Providing Services to Prepare the Home for Sale: Michigan: Bloomfield Township

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. 

 

 

 

 

 

A few weeks ago I wrote and asked for AR help

i-m-flummoxed-with-these-two-rooms-help-me

I read all of your advice and did what I could with the budget given me.  This home was a little different than the homes that I normally work with.  The family was 'very close' in watching the process.

Most of the estates I work with I'm given a little more free ride with the preparations for sale.

 

After

Given free reign I would have  replaced the sink with a bigger laundry tub.  The cabinet would have accomodated it.

The carpet was removed with the wallpaper and shelving

Given my way.....I would have removed the wall between the laundry and mud rooms, making it much larger.  My process would have been cheaper too.

 

To see more of the process and photos click on the last photo

 

 

 

 

Stage-Show-Sell, LLC is working on another Estate.  This one happens to be in my home town of Bloomfield Hills.

We specialise in homes where the families generally live out of state and can't do the work that's necessary to get the home on the market.

Many of the rooms look "normal" with tons of wallpaper and old paint.   These two rooms are a bit of a challenge.

 

This is the first floor laundry that's trapped in the 60s.   The wall paper is now gone and I'm working on a new laundry cabinet & sink and floor. The cabinets above are small and not really appealing.  We can paint the cabinets white or toss them out. My problem is that they are small.   The lower cabinet will hold a large can of soup.  The upper would hold two cans of soup back to back.  Am I better off painting them or tossing them and putting in two plain shelves to hold the cleaning supplies?

 

I've seen this kind of hording before with this generation of owners.  They have been through two recessions and several depressions and can't throw anything away.

The paper, flooring and cabinet have now been tossed out.  The room is next to the laundry and garage.  A door where I'm standing with the camera and one on the left going into the garage.

What do I put in there to show that it's a mud room?  A catchall for coats, boots and other outdoor gear? This house has 5 bedrooms so I'm assuming that buyers would need such a room.  The fix would have to be economical and most of it removable to keep the costs down.

 

Yesterday while waiting for the rain storms to dispate I played on AR, AGAIN

http://activerain.com/blogsview/644623/Eco-Living-Style-On

Julia game me some ideas that I would share.

My yard has rocks, stones, pebbles and gravel.   LOTS

I thought that I would play with Eco friendly candle holders.

 

I think this is going to be a great project with my grand daughter.  X-mas gifts for teachers?

I'm really serious about this.  We, stagers, know that staged home sell faster and for more money.  We can't guarantee a sale.  We can make the home look it's best for potential buyers.

Isn't it possible that Realtors should suggest to their clients that they should talk to a stager?

Stagers know how to talk to the sellers about preparing their home for sale.   Isn't it better that they prepare their home for sale than take many price reductions?

 Everyday I see fliers that come to me saying a house has had a big price reduction and the photos show that the house is really nice.  It needs to be professionally prepared. A consultation with us could save them thousands of dollars.

Would you go out to a great restaurant in your jeans and T-Shirt when you know the dress is formal? No, you prepare for it by putting yourself out there as best as you can.

Why don't we do that with the houses that are going on the market?

Staging - is it the fiduciary  responsibility of the Realtor?   I believe that it's the realtors duty to bring it to the table of seller for them to decide.

 

I'm a little behind in my reading. A very intersting article (this is linked) came out last month on what's our staging is worth.

The stats are a little old and still interesting reading.

There was a link in the article about posting it to a blog !!  I couldn't figure it out :-)

Should you hire a pro -- and how much should you spend?

Now that you know some of the work and thought that goes into staging, perhaps you're considering hiring a professional stager instead. Professionals can offer a variety of levels of service, from consultations to full-service stagings in which contractors are arranged to make home repairs and rental furniture is brought in.

There's no industrywide accreditation process. However, several organizations -- including the International Association of Home Staging Professionals and the Interior Arrangement and Design Association -- offer staging certifications.

Costs can vary depending on services and the part of the country. Buffalo-based Dana charges $130 for a walk-through consultation on a house. For hands-on work thereafter, she charges $69 per hour. To rent furniture and accessories that she provides costs roughly $700 per month per house. Dallas-based Pinnell, who will visit a home, take photos, then return with a 35- to 55-page report, charges $350 to $550 for that consultation. Staging is extra. To stage an empty home, Pinnell usually charges 1% to 1.5% of the list price, including three months of furniture and accessories rental.

A general rule of thumb: According to the National Association of Realtors, the best return on a homeowner's investment for staging is when between 1% and 3% of the home's asking price is spent on staging, which typically gets a return of 8% to 10%.

One last twist to keep in mind: Sometimes real-estate agents will pay for staging in order to sell a home faster and for more money. Sometimes they'll split the cost with a seller. And sometimes they will reimburse a seller for the cost of a staging. Ask your agent what his policy is before taking on the cost yourself.

Now start your decluttering. And be ruthless.

 

Beautiful home worth $12,500  link to article

When speed is of the essence

Listings with the words "beautiful" or "gorgeous" sold 15% faster. "Landscaping" in a listing hastened a sale by 20%. Describing a property as in "move-in condition" quickened the sale by 12%. Calling a home a "handyman special" cut sale time by half (researchers excluded listings that used the term to describe a workshop or hobby area).

Other familiar jargon, such as "must see" or "vacant," or including the information that a seller was moving, had virtually no effect on the time before a sale.

The kiss of death appears to be language that reeks of desperation -- words such as "motivated" and "must sell." These slowed sales by 30%. The term "ranch" house slowed sales by 10%. Properties described as rentals (income-producing) took 60% longer to sell.

 

 

Clean Sweep weekend continues this weekend to co-inside with Earth Day.

The snow hides so many things and when it thaws the cities can look pretty bad.

Over 500 residents sign up to clean up after the winter. The township gives the volunteers bags for the trash and yard wastes. Subdivisions clean up their front entries and get them ready for the spring flowers that are trying to poke thru the ground.

 The day is perfect for it.  The sun was shining with little hints that we might be getting a little rain in the afternoon.

These photos were taken at the entrance of the Hickory Gove Sub. in Bloomfield Township.

The township worker was delivering yard waste bags to the drop off points for those who needed more.

Helping to protect our environment, Bloomfield Township has offered residents an additional service. Today April 19,2008 with proof of residency, the township hosted a site for droping off Electronics, paper shredding and Medication Disposal.

The event coincides with Earth Day and Clean Sweep activities.

At last count over 450 cars drove thru the line dropping off their items

Cars were lined up from early morning to drop off their items

The system is great.  Pull up and items are taken from the vehicles

Shredding vehicle

Volunteers help take items out of the vehicles and sort them

 

Old medicines that many of us would throw in the trash or back into the water system.

There was also a container for diabetic items.

The volunteeer pharmacist said one of the bottles was about 50 years old. Darn it -- I would have sold it on ebay.

These boxes are the old eletronic equipment.

It's wonderful