Home Staging - HGTV Shows Don't Reveal The Total Cost

HGTV has many great shows to offer particularly in the real estate and home staging world. As a highly sought-after Professional Home Stager in Orlando and Central Florida I get asked questions all the time about the price. Unlike the real world, here is what HGTV does and does not reveal about the TRUE cost of staging...

Like many do-it-yourselfers, designers and other interested homeowners, I love HGTV! They offer such a variety of shows that are so relevant and helpful to homeowners as well as buyers and seller participating in the real estate game. I particularly enjoy a special grouping of shows surrounding home staging. One of my favorite shows is 'GET IT SOLD'. Their star Sabrina Soto is wonderfully creative and she is someone that I can learn from. I do applaud them for actually helping bring awareness to the general public about the relatively new service called Home Staging. Many people still do not know what it is. It is the process of de-personalizing a home and making it buyer ready to appeal to a mass buyer audience by de-cluttering, purposefully arranging furniture and accessories and highlighting a home's best features while downplaying the negative ones.

Where Home Staging shows cause a bit of grief for us Professional Home Stagers, is in the area of pricing. Usually most of these shows tally up the cost per room or for individual materials to show you that it really isn't all that expensive to do it right the first time and get it staged. While I firmly believe staging a home is an absolute must for every home seller, since the idea is to appeal to a mass group of buyers, I don't agree with the pricing shown. Let's remember staging is almost always less than the cost of not staging so it really isn't an expensive process, it just is different than what the HGTV shows lead you to believe.

When you see that a four-bedroom home was staged for around $1500 including rental furniture, I really wonder where they rent from because their pricing isn't always realistic. Furthermore, nowhere in the total cost is the fee for staging indicated. Where is the labor cost?! There is always a labor fee and it can be very misleading for potential clients. When they think they can have their home completed for that same above price only to find that it is double or more because HGTV's pricing on rentals was not correct, that leaves a bad taste in a client's mouth and creates a false hope for home sellers.

Please beware when watching any of these shows that in real life there is always a fee for a Professional Home Stager to actually do the staging work. Unlike the show, generally the homeowner does not participate unless they want to. Most want to pay someone to have it completed while they spend their time on other tasks. The fee of the actual staging labor is made up of transportation for sometimes multiple trips, time to select accessories and rental furniture, the actual design creation, actual staging of all items, de-staging and removal of all accessories that belong to the Home Stager. A professional stager spends much of their staging time lifting, pushing, pulling, hanging, carrying as well as the creative process to put it all together which makes your home sparkle.

Gone are the days you could simply put a listing on the market and receive multiple offers in hours. But even with this crazy market homes are still selling IF they are (a) priced correctly and (b) look their absolute best. You and your real Estate agent can set the fair price based on the comparable homes being sold in your area and the price they are fetching.

Making a home look it's very best is where home staging comes into play. Often for a small investment a seller can see huge returns in a short period of time. A good example is retail store windows that draw customers in with captivating visual marketing followed up by inviting, and even inspiring visual marketing inside a store. It really is no different when selling a home. Every home should look its very best from the curb to the back yard. Homes should look warm, inviting and inspire an air of "house pride" winning over the hearts of home shopping public.

Today more then ever it is imperative that all homes listed for sale look their absolute best, otherwise you run the risk of a home sitting on the market month after month while the asking price continues to drop ever lower. Here are 10 reasons you should hire a professional home stager to help stage your home and get that home sold!

1. You Will Make More Money. U.S. Housing and Urban Development reports that a staged home will sell, on average, 17% higher than an un-staged home. It makes more then cents it makes real money to stage a home.

2. Your House Will Sell Faster which = Less Headaches and Hassle. The New York Village Voice reported that the average number of days an un-staged home is on the market is 30.9 versus 13.9 for a staged home.

3. The Cost of Staging Doesn't Cost A Dime. In a 2003 Home Gain Survey of over 2000 Realtors, it was discovered that sellers who spent up to $1000 staging their home recovered almost 200% of the cost in the sale of their home.

4. Most Home Sellers Can not View Their House Objectively. If you can't see objectively, you can't "package" effectively. Have a staging professional get your home into its most advantageous condition for showing.

5. Less Guesswork and "Do It Yourself". A professional home stager can manage your projects from start to finish. Or, they can give you a detailed enough report based on their extensive knowledge and training to have you "do it yourself".

6. Only 10% of Home buyers Can Visualize the Potential of a Home. That's why staging a home is critical! You don't want the advantages of your home overlooked and left up to the buyer's imagination.

