A great deal of time and effort goes into staging a house to sell. The sad thing is, when you finish a home staging project and pack up your things to leave, you have no idea how long that home will remain in showing-ready condition.
Why not make it easier for your clients to keep their home looking perfectly staged by giving them a list of tips to help them prepare for last minute showings?
Pass along the following house showing survival tips to your clients to help ease their stress and ensure a home you’ve staged sells as quickly as possible:
- Do not hold a garage sale while the house is for sale. Strongly advise against your clients having a garage sale while their home is on the market. All unwanted items should have been removed prior to staging, but if there was no time to complete this step, recommend all unwanted items be donated to charity and other seasonable and infrequently used items be put into storage. Nothing screams “desperate home seller” like a garage sale sign next to a for sale sign in your yard. Your clients don’t want buyers to know they’re in a hurry to sell, so suggest they put off that garage sale until they’re in their new home.
- Create a new junk drawer. Tell the homeowners to get a basket or box to be designated for storing last-minute clutter such as the day’s newspaper, magazines and other mail. When these items are restricted to one container, it will be easy to stash them away for last minute showings.
- Remove extra toys. If a homeowner has small children, make sure that all excess toys are removed prior to staging. While the house is on the market, recommend they allow each child to have one basket of favorite items that can be neatly tucked away for showings. These items should not include Lego or other small pieces that are time-consuming to clean up.
- Let the sunshine in. Remind your clients to open up the window coverings and turn on all the lights before every showing. You want the home to be shown in good lighting conditions so it seems bright and cheerful instead of dark and stuffy.
- Remove valuables. Suggest that homeowners gather all of their small personal items and items of monetary or sentimental value and put them into storage or leave them with a trusted family member or friend while their home is for sale. It’s much easier to do this than to always be hiding valuables before each showing.
Do you have some showing survival tips of your own that you like to pass on to your clients when you’ve finished a staging project? Please share by leaving a comment below.
Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging
Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager and she developed the Staging Diva Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love.
[tags]showing survival tips, home staging, staging a house to sell, house showing tips, staging diva, debra gould[/tags]
I just now realized you have a blog, even if I keep following your newsletters. Thanks Debra for the motivation you gave me to start a new business of Staging. I now do staging, decorating and I just started to design and lead tours (mostly for Interior designers) twice a year to my first city: Milan.
The course I took with you was incredibly helpful and educational.
Debra, I have often closed the door after staging a property and have thought to myself, how long will things stay in place ? For sometime now I have provided my clients with a daily check list. You never know when that next showing may occur. The list includes such things as open blinds, wipe out sinks/ taps and yes , even close the toilet lid ( one of my pet peeves ) when agents take shots of bathroom. I know we can’t always be in full control of things , but certainly does’nt hurt to try.
I too provide them with an Open House/Scheduled Showings Checklist, often specifically tailored to their home. Some other common items before a scheduled showing or open house are to at least spray and wipe down kitchen and bathroom counters, vacuum high traffic areas, empty all wastebaskets, set out dress towels in bathrooms, and remove all pet items including the pet.
That is a brilliant idea! I once staged a home and one of the homeowners was not 100% on board. I had a gut feeling that as soon as we left, the shaky homeowner would revert back to her old ways. To combat this, I left material for her to read about home staging so she could see the importance of it. I was shocked to see that by the end of the transformation, she had already made her own checklist from the materials I gave her to read. This was a great learning lesson!
Make a check list specific to the client showing what is to be put away where and what to do prior to a potential buyer &/or agent coming in. These things will include the general categories above, but help the client to quickly go thru the process each time.
Example: “put kitchen counter phone in drawer immediately below” (counter space in this instance is small) “remove dog’s quilt from your bed and put it away in the garage” “put purse and jewelry pouch in trunk of car in garage” etc…
I agree Debra – very important to help clients keep things as tidy and presentable as possible after staging their home. Now that houses stay on the market longer than in a seller’s market, this is much harder than it used to be. Children acquire new toys, flowers and plants die and the windows get dirty again. Crucial to have a daily and weekly “to do” list. Bay clearly does this in a lot of detail, very impressive and depending on the personality of the client, a great idea.
Great blog! Decluttering is definitely important. Thanks for sharing this information.