Professionals set the stage for quick home sales

Headquartered in Mobile, Ala., Showhomes has been staging homes nationally for 20 years.  But it practices a more extreme form. The company moves one of its home managers — along with the manager's family and possessions — into a vacant home. Then the home manager stays until the listed home is sold and closes.

Professional golfer Jeff Johnson and his wife, Rebecca, were uncertain where they wanted to live when they moved their family to Charlotte, N.C., late last year, so they signed up with Showhomes to be ‘home managers.’  They are already in their fourth home.

“All three of their previous homes sold for 94 to 97 percent of their list price," according to Lucy Henner, director of marketing for Showhomes. And they sold within weeks of the Johnsons moving in.

“It was too easy,” says Tina Seitz, who along with her husband recently sold a spec home they owned in the Scottsdale, Ariz., area soon after contracting with Showhomes.

“It would have cost us a fortune to stage it with rented furniture," said Seitz. "The quality was much better with the home manager living there—she took an obvious pride in the way our house looked.”

The Seitz’ house was on the market for 90 days but sold 10 days after the Showhomes home manager moved in.

However you approach the concept of staging, you should study a stager’s sample portfolio of ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures and ask for references before engaging one, according to Jim Kinney, president of Rubloff Residential Properties in Chicago. It's also a good idea to compare fees, he said. 

While Corken and Vredevoogd Combs cover at least some of their clients’ staging costs, homeowners typically pay for the service themselves, often before engaging a real estate agent. Staging fees can range from a few hundred dollars to prepare a detailed analysis and to-do list for the homeowner to several thousand dollars to hire the stager to orchestrate whatever needs to be done. Renting furniture adds to the expense.

The cost varies quite a bit by region, says Schwarz. On the West Coast, where staging originated, fees typically range from $1,500 to $3,000 depending on the size of the project, she says. In New York, the range is $2,500 to $5,000. For the Midwest, figure $750 to $1,800. 

Schwarz estimates that about 28 percent of homes for sale nationwide are staged, which means staging still offers a way of distinguishing one property from the next. 

“Just do not look at it as an excuse to defend an unrealistic price,” warns Kinney.

Pricing a home appropriately remains the best strategy when selling.  The purpose of staging is to make sure buyers can literally see that the price is right.

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