7. The Longer Your Home is on the Market, the Lower the Price Will Be, so STAGE FIRST! According to a National Association of Realtors survey, homes that sold after 4 weeks on the market sold for 6% less then ones within the first 4 weeks! Don't be in a position where you have to lower your price...have your house staged.

8. The Money You Make May Be TAX FREE! Take advantage of a possible tax-free capital gain by getting every dollar possible!

9. Leaving Your House in "AS IS" Condition Will Help Sell the Competition. Right now the number of homes for sale on the market is at a record high. Competition is stiff and buyers have very high expectations. Successful agents know that the key to selling competing is professional staging.

10. You Can Relax. You will have the satisfaction of knowing you have done absolutely everything
possible to affect a quick sale of your most valuable commodity and for top dollar!

Home Staging - Professional Service Slashes Time and Increases Profit

It's time to put your home on the market. You've hired a real estate agent. You've signed all the papers. You've been given the typical remarks about keeping your home neat and ready for potential buyers. And now you wait. Or do you?

Instead of waiting the typical 4+ months and then taking a reduced price on your home, why not invest in a home staging professional! Doing so will drastically decrease the amount of time your home spends on the market - up to 20 times faster - as well as increase the amount you get for your home - six percent over listing is typical!

What is Home Staging?

Home staging is simply the art of preparing your home for sale. Basically, there are five steps to home staging:

- Cleaning

- Getting rid of clutter

- Depersonalizing

- Decorating and accessorizing

- Maintaining

In days gone by, home staging consisted of advice by your real estate agent to "clean up" and "de-clutter." If you had a savvy agent, you may have even been told to add fresh flowers or fresh linens in the bathroom. However, being a real estate professional is not the same thing as being a design professional.

Professional home stagers know exactly what to do to create the right atmosphere. They not only tell you to de-clutter, but know exactly what to do in order to create a clutter free environment. They can walk through your home and know immediately if you need to remove or rearrange furniture. With just a quick visit, they can tell you what will enhance your homes curb appeal.

Why Does Home Staging Matter?

When it comes to sales, first impressions are everything. A potential homebuyer will often decide to enter a home based on the outside appearance. And once inside, they make up their mind about a home within about 10 seconds. This means that you have 10 seconds to create an atmosphere that entices the imagination and creates a longing in the buyer.

Home staging is the way to create that desire and longing. Through home staging, you can put your home's best foot forward.

Professional or Do-It-Yourself?

Professional home staging services are not free and many people believe that they can save money by doing it themselves. However, there are many pitfalls to the "do-it-yourself" mentality.

1. You obviously like the look of your home or you wouldn't have created it, right? Making changes can be downright difficult when you love your things and feel that your home is comfortable "as is." A professional can help you step back and see your home in the same way that a potential buyer will see it. They help you take yourself out of the home so that the homebuyers can see themselves in it!

2. What do you know about color, lighting, and traffic flow? If you are like most people, you know very little about these things. Although the colors or the traffic pattern worked for you and your family, a professional can see issues that will keep your home from having that "instant appeal." Remember, buyers are not buying "your" house - they are buying "their" house!

3. Can you walk through your home and instantly list 10 inexpensive ways to increase the value of your home? Home stagers can. They know how to make the changes in a timely manner so that you can get your home on the market quickly. They view your home from the buyer's point of view and can tell you what to store, what to keep, what to move, and what will add that pizzazz that will make your home sell.

Is Home Staging Cost Effective?

One of the most important things you can do to sell your home quickly and for the highest possible price is to "stage" it. The proof is in the pudding:

- According to the National Association of Realtors, for every dollar sellers put into staging, they get $4 back

- The average increase over the listing price is 6.32%. On a $500,000 house, that is nearly $32,000 and will more than pay for your professional real estate agent! Think of home staging as a way to get your real estate agent for free!

A real estate professional has the knowledge, experience, and qualifications to sell your home. A home stager has the knowledge, experience, and qualifications to prepare your home for the sale. Although professional services are not free, the cost of the services more than exceeds the benefits received!

My Republican Wife and the Communist Cat

This past Saturday, MRW and I headed down to our local PetSmart with the intention of adding a new member to our family. We were motivated by my incessant shouting of “I WANT A KITTY!” and MRW’s relationship with a CAWS volunteer (who informed her of the adoption fair).
The night before we purchased some of the basics – litter box, litter, food, scraching post et al. and waited until the next day to make our decision.
Well, sure enough, we looked at a few of the kittens and cats that CAWS had available and finally decided on a beautiful 4 year old Russian Blue.  He has quite the personality and is a talker, but we are very happy with our decision.

