3 Reasons Why it’s Hard to Sell a Vacant Property

Bradbury Family Room Staged

It’s a Fact!  Vacant homes take a much longer time to sell because:

1. Buyers see it as a gamble and are not willing to risk their hard earned money on something they can’t envision…
2. They don’t know how their furniture/stuff will fit in this empty space.
3. They will notice the flaws and work to be done. They focus on the negatives.

Bradbury Family Room Before Staging

What home staging does:

1. It puts the buyer’s mind at ease. With proper furniture placement, they understand how their own furniture may or may not fit the space.
2. When fully staged, the house will feel like a ‘home’ to them.
3. The WOW factor is undeniable! When they see how beautiful it can be, they are willing to make an offer, hoping to buy the house before someone else does.
   Besides, when a house is empty, what else is there to look at?

Staging a house will reduce its time on the market by upwards of 90%. Most homeowners prefer a quick sale. Home staging will draw the attention of the buyer through awesome online photos. In turn, the buyer will ask for a viewing. Satisfied, they will make an offer… often times, above the asking price!

Remember: less time on the market = more money in your pocket!

If you want to avoid the carrying cost of owning two properties.
If you want the largest return on investment.
If you understand the benefit of home staging and are motivated to sell.
Your answer is just an email or phone call away!

Visit our website:
Groovy Chick Redesign & Home Staging
Designed to sell… decorated to stay

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5 Ways That Home Staging Makes Realtors Money

Realtor staged, but unable to sell property

Dear Realtor,

Are your online listing photos magazine worthy?  Are they creating a stir with home buyers?  You may have hired a professional photographer to take the shots but if you or the homeowners have ‘staged’ the property yourselves, then would you consider it to be a professional looking job?  Chances are, and you may not even realize it, but… no.  A professional home stager will make the space look magazine worthy because she/he has that critical eye and knows what/how to adjust for the camera lens.  Home staging involves updating the artwork, décor items, and possible repositioning, removal, or replacement of furniture.  Today’s buyer isn’t interested in purchasing ‘Grandma’s house’ and that look will not bring traffic through the front door.  Question: How many adult children do you know who will take hand-me-down items from the family?  Answer: Very few.  Why?: Because it’s just not their style.

Online photos alone, as professional as they may be, will not attract today’s buyer.  This is the misguided premise of many a real estate agent… ‘I’ll just send my photographer over, and Bob’s your uncle’.  Uh… no.  If you want your listings to sell fast you will include, at the very least, a home staging consultation as part of your service.  You may even want to go further than that and pay for part, or all of the staging.  This will justify your commission upon the sale of the home.

Partnering with a home stager will:

1.  Create a reputation as serious about getting top dollar for your clients
2.  Show that you are the expert in today’s housing market
3.  Bring you more clients when they see your staged listings
4.  Produce quicker sales, allowing you to move to your next listing that much sooner
5.  Increase your overall profit margin!

And who wouldn’t want all of the above to reflect on them?

Groovy Chick Redesign and Home Staging is looking to partner with this type of real estate agent.  Could it be you?

Groovy Chick styled property… SOLD!

If…
– you have a future listing or one that currently isn’t selling in the Durham Region or in the (eastern) Greater Toronto Area,
– you don’t have or haven’t used a home stager before,
– you’re losing clients to realtors who do offer home staging,
…then please give us a call at 905-683-9136.

We would like to help you be a standout realtor!

Groovy Chick Redesign and Home Staging
Our homes are… Designed to sell, decorated to stay!

Numbers and Statistics

 Here are some interesting home staging statistics that most people do not know…

8   The number of seconds that it takes to make a first impression (good or bad)

Attracting buyers with great online photos and marketing is so important as you only get one chance to make a good first impression! We live in fast times. We want everything now. We expect perfection. If we don’t like what we see, we move on to the next. Perfect magazine-type photos entice buyers to visit a home. Those that aren’t, won’t.

21   The number of days on the market that you want to avoid

The house that is on the Toronto area market for three weeks or more will be deemed as having something wrong with it. Newer listings will take precedence over the older ones, pushing them down in the rankings. A listed home should be memorable, attractive, and entice online shoppers to look no further!

1/2   The percentage of asking price that you should expect to spend on staging a vacant home

Prices vary as every house is different, but the average cost to stage a home should run between 1/2% for a basic job to 1% for the WOW-factor. Occupied homes will obviously cost you less.

5   The minimal number of rooms recommended for staging a vacant home

Vacant rooms don’t sell houses while well decorated and furnished rooms do. This is why builders have model homes for buyers to walk through. Given a choice, the ones with only floor plans will not sell vs. those with actual furnished models. Why? Because nine out of ten buyers cannot visualize how their furniture will fit in an empty space, let alone on a floor plan. This is where home staging comes in, by showing them how best to layout furniture and by wowing them with the décor. The more staged rooms that a home has, the better the buyers can picture themselves living in it.

90   The percentage of less time on the market that a staged home spends, compared to a home that is not staged

Homes that are perfectly styled to sell will set the standard for the local market. All other homes will be judged accordingly. Offers will be reflected based on where a home stands in the buyer’s mind.

