Are you afraid to start a home staging business because you’re afraid you don’t have enough flair for decorating to stage homes?
This could be because of those decorating shows and magazines which feature photos of rooms adorned with strategically placed fruit and seashells.
Don’t let something like this stop you from pursuing a career in home staging.
While photos of rooms decorated like that might sell magazines, those tactics will not help sell a property. In fact, it is these decorative touches that I like to call “silly staging tricks” and here’s why.
The purpose of home staging is to show a home in a way that people will imagine themselves living there. The ultimate goal is for a potential buyer to walk through the home and have the impression that they’re home already. That’s the end result of a home staging job done well. Buyers are smart enough to know that those obvious touches were done by a home stager to increase the value of the property.
Not sure what kind of “touches” I mean?
To follow up on an incredibly popular and fun blog post I did in March, I took many of the comments that my readers posted and some silly staging tricks I have seen since then, and wrote an article combining them all. I would like to share that article with you through a short series of blog posts.
I know you’ll have fun reading these and I sincerely urge you to comment about new silly staging tricks you’ve seen lately.
Today’s installment: Simply creepy!
Imagine walking into a home you’re excited about viewing to be welcomed by “virtual tour” music which has been wired throughout. Nobody would ever live like that and it would probably make the buyer laugh or make the home feel creepy more than anything else.
Or what about seeing a home full of furniture on MLS only to book a showing and find it totally empty when you get there. This is sometimes called Virtual Staging, where computer generated furniture is used for the photographs (like the sample at the top of this post).
Another creepy and silly staging trick is replacing the real family members’ photos with pictures of more attractive people. How do you explain that to your clients?
Can you believe some stagers even frame photos of celebrities to place throughout a home? Is that to make buyers think the homeowner is friends with Oprah and George Clooney?
Another good one is when a home stager uses those frames which hold multiple photos, without removing the manufacturer’s filler pictures.
I advise removing all family photos from the home (attractive or not!) to prevent the home buyer from feeling like they’re invading the owners’ privacy.
I’ve also read of stagers hiring actors to set the scene during an open house, yes you guessed it this was a California concept! A dining room would be set for Thanksgiving Dinner for example, and actors would be there to show what a great house it was to entertain in.
Talk about distracting home buyers from the business at hand, which should be falling in love with the property! This concept sounds more like giving visitors the sensation of being part of a reality TV show, and has little to do with Home Staging in my opinion!
Have you seen any silly staging tricks that could be categorized as creepy? Please share in the comments below!
And be sure to check back Wednesday to read about some extremely “distasteful” staging tricks that continue to show up in kitchens and dining rooms everywhere!
Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Home Staging
Home Staging expert Debra Gould developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to teach others the right business formula to make money from their decorating talents.
OMG! Photos of celbs would really freak out any buyer. Not to mention how embarassing it could be for the homeowner and agent. I think these particular types of stagers need to remember that prospective buyers and the general public are not stupid. They will not fall for it!
I agree with allowing home buyers to walk throughout the property without feeling like are invading someone’s personal space; it prevents them from exploring the house from their point of view. Creepy is walking into a bathroom to be welcomed with a bubble bath complete with rubber ducky and champagne glasses.
Tina, that’s really funny, it would almost make you wonder if a person in their bathrobe would suddenly emerge from behind a closed door.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I can’t get into the idea of the table set for a meal (fake food and all) or a tray on the master bed during inspections. I’d be freaked out that the family was just about to converge on the dining room for their meal..or worse that the sellers were trying to have a cozy morning laying in bed. Inpections can feel bad enough for house hunters without being worried about those kinds of scenarios.
Nor can I get into the music thing. It’d make me as a buyer think the place was haunted…and then I’d laugh at the cheak of the seller.
Debra, you’ve made a pretty solid case here for skipping the diagonal throws, towel tassels and overdone table settings but I still think there can be a place for some ‘model home” effects. The key is subtlety and artistry. I believe you can add beauty and sparkle to a dining room, for instance, by adding a lovely tablescape without making it look too contrived. Like you said: the purpose of home staging is to show a home in a way that people can imagine themselves living there…so why not give them some fuel to spark their imagination? Of course they know it’s staged but I think buyers love to walk into a home that creates excitement and inspires them to dream about entertaining in that beautiful new dining room or relaxing in that spa like master bathroom. Our job is not just to demonstrate the ho-hum way they could live in the house but also to show them the possibilities for making it fabulous!
Lisa, I’m not for a moment advocating keeping things “ho-hum.” Our job is to create magic and romance the buyer. My point is to be more artful and subtle about it.
Debra, I absolutely did not mean to imply that you were advocating ho-humness:-) I just don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. So much of what we do is subjective and I still think a table set here or there can work but, I’d rather see stagers err on the side of much less of that sort of thing. Once I walked into a staged home with things like an open book with a pair of antique spectacles placed on top, towels festooned with ribbons and shells, wine glasses on the tub, fake food on the table and YES…Yuk…the house felt fake and unlivable.
Lisa, glad we sorted that out and are both agreed that “fake and unlivable” is not the way to go! Not that we have to always agree of course!
I too wouldn’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater! I love when my readers share their comments so we can get a discussion going back and forth!
Anyone else want to weigh in on this subject?
Comments help me know what kinds of things my readers want to learn more about. Imagine sitting down to a blank computer screen 2 to 3 times a week and thinking, “what to write about today?” I’ve been blogging and writing about home staging since 2002 and to be honest I still worry about running out of something to say!
Your comments to my blog often inspire new article ideas for me. In fact, thanks to Lisa’s comment, I’m going to do one on setting the table next week.
Thanks, Debra. I really appreciate getting your e-mails and blogs. I have learned so much from you. Thanks for sharing so freely as I think it really does help elevate our industry as a whole.
A fun read! I could not agree more. And look forward to reading more crazy tricks.