Home stagers have a lot of power in real estate, more than we realize. Especially when we’re making the mistake of chasing busy Realtors hoping to convince them to hire us!
Last week I wrote a post called, “Stagers, don’t let real estate agents discourage you”.
I was motivated to write it because for the many years I’ve been staging homes I’ve been running into real estate agents who:
- Don’t understand why an empty, disorganized or ugly home is harder to sell.
- List it as is. Put a few bad pictures on MLS. Talk their client into price reductions when the property (predictably) doesn’t sell.
- Are afraid they’ll have to pay for home staging if they recommend it.
- Feel threatened by what home stagers do instead of realizing we make them look good and their selling jobs easier.
And the harder-to-find Realtor who:
- Takes pride in the presentation of their listings.
- Realizes that a property with their name on it reflects on their reputation.
- Understands great listing photos attract more showings, plus faster and higher offers. (How this isn’t obvious to everyone is beyond me!)
Not all Real Estate Agents Get It
The good new is that the “unaware” or “fearful” real estate agents can be educated. Many come around to understanding the benefits of home staging to themselves and their clients. You can see it in the comments from home stagers on my original post.
How you educate Realtors is so important. I emphasize the messages and selling points you should use with them when selling your home staging services in Course 4 of the Staging Diva Program.
Too many really talented stagers feel they should give up on following their dreams, because they let discouraging real estate agents stop them in their tracks.
It’s time to stand in the power of the talent we have as home stagers.
In the past, most of a real estate agent’s power came from the control of information.
Before the Internet, you couldn’t get any details about a house for sale without using a licensed real estate agent.
I’m old enough to remember when real estate listings were printed on paper and carried around in binders. The only way to see them was through an agent.
By the late 1990s, listing databases were searchable online, but the public couldn’t access that information.
There was no way to know how fast homes sold. Selling prices were hidden unless you had an agent to tell you about the market.
As the gate keepers of all real estate information, agents had tremendous power to establish asking prices, sway buyers, and convince their sellers to accept certain offers.
Today, agents still have power and influence (which is not a bad thing as a good real estate agent has an important role to play), but the public no longer exists in an information vacuum.
With 90% of buyers in Canada— and 70 to 80% in the US— doing their own online search for properties, a real estate agents’s competitive environment is completely different.
Amazingly, not all Realtors have woken up to the paradigm shift in their industry. That’s where a lot of the resistance home stagers run into comes from.
Not to mention that change always brings up fear.
For agents old enough to remember when they controlled all information, it’s hard to let go of habits that came with that.
For newer agents who flooded the industry when the market was booming, it’s hard to recover from the giant reality check any market corrections have brought, and look for ways to change how they sell properties.
All this is to say, home stagers and aspiring home stagers: don’t give up your power to real estate agents. Many of them will discourage you, but keep on going anyways.
We offer a tremendous and valuable service to home sellers that makes a huge difference in their lives. If you have any doubt of that, please read the many examples of what Staging Diva Graduates have done for their clients here.
I welcome your comments to this story. Let’s keep this conversation going!
I certainly had a rude awakening when I started my staging business. I knew I could convince any mildly intelligent real estate agent that staging their listings would only result in a quicker sale and happier clients. I was not prepared for the “brick wall syndrome” I encountered. I wish I would have had this article to read then! Debra, you are so good at putting all areas of this business into perspective.
New Stagers, don’t be discouraged by the resistance you may find in the Real Estate world! Heed Debra’s wise advice and be proud of what you do!
It is always hard to convince people to change. Realtors have been doing business a certain way for a long time and are comfortable with it. I can certainly understand that. However, to not utilize services that can enhance their lisitings, and bring a better price, is just not taking advantage of the marketing. It IS an expense to stage a home, but we just have to convince them that the price of home staging is almost always less than the cost of a price reduction. And that’s money in everyone’s pocket!
Debbie Fiskum, The HomeDecorGenie.com
This sounds like a “spiel” I repeat in my sleep. The “staging will cost less than your first price reduction” speech. BUT IT’S TRUE! I haven’t had too many staging projects that cost more than 5 or $10 thousand dollars! – normal price reduction increments. Staging IS an investment, just like buying a home is an investment. Sometimes you really do need to spend money to MAKE money.
Staging To Sell
Home Staging For Sellers . Interior Design & reDesign
231.690.0398
Jill R. Monczunski
President/Designer
http://www.staging2sell.com
jill@staging2sell.com
I setup a luncheon with 6 high producing realtors in my area. I developed a professional bio and presentation that I presented to them. We spoke for over an hour about what I do, how much I charge, how do I handle difficult customers, and it went on and on. At the end I told them I would like to develop a relationship with them and provide brochures they could include in the selling packets to the their clients.