Being a Russian Blue, we naturally racked our brains to come up with an appropriate name. Sure enough, MRW stumbled upon the name “Ruski” after much soul searching between the both of us. In short, it appears that our bipartisan marriage has produced an evil commie-pinko cat with socialist sympathies, and (I am sure) breaks the political power stalemate that has existed for the past year.
In all seriousness, though, please consider adopting from CAWS – they are a no-kill group that fosters animals until they can find a permanent home.  Ruski was a great find and our decision was not an easy one thanks to so many well adjusted animals. to learn more about CAWS, visit www.caws.org and learn how to make a donation.

Small Business Network Security With Unified Threat Management Appliances

Many small and medium sized businesses operate a network and understand the importance of establishing a firewall, to prevent attacks from outside and to stop undesirables sending valuable company data out through the gateway.
Many businesses do not!
According to a leading security report, 13% of small businesses operating a network have NO protection.
Approximately, one-third uses a home edition security product or a free trial or assessment solution.
In short, almost half of small businesses do not have any effective protection against external attack.
Part of this malaise with small businesses is not due to ignorance, but a lack of the impending certainty of loss; financial loss, data loss, reputation loss.
There are broadly two types of security threat facing any business network whether a small retail operation or a Fortune 500 enterprise.
Firstly, there are the specific attacks which are launched against an individual target or small, select group of targets. Typically, these attacks are launched against the larger companies or those with a particular item of value, such as a bank or financial entity. It is unlikely that a small company is going to be of much interest to criminals who have a specific target in mind, so it makes no sense to worry too much about implementing security against such threats, and in any event it is probably going to be out of the budget for most small businesses.
It is the second general set of threats which are of most concern for small businesses, and these are the general attacks primarily using the web, and particularly the web traffic running in and out of your network. We are referring to malware, viruses, spam, Trojans and the generally nasty pieces of code which can hide behind internet traffic and can infect a network simply by someone surfing to a Twitter account and allowing a mouse to hover over a link (as recently happened last month and currently LinkedIn vulnerabilities are being exploited).
In this instance, what is needed is security which can act as a firewall, allowing access through the gateway to traffic and users you select, but there is more than this. Aside from inspecting network traffic, there is a need for anti-virus to weed out the malware, and because malware can be distributed by a user clicking on a URL in an email, there needs to be anti-spam capability too.
The Solution: Unified Threat Management Appliance (UTM)
One reason why so many small and medium sized businesses have neglected their network security is because of the complexity and cost associated with establishing different solutions for different problems.
For instance, one box acted as a firewall, another as a router (or wireless router) to connect the network to the rest of the cloud, another box performed anti-virus, yet another dealt with anti-spam and then there was the need for a solution to handle the load of traffic through these boxes and through the gateway (load balancing).
In short, it was complicated, expensive and very difficult to manage it all.
Unified Threat Management appliances did away with the need for all these "point" solutions and instead, integrated them into a single, unified solution. With a UTM solution, all you have to worry about is one box, with one set of management issues, one vendor to deal with and one support contract but most of all, the cost of a UTM solution is clearly within the budget for even the smallest of small businesses.

Business Networking - Is It an Art or a Science?

But first let's define Business Networking and then discuss what it is and what it is not.

Wikipedia defines Business Networking as a "socioeconomic activity by which groups of like-minded business people recognize, create, or act upon business opportunities".

Business Networking organizations have created models of referral networking activities, and teach their members, that when followed, these models will allow the business person to discover and build new business relationships which will result in more business referral opportunities.

However, these activities will not give rise to generating business opportunities without the participant successfully building relationships with other participants deep enough where trust is established. The process required before trust can be established is often referred to as the Know Me, Like Me, Trust Me Learning Curve.

Know Me, Like Me, Trust Me.

Like any process, it's a series of steps where business professionals take the time to get to Know, Like and Trust others before feeling comfortable referring their best clients to.

The Know Me, Like Me, Trust Me Learning Curve takes time to complete. Therefore, Business Networking activities are designed to shorten that learning curve time thus maximizing the participant's rate of return on invested time.

So how does this referral marketing methodology work?

First, they need to Know you.

It may seem obvious, but people have to Know you exist before they'll do business with you. They need to be keenly aware of the product and services that you offer. More importantly, they need to understand what makes you and the way you render your services different from your competitors.

Not only must other business professionals be aware of you and your business, but they need to Know what makes you different. They need to answer the question for themselves, "Why should I use you over your competition?"

Secondly, they need to Like you.

Your prospective referral sources need to answer the question, "Would I feel comfortable working with this person?" Unfortunately, many people judge a book by its cover. Therefore, a professional appearance is paramount. Even the roofer, plumber, etc needs to be aware of this when they are out in public doing their business networking activities. Enhancing your appearance will only increase the number of folks who are willing to get to know you better.

