Interior Decorating In CT

In A Down Real Estate Market, Is Staging Your Home Worth It?
       

            
If you’ve ever wondered whether it is worth the time, money,effort and inconvenience to stage your home to try to sell it, consider what the it is worth to you the longer the home stays on the market.  Most homes that are on the market for more than 90 days are reduced dramatically to attract buyers.  That may mean thousands of dollars less for your profit.  Compare that amount with the cost of staging your home and you are now talking apples and oranges in cost comparison.

Do you ever wonder why your home hasn’t sold yet?  When you walk from room to room do you feel puzzled why buyers just don’t see the same beauty that you have lived with for 10, 20, 30+ years?  What you see and what buyers may see could be two very different views.  Some sellers are initially skeptical to hire an interior decorator to stage their home for many reasons, however after hiring one, most have found that it paid off either with positive comments from buyers or better yet, the sale of their home. 

One client had her house on the market for 82 days before calling me.  Once it was staged, it sold in 1 week.  After the house was decluttered and excess furniture was moved to a storage container, I had the walls freshly painted, dated wallpaper removed, re-arranged some of the client’s existing furniture, brought in some rental furniture to enhance specific areas and in the master bedroom suite, I added beautiful window treatments to highlight the space to it’s best potential.

In this housing market, you really have to make the effort to go all out to sell your home.  You must make your home unique than the others that are also on the market.  You should make your home as move in ready as possible and allow the buyers to see the potential with their own posessions in the space. 

“Staging means showing off the square footage and architectural aspects of the house, such as bay windows, fireplaces or crown molding, while making aesthetics as pleasing as possible”.  Staging is the opposite of decorating.  It is taking the personality out of the home to appeal to as many people as possible, no matter what their style.  “We are all so emotionally tied to our homes, the first thing you need to do as a seller is re-adjust your thinking to the mindset that it’s now not a home but a house that is a product and you need to consider how you are going to market that product.”  This also means you must get a really tough skin for constructive criticism.

“According to the Association of Staging Professionals, homes that are not staged spend an average of 175 days on the market, while staged homes sell in 35 days.”  Staging a home does not guarentee a quicker sale every time because there are other factors that come into play, such as, if a seller is unrealistic about price, staging doesn’t matter.  It is just one tool you will need in todays tough real estate market that will set you apart from your neighbor who also has his house on the market.

For more information on Real Estate Staging call 860-810-5080. All About Interiors, LLC
WWW.ALLABOUTINTERIORS.ORG

According to the “Cost vs. Value Report, 2008-2009 published by Remodeling and Realator magazines, new siding, decks, windows and kitchen renovation topped the list of home improvements with the biggest payback.  In general, homowners will recoup about 70-80 percent of the cost of replacing siding, decks, windows and kitchen renovations.

Interested in knowing what the Hartford area will recoup for remodels?
A mid-range upgrade to the kitchen, ranging around $22,482 will recoup $18,443 or 82 percent during the closing of a sale of their home.  In addition, the homeowner gets to enjoy a new and updated kitchen while they are living there.

An upscale bathroom remodel will run about $56,626 and the value at the sale of the home will be $37,959 or 67 percent.

A mid-range basement remodel costs approximately $69505 but is only worth an additional $41,662 or 59.9 percent at the sale of the home.

The smallest payback, according to the report, is a mid-range home office remodel, costing an average of $29,949 in New England but worth only $12,949 at sale or 44.6 percent.  However, if you put in a home office, you might make up the difference in time, money and aggravation saved by working from the home.

For more information go to www.remodeling.hw.net/2008/costsvalue/national.aspx.  For regional value data, click on New England.

For more information on remodeling and design, visit www.allaboutinteriors.org