I was shocked at their response. One said he didn’t beleive staging a vacant home made any difference, even after many before and after pictures that they loved. Another said her clients would not be willing to spend money on staging. I asked if she would be willing to provide my brochure to their client and let the client decide. She declined and said she provides the client with “suggestions”.
They all said they loved my presentation, my before and after pictures, understood the staging stastics I provided and said there “might” be some benefit but they would let me know.
I didn’t let that discourage me because I know I do good work and the presentation was aimed toward realtors and it was good.
I felt they were reluctant to tell their clients their homes needed help.for fear of offending them.
Oh well…the journey continues. A $300.00 lunch didn’t help but you never know…one of them may come around and that’s all I need, one convert to get the ball rolling with that agency.
Jenny, it sounds like you did a great job and it’s a crying shame you got the response you did. Sounds to me like they were just looking for a free lunch and didn’t really have their minds open even if their ears supposedly were!
Keep on going, don’t let them discourage you and put more efforts on home owners as described in Course 4 of the Staging Diva Program. Thanks for sharing your story!
I don’t know if this topic is being re-opened, but I have two comments on the reactions of real estate agents. First, I have also had many negative reactions from agents I have talked to — I have not done presentations and don’t plan to based on the many individual conversations that go nowhere. They say they don’t need me because they give their own suggestions and “know how to stage themselves”; my price range of $500-750 is “way to high” for their clients (in one of the most expensive towns in Northern New Jersey); or “staging doesn’t work anyway and it’s not worth the money.”
Secondly, I had the unpleasant experience of having a top local agent yell at me over the phone after I had staged a client’s home and then she came into the picture, telling me I didn’t back her up on two points that would have cost the clients money they didn’t want to spend. The outcome for the sellers? They sold their house in less than 2 weeks after staging for $10,000 MORE than the agent wanted to list it at. This after the same agent had previously listed their house a year before for 3 months withOUT staging and no decent offers. I find homeowners are thrilled with my work and the houses I stage generally sell within a month or less of staging for close to full price. So I agree with Debra completely that homeowners are our primary target market and the ones who are far more willing to listen and spend the money — they realize their return on investment is worth it. I happen to think most agents either think they “know it all,” are afraid of offending clients (mistakenly), or are just too lazy to bother explaining staging to their clients.
Thanks for sharing your experiences Amy, I know that most readers will have met with similar reactions. That’s why there are so many real estate agents who aren’t making a living. In fact, the average earnings were about what the manager of a McDonald’s makes, and that was before the real estate market went down so much!
Thankfully as home stagers, we make far more than the typical real estate agent and my experience has been that our clients really appreciate the value we bring.
We REALTORs aren’t all bad, and I make a lot of money. Just working now on keeping more of it. One shot is not usually going to sell a REALTOR, It usually takes some time and an average of six relationships. Just like selling anything else, it is about relationships.
I love staging and know it works, and well! Keep up the good work, Debra.
Catharine (in Muskoka)
I meant to say six contacts, leading to a relationship.
Catharine, Thanks for stopping by and adding your comments as a REALTOR! I totally agree it’s important to build relationships in business and not expect it to happen with the first contact.
It’s great to hear from an agent who knows about and understands the value of staging. I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s amazing that so many are still burying their heads in the sand when it comes to how key it is to have a home show well and look great on MLS. I’m not surprised that you’re doing as well as you are and now I know who to call if I’m ever looking for a vacation property up in Muskoka!
Wow, everyone! Debra’s posting, and your comments, are timely. I was invited by a real estate agent to give a 30 minute power point presentation to a team of real estate agents next week. I may not convert most of the real estate agents to the positive benefits of home staging, but it will certainly be a lesson in building self confidence and an opportunity to talk about what I love doing! At any rate, I will take your insights into consideration, read course 4 as Debra suggests, pull together great information in the “Chroicles” articles that Debra produced, and brace myself for a rigourous power point presentation! Debra, I am very grateful for the help you gave me last week during our coaching call as we discussed the power point presentation.
Jenny, if you can sit with top agents during a marketing luncheon, I can stand up in front of a real estate team! I admire you for your idea and your courage! You’re better off for having done it, even though it isn’t yet obvious.
Jayne-thank you for reminding us that the “brick wall” exists but we’re home stagers and we have “creative” ways to get over the wall!
Amy-I may use your staging success story in this posting as an example to the team of real estate agents. Thanks for reminding us of the power of home staging and the value of home stagers!