But your appearance is only one small piece of getting people to Like you. What you say and how you say it will play a large role in your likability. People are always watching you even when you are not speaking directly to them. Your attitude will determine your altitude in business. People naturally gravitate to likeable people. Always be warm and genuine and folks will see someone they want to get to Know better because they are starting to Like you.

The third step in the learning curve is Trust.

Once someone Knows you exist, recognizing what you offer is different and finds you Likable to the point where they are comfortable speaking with you, it's time to establish Trust. Many times in the Business Networking environment, the Trust factor is not established without at least a small leap of faith.

A cautious potential referral source may engage your services for them personally before referring you to others. This is called a First Degree Referral. The First Degree Referral is a lower risk proposition than referring you to their clients (i.e. a Second Degree Referral).

This first referral will either establish Trust or it won't. Most of that will be up to you.

So, is Business Networking an art or a science?

So it can be argued, that Business Networking is both an art and a science. The art is successfully making and developing relationships which is hinged upon successfully navigating the Know Me, Like Me, Trust Me Learning Curve.

The science is creating the best or optimized environment for the Know Me, Like Me, Trust Me process to successfully take place and maximizing the desired outcomes as efficiently and quickly as possible.

From both respects, one thing is clear. People are apt to only do business with people and organizations that they Know, Like and Trust. Business Professionals who learn how to effectively and efficiently use Business Networking as the center piece of their marketing plan will be rewarded the most.

Networking Success Tip - Develop a Business Networking Plan

You've made your choice. You've decided to use business networking as a way of "getting" more clients, more referrals and more sales.
What are you "getting" yourself into?
You're getting yourself into a process where relationship building comes first and business building follows.
Networking is the most effective face-to-face business building tool in existence.
Business networking is all about establishing and maintaining relationships that foster trust, friendship and referrals.
A referral is the act of introducing someone you trust to someone you care about.
People buy from people that they like and trust. People give referrals to people they like and they trust.
Those who are ready, willing, and able to give referral leads want to know that you can be counted upon, and that you can be trusted to "deliver as promised."
Now you know everything about networking there is to know.
You're ready to jump in. You're ready to make the most of every business and social networking opportunity.
You load yourself up with your business cards. You create flyers and brochures to serve as handouts. You practice your introductory "elevator" speech.
You get in your car. You drive to the meeting location. You enter the gathering. You begin to follow your predetermined networking plan.
What is your business networking plan? What goals are included in your plan?
Whether you network to promote your business, get referrals or build a database, you must have goals. You must have a plan.
What is your networking plan? Is it written out?
You may ask, "Why do I need a written plan?"
After all---you may want to go to the event and just "schmooze." (Schmooze is a technical term for friendly communication in a group setting).
The "all I want to do is schmooze a little" mindset is the companion piece to the selling strategy entitled, "I'll just go into the appointment and see what happens."
Effective business networking, and effective selling, can certainly include some "schmoozing." However, any expectation of consistent networking or sales results without a well-defined strategy falls into the category of wishful thinking.
Your networking goals should be clearly defined within your overall marketing strategy.
If you're like most business people, you don't have a marketing strategy. Most business people "wing it."
Your networking strategy is clarified in your marketing plan. A written business plan includes a marketing plan component.
A well written business plan contains the goals and fully researched projections for your business. It is against these goals and projections that you measure your business successes and shortcomings.
If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.
I believe that every business should have a written business plan. If you've not yet gotten around to the task of developing a full business plan, you can still develop a simple, stand-alone marketing plan, one that places the spotlight on business networking, on a single sheet of paper in an hour or less.
Decide on your networking strategy. Make the strategy simple, e.g. collecting names for your newsletter database.
Decide on your networking goals. An example of a networking goal might be, "Out of the people I talk to at the networking event, I will find three who have an interest in receiving my newsletter."
Please keep in mind that a well conceived marketing strategy does not equate to a business "quick fix." As with any marketing or advertising plan you must have patience. Effective marketing is a process, not an outcome.
If you don't have a networking plan, you're not alone. 9 out of 10 of my clients ask for some assistance in formulating both a "do-able" networking strategy and an effective introductory "elevator" speech.
If you are interested in receiving a set of questions that will make it easier to complete your simple marketing plan project, please go to the resources section of the BusinessSuccessBuilder.com website and download your complimentary copy of "A Simple Plan."
Networking Success Tip from Ike - Write out your networking plan. Make your goals accomplishable. Commit to your plan and follow it.