2   The average number of hours that Groovy Chick Redesign and Home Staging will spend with you during a consultation

We will start at the curb, work our way through the house, room by room, and into the back yard, all the while making recommendations on what attracts today’s home buyer. By following all of these recommendations, sellers should see their property sell quickly and for much more money. Partial follow-throughs won’t be nearly as lucrative as complete ones.

100   The percentage of satisfied Groovy Chick Redesign and Home Staging customers

Homeowners often wonder why they hadn’t done it sooner after seeing the end result. You don’t have to wait to sell, in order to fall in love with your home once again. Call us. We would be happy to help you redecorate, or redesign your space. Your family and friends will be impressed.

To get a better understanding of the statistics for staging first and selling fast, please visit our website:  https://www.groovychickdesign.com/home

 

Puzzles

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always enjoyed doing puzzles.  I was probably 5 or 6 years of age when I got my very first jigsaw puzzle… The Flintstones.  It was a 100-piece puzzle that I liked to do again and again.  When I learned how to read and write, I progressed to word search puzzles, and then to crossword puzzles.  Doing jigsaw puzzles on a rainy day up at the cottage was a great way to pass the time, when there was no TV to watch or book to read.  Starting with the corner pieces, I would build the frame, then group pieces according to colour and work on mini sections at a time.  It was fun hunting for the right shape to connect these mini sections.  It felt like an accomplishment to have completed the puzzle!  Working on puzzles helped to sharpen my mind.

In later years the popular (with my co-workers) word jumble puzzle got me hooked.  Every day we had a contest at work to see who could complete it first!  Often times, it was me.  This past decade, Sudoku puzzles have been my go-to choice of puzzle.  I love to figure out which numbers go where.  I’m also hooked on online games like Jewel Mania or Bubble Mania and enjoy moving up in the different levels.  I think the attraction to puzzles stems from the way my brain is wired.

Even in my former occupation as a catalogue layout designer, I gravitated to the most difficult pages to design and I made them look good. Others would ignore or skip over those problem pages but I would scoop them up… thrilled that I was being mentally challenged!  When a 2-page spread was completed and looked like it was easy to do, I knew that I had done a good job!  It was like making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, as the saying goes.

I’ve always been meticulous about things.  I remember, even as a toddler, that I could not stand to have dirty hands.  I didn’t like dirt, grease, or any foreign substance on my hands… it grossed me out!  In my adulthood, I’ve learned to relax somewhat and even enjoy digging in the dirt.  I was a perfectionist… no crayon ever went past the black outlines in my colouring book, and if a friend took to colouring in it and coloured outside of the lines… it drove me crazy!  To me, the book was ruined!  I’ve learned to accept people’s shortcomings.

My attention to detail has followed me throughout my life and my career… whether it was designing ads or catalogue pages, whether it is writing something, building something, or installing something… it has to be perfect!  I guess my brain is just wired that way.

Reader: Are you puzzled by your colour, decor, or furniture choices?  Do you feel paralyzed with fear in moving forward with your decorating?  Are you overwhelmed by the many choices when you walk into a paint store, a furniture shop, or decor store?  Wouldn’t you want somebody with that attention to detail to handle the job for you?  I would love to work with you, to help you design or to redesign your space, and to WOW you!   I’m always up for a challenge and would love to work on the puzzle that you call ‘home’!  Groovy Chick Redesign and Home Staging could be your answer.

Do you have a favourite type of puzzle?  If so, what is it?  Could we be of the same mindset?

 

P.S.  Any Pop-up Ads that appear on this page are NOT endorsed by Groovy Chick Redesign and Home Staging

Consultation to Redesign to Project Managing

A homeowner called on me to do a color consultation.  She was tired of living in a drab looking environment for the last 7 years.  I went, and selected new paint colors for the whole house.  She planned to have some rooms painted ‘now and the rest later’.

A couple of weeks had passed and the homeowner called me again.  This time she said that she had put in an offer on a condo and would be selling the house.  What?!  She needed a painter and handyman pronto to do the work required before staging and listing the home.  I found a painter and then consulted with the client on what needed doing in order to sell her home quickly.  After a major purge and de-cluttering, I sent the painter to paint the rest of her house.  Then I brought in my handyman to fix the many things that needed to be addressed.  Any flaws detected by would-be home buyers would result in lower offers!

Time was of the essence now.  The holidays were fast approaching and the growing list of work to be done wasn’t yet complete… let alone the staging.  My client went on vacation to be with her family and left me in charge.  The handy work was finally finished, the cleaners came in, and I was ready to stage the occupied home.

I then went to shop for the staging decor as well as for my client.  She would hopefully take it with her to the new place.  As I completed each room, I sent her photos of my work.  She loved it all!

The open house took place on the weekend.  Upon her return, there were multiple offers.  It sold that same day for well over asking!  My client was thrilled as she got exactly what she wanted PLUS she was equipped with paint colors and decor to take with her to the new condo!

The client absolutely loves her new place.  It’s fresh, clean and offers a sense of serenity… it’s what she really needed.

Are you in a similar situation?  Are you stressing over decorating?  Well don’t… just call Groovy Chick Redesign and Home Staging.  I would love to help!