Debra-this post of yours is very powerful. I am imagining you in front of the real estate team I meet next week telling them in your very positive and “by the way do you know?” manner that there has been a shift in power in the real estate industry and real estate agents are no longer the gatekeepers. Savvy buyers now mean that home sellers and real estate agents have to be just as savvy in the marketing of home sales; that their response to the shift in power is to do things differently; beginning with the investment in a professional home stager! Thank you so much – I am definitely using this information in my presentation and imagining how the real estate team might react. “-)
Opps, hope most of you realize I was referring to the “Chonicles” (Volume 1 and Volume 2) articles in my post above. Typing too fast today! If you haven’t purchased those articles, you might seriously consider doing so. They are excellent resources for presentations, handouts to real estate agents, and handouts to home sellers. I use the articles a lot, along with the training courses and all the guide books. I would be lost without them!
Good luck, Stacy – keep us posted how your presentation turns out. You probably shouldn’t include the part about the agent yelling at me for not going along with two of her points to my client (who hired her after I had given them my staging recommendations)! Just stress that this top agent didn’t think staging would make a difference, but that the house sold in 2 weeks for $10,000 more than she suggested they list it at!
Debra, Amy, Jackie, Susan, Jayne, Debbie, Jill, Jenny, Catharine~
Presentation to REA’s was well received and focused exclusively on the important point Debra reminds us is so important in marketing and convincing others about the value of home staging; that being, “what’s in for me!” My entire presentation focused on just these points for real estate agents.
One guy, obviously not convinced about home staging, blurted out that he just uses green plants to stage the home and it’s always worked for him. When he heard me say I was currently staging my own home for sale later this spring, he was the first agent to volunteer his services. Ha! It was my pivotal moment! In front of the group, but in good humor, I said to him, “no, not yet, but if you only rely on green plants to sell my home, that won’t work for me!). We at least got a laugh from that one and we talked about the value in at least asking the question! 🙂 (Doesn’t our fearless leader, Debra, tell us that on a regular basis?)
I also leaned a lot! I took away some good information that I’ll use for blog content on my personal website that’s due to be complete at the end of March (this is in addition to my page on the Staging Diva Directory).
It became clear to me during this presentation that most of the agents were doing their best to give good home improvement advice to their clients but it was the clients themselves who could not get past the dollar signs involved in improvements or in staging.
Debra is ‘right on’ when she says that we can give all sorts of statistics (e.g. Home Gain, ASHER, etc.- I passed those resources around the room!) to support home staging but it’s the real-life stories by all of us in home staging that helps sellers (and agents) to understand how home staging ultimately gets them toward their goal of selling fast for the most money. And that’s a good point to make here because if someone were to ask me what my goal is as I now prepare my home for sale, I would tell them that I want to sell it quickly and for as much money as I can! This is a smart strategy that I used to use with parents whose children were in my preschool program. By bringing people back to THEIR goals, there is no disagreement, no rebuttals against their own ideas.
The Power Point format I decide to use was a smart idea. I wanted to use one of the power point slides to link into my Staging Diva Directory website so I checked with the agent who invited me to speak and asked if the computer I was going to use [to insert my jump drive with my presentation] also had Internet access, It did, so I took advantage of this and embedded my Staging Diva website link into the last power point slide.
This allowed me to open my SD website link from the power point slide and I took the group through my profile, SD and Six Elements links, and lastly, the green “print brochure” button where they could print off a brochure at any time for any of their clients. I also handed out a colored version of the brochure at the beginning of the presentation, so they could actually see how it looked. I also provided them each with two business card. One for them and for for distribution to a client.
I can’t stress enough the value of that green “print brochure” button that Debra so cleverly set up on our listings in the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers. We all know she is a marketing master mind but it’s moments like these that make me realize the detail Debra has gone to in order to make her graduates professional and successful.
Overall, do allow some time at the end of a presentation to answer questions or have casual conversations because this is where we home stagers can learn from our audience and establish rapport. Be up on real estate issues going on in your community and ask the agents what they think. For instance, we talked about the price of oil going up and how this might affect the sale of homes in Anchorage. I asked agents if they thought the Feds would raise the interest rates this coming September. Most did not think it would. (UBS does though!)
Having some questions in my head and reading up on them before the presentation allowed for casual conversation and leveled the playing field. The common bond was our community and the effects of outside issues on our businesses. Letting agents know that you genuinely see them as the selling experts and you also want to learn from them is also good relationship building. As Catharine mentions above, relationships are key.
Finally, I DON’t know a lot about real the real estate business! I began to get an inkling of this after my first presentation to a group of REA’s. Again, I’m grateful Debra has created the “Glossary” that provides us with real estate terms and more! Thanks for your encouragement everyone; it floated my ship! Thanks Debra, – you’re brilliant!
