because it didn't have a purpose to the buyers eyes.  The seller  used it for a media room and that wasn't selling the house esp. with it vacant.

Having the basement staged gave the buyers the option of knowing that it could be used for a bedroom.  Please note the exit window.  The basement could also be used as an office or media room

 

 

 

One of the nice things about having the business a little slow this week is the chance to play with different programs.

This home was re-staged in December 2009 after the buyer couldn't close on the home.

I thought this would be a good opportunity to try the Photosynth program again.

I'm looking for opinions on the program and it's potential in marketing homes for sale.

Royal Oak staged by Stage-Show-Sell, LLC

My AR family I need your opinion

I realize that many of you warm climate stagers don't understand the challenges that we go through.  Yes I do know that you are having a cold snap.  Gee what is it this week 60 degrees :-)

Last weekend we de-staged a home, during a snow storm, in Madison Heights.  That means getting the supplies damp, slipping and sliding on the ice walks and driveways.  Try loading your car when there is no purchase for your shoes on the ground.   Right after that we had to stage another vacant in Royal Oak.

Understand how complicated it is  by understanding that vacant house have to be winterized.  That means turning off the water and putting anti-freeze in all the pipes and TOILETS.  We women have to know where the nearest fast food restaurant, with facilities, is.

 

There are no utilities when the house is a foreclosure and there is no one to pay the utility bills.  That means no heat and no electricity.

This is like going back 100 years and staging a log cabin except there is no wood burning stove.

What damage can happen to our furniture and linens in this cold damp climate?

What happens to us trying to unpack boxes with gloves on our hands?

 

Oh, mother nature, please let this be a short winter.

 

 

I know that you all think that I'm making this stuff up.  No way.  This is an actual estate that I've been working on.

The family loved living with wallpaper and saw no need to change it.

The home is now neutral, warm and inviting

Yes the closet was wallpapered

♠

Wallpaper is gone and hardwood floors exposed

The closet paper matched the walls of the master bedroom

This is the same room.  The paper is done and the hardwood floors exposed.

 

I can't tell you what a pleasure it has been to work on this home and make this transformation.

♠

Two months of preparation including the estate sale.

Please vist my posts on the kitchen transformation

Changing the Family Room

The laundry room transformation

Bathroom♠

 

Over a year ago I heard about the program called Photosynth and thought that I would play with it.

Well, I wasn't impressed and haven't done anything with it since.

Now that members have gone to camp and renewed my interest in it I thought, well, I just might try it again.

No way can I let them get ahead of me.

 

This is my winter back yard.  No flowers blooming and, much to my delight, there is no snow.

 

I have yet to figure out how I'm going to use this in my staging business.

There must be a way of uploading this to youtube.  I haven't figured that out yet either.   ANY help would be appreciated.

 

since I started this post I've figured out how to imbed it. I can't edit the post once it's done

 

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Hi Virginia,

I work on the Photosynth team here at Microsoft and came across your blog this morning, great to see you trying out our product! To answer your question about YouTube, this is not supported functionality...Photosynth gives users a different kind of experience than video, so it's not something we support.

Feel free to ping me if you have other questions about the product that I can help with, we're very excited and interested in the possibilities of using Photosynth in the real estate market.

Bert