Increasingly, real estate brokers themselves are recommending and in some cases even paying to have their listed homes staged, for the simple reason that “a staged property sells quicker,” according to Terri Colucci Shand, president of the Ulster County Board of Realtors. Hiring a stager is important, Shand added, because “quite often people are unable to imagine how the furnishings should be placed. For example, in a very small bedroom, it might be good to add a double bed, to show that it fits.” And particularly in this tough market, when there’s so much for sale, if your house is vacant that’s a huge disadvantage. “When people see houses with furnishings in them, it’s a warmer welcome and they can feel at home,” said Shand. She noted that a beautiful old colonial that she fell in love with when she saw it furnished had lost its appeal when she visited it again, after it had been emptied. “All the blemishes showed,” she said. “I’m seeing all the work.”
That’s not the kind of message you want to send to today’s buyers, added Elise Barry, chief executive officer at the Ulster County Board of Realtors. “Buyers today don’t want to do anything,” she said. “They’re spending a good deal of money on the purchase and they may not have money left over. It’s a different generation” from the do-it-yourselfers of a few decades ago.
Barry noted that the first step is for sellers to detach their personal memories from the house and realize the house now belongs to somebody else. “They have to get in the right mindset and be ready to move on. They have to make the break.” They should pack up all their personal things—anything that bears the stamp of themselves or their family—in boxes and move it to a storage unit. The house should be kept meticulously clean and the owners should make obvious repairs, such as fixing the loose handle on the refrigerator. Medical equipment should be moved out. Cabinet doors should open and shut properly.
Your home on a job interview
Staging, however, involves much more. In essence, it’s making your house look confident—akin to your demeanor when you’re going for a job interview, said Esposito. She noted that according to Barbara Corcoran, one of the top brokers inNew York City, prospective buyers decide in the first 10 seconds of stepping inside the house or apartment whether they’re interested in the property. So in her consultations with clients, she starts with the exterior. “While the realtor’s fiddling with the lock box, the buyer is looking around.” Making sure the mailbox looks good, getting rid of cobwebs and insect nests in the porch overhang and putting out a fresh mat help create a good first impression.
Esposito said that she always begins the consultation by sitting down at the dining room table with a client, to establish goals, room by room. A basic aim is to remove attention from the seller’s stuff and create a model home environment (Esposito helped an interior designer do model homes, before leaving the city in 2004 and establishing HouseSetters in Hurley andKingston). “It’s not about buying a lot of things. I don’t like to over accessorize.” Yet it also shouldn’t look like a furniture showcase room. “It has to be somewhat cozy, in order to feel inviting.”
One goal is to establish a balance between hard and soft surfaces, said Esposito. In a living room, it’s vital to show off the hardwood floor; if most of the floor is covered by a large area rug, she’ll suggest replacing it with a smaller carpet under the sofa and chairs. Another aim is to let the light in. She’ll recommend removing window treatments, repainting dark walls with a lighter color, and turning on all the lights to achieve this.
Another tenet of staging is that “interior real estate equals money,” which means you want to maximize your free floor space. Sellers do this by removing clutter—baskets, bookshelves and other items. Esposito, who used to be a fitness instruction, said “I’m very physical. I’ll say, ‘let’s start clearing out this space,’ so the client can start to visualize the difference.”
At this point, the house is 85 percent there. The final aim is the least tangible, but perhaps most important: what Esposito calls “the wow factor.” Perhaps it can be achieved by throwing a pair of orange pillows onto the gray couch, or arranging three vases of varying height on a dining room table, filled with pussy willows. Instead of a bunch of small pictures, it might be a single large painting or print hung over the sofa—something that “quiets the space” yet adds visual drama. Esposito said the “wow factor” is particularly important because so many people first view a house on-line, and form their impressions from photographs. In a small photo, a room engulfed in lots of tiny details gets lost.