When I was taking the Staging Diva training, one of our first homework assignments was to call Realtors and ask if they had dealt with a Stager and what their experience had been. I spoke to a Realtor who said he Staged every listing and that every Staged house sold faster. He really believed in Staging and made no bones about it.
I asked him if I could quote him and he said no. I guess he knew he had a ‘secret weapon’ over the other Agents in our area and didn’t want the word getting out…
Hi Peg, Thanks so much for sharing that experience and perspective with everyone. I know it will inspire others that there ARE real estate agents who “get it.”
By the way, for stagers reading these comments who haven’t done the Staging Diva Program, Peg is referring to one of the homework assignments I give between each of the 5 Staging Diva courses. The homework isn’t something that has a “right” or “wrong” answer and it isn’t sent into me for marking.
The fundamental basis of the entire Staging Diva Training Program is that it’s purpose is to prepare you start and grow your own profitable home staging business. In keeping with that, I assign tasks that are things you should be doing to get your business off the ground. My hope is that by making it “homework,” you won’t procrastinate and you’ll actually dive in and get your business started sooner, rather than later 🙂
Many students get their first home staging projects just by doing the homework assignment between Course 1 and Course 2. Even if you don’t get an immediate project out of it, you DO get a better sense of the competition and an opportunity to learn from their mistakes because you learn what to watch out for. You can also make valuable real estate contacts, as Peg did.
Thanks again Peg for commenting!
Great points! I would love to see you write about this on Active Rain, addressing the “change brings fear” point especially. I see this often with agents, and it’s very frustrating and discouraging, and I know many other stagers feel this way, too.
Thanks Amy, I appreciate your input!
Well said! I was a realtor when the listings were in those binders too and like you I’ve been in the staging industry for 7 years. Meeting resistance from agents has been an uphill climb however, homeowners are now asking them about staging and I see a slow shift with agents towards seeing the benefits. I love how you put it…don’t give up your power to agents. Great article!
Nan, thanks so much for commenting and sharing your experience, really appreciate it!
Now in my 4th year of running my own home staging business I have learned to “vet” realtors a bit before working with them. When they call or email me, I ask them a few key questions and depending on hojw they respond, I work with them or I encourage them to seek out a different home stager. There are a lot of dinosaur Realtors out there, but truthfully, there are a lot of younger and more dynamic Realtors who value home staging, technology, and so on. People, or Realtors, who are really entrenched in an old way of thinking can’t be persuaded to see things differently. I’ve learned to move away from them and find the kind of Realtors who are excited about home staging and what it can do for their Sellers. In 2014 I am expanding my business to a part of Alaska that I haven’t served. This I can credit a “boutique realty” that sees home staging as a must for their Sellers and is willing to pay me the fee from the upfront funds they collect from their home sellers for a variety of services through the realty; including expert home staging. In other words, I didn’t let cranky ole’ Realtors scare me away from running a home staging business. 🙂
Stacy, congratulations on being in your 4th year in business, that’s an awesome milestone. I really appreciate you sharing your experience with our readers. I know others will find it really helpful!
Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wished to say that I have truly enjoyed browsing your blog posts.
After all I will be subscribing to your feed and I hope you write again very soon!
Thanks for your enlightening article on the subject we all see each day. It is true that they no longer hold the winning hand. it is very easy to walk in an open house and make a pitch, attend broker opens and meet the agents and of course it is still better to educate an agent on Staging and that takes time and patience and effort. I also like to remember that agents are sales people, just like we are. They have to do the same marketing that we do to stay ahead of the pack. We own houses too and some day we may need to sell our homes. What goes around comes around.
Thank you for the words of encouragement!
Thank you for this boost of confidence. I see so many bad pictures of properties for sale on the internet and am frustrated because I know I can help them shine. I live in a relatively small southern town and have pretty much had doors shut in my face by local real estate agents. I have thought about just giving up completely. We are even considering moving due to the lack of work and cooperation. I just had brochures printed for my staging services but have not reaproached local R.E agents. I will keep pushing forward. Thank you.
Lisa, I’m so glad you found this email helpful. A key thing to know is that real estate agents aren’t actually the best way to build your business. I discuss this in detail in the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program which is a step by step blueprint for building a successful home staging business. I hope you’ll check it out, along with my other guides, checklists and more at the Staging Diva Store.
I can’t find a good stager in Muskoka.
Hi Catharine, If you have a specific need you can visit the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers where you’ll find an online form to complete so I can find someone in your area.