Modelmyhomestagingtv is THE place for all the staging information you need!  Share these exciting videos with your clients who NEED to know what staging is all about and how it can help them sell their homes FASTER and for MORE MONEY!!

Be sure to click the “like” button and PLEASE comment!  We want to know what you think of our videos and if you find them helpful!

Kimberly~Model My Home

• Vacant home is listed and vacant photos are taken and posted
• Realtor calls us for a staging quote
• Quote is accepted and we stage the home

Now what?

What should be next on that list is:

• New, staged photos are taken of the home
• Vacant photos are taken off the internet and replaced with staged photos

I know.  It is a lot of work.  But, if your client (or even YOU) paid for the home to be staged, it stands to reason that NEW photos should be placed online for all the buyers out there to see!  If the majority of people start their new home search online, it is doing your client a disservice NOT to put the staged photos online.  When the home is shown online as vacant, it is near impossible for people to see how the rooms are layed out and the size.

So, keeping this short…do your clients a BIG favor and get those staged pictures online for the world to see!!!!

See how much better that is??

~Kimberly~ Model My Home

Take a quick look at this video we’ve created to see why you NEED to have your vacant homes Professionally Staged!  Jana Uselton and her team with Model My Home will show you the process and what you need to know to get started!

Happy Staging!

Kimbery~Model My Home

1.  Got kids?  Get them involved!  Set up an area or a basket for your little ones to purge their own things.  If you set the tone, most kids will really get into sorting through their things, especially if you let them know that what they give up will go to a child who may not have as much as they have.  Really make it a positive thing for them and they will want to continue the tradition.

2. Set small, attainable goals.  Don’t try to de-clutter your home all in one day.  One room, even one closet at a time!  Set aside just an hour at a time if you need to.  If you are on a short time frame to get your home ready for listing, you might have to work a little harder, but you can still set and accomplish 1 small goal at a time.

3.  Keep it clean as you go!  It used to be, when I was spring cleaning, my house would look like a tornado went through it while I was purging and it was so overwhelming to get it all back in order.  Fortunately, I have learned from my own mistakes!  I use the “touch it once” rule.  Instead of making piles as I go, I designate areas for giving, trashing, & putting it in its place.  If it goes to any other room than the one I am in, it goes in a basket until I am done with that room.  Then I take that basket and put everything in its place immediately.  If it goes in the room I’m cleaning, I put it away right then and there. 

4.  Know what to keep and what to get rid of.  Have you ever seen the shows where they take super messy homes and in two days it is completely organized and clean?  Yeah…don’t we all wish.  But they do have that brilliant idea of sorting (which I mentioned above.)  Sorting is amazing.  Keep, toss, give.  The only three piles you need.  The key is….don’t go into the keep and give piles and take stuff out:-)

5.  Pre-pack anything you can.  If you are listing your home, here is a tip.  Whether you chose to hire a professional Home Stager or not, do yourself a favor and pre-pack!  Some of the things to pre-pack before you even start with staging: personal photos, anything that has your child’s name or your name on it, very personalized art, if you have a lot of knick knacks, pre-pack at least half of them.  Put all your mail away.  Don’t leave anything out or in the top of a drawer with your name or personal info on it.  If you have an abundance of extra sheets, blankets, or towels, pack some of them.  Your closets should be at about 70% capacity. 

6.  **staging tip** As you are pre-packing, set aside neutral accessories to use for staging your home.  Neutral wall art, vases, throw pillows, etc.  Once you have pre-packed, these items can be used by either your or your staging professional to stage your home for showings.

Happy Packing!!!

Kimberly, Model My Home

But for now….please check out our first piece!

New, this year, is our Home Staging Calculator, and yes….there’s an app for that!  Currently, if you are an iPhone, iPad, iTouch, etc. user, you can download this handy Home Staging Calculator for only $4.99!  Thankfully, for those of us non apple users, they are working on apps for Android and Blackberry phones as we speak!  If you want to use the calculator for free…well, there is a way to do that too! 

Click on this link to go to the Real Estate Staging Association page and use the calculator here!

You can use this Calculator to show your clients real-time numbers so they can see just how much staging their home will save them.   You will need to know a few things to calculate their savings. 

1.  Monthly mortgage amount  (example:  $1875.00  based on a $25000 home)

2.  Monthly carrying costs for the home  (ex: $1500)

3.  Months on Market:  average amount of months homes sit on market in your area  (ex: 9)

4.  Reduction on Months after staging:  Again, average for your area…in the DFW area it is on average 78% less time for vacants  (ex: 7)

5.  Staging fee:  You can get this estimate from your local stager (ex: $1250)

When you imput this information, it will calculate your savings! 

So, based on the exampled information, the cost to list this home unstaged is estimated at a staggering $30,375!  (if on market for the avg 9 months)

Estimated savings when the home is staged first…$22,375! 

 How great is that?  This is especially useful when you have a client who is a “numbers” person, or if they are unsure if the cost of staging is worth their investment. 

Of course WE all know it is, don’t we?  Right!  So, now you have a tool to help your client’s see for themselves!

Here at Model My Home, we use this calculator all the time to show our clients the potential they have for saving money.  In the long run, it is so much easier and cost-effective to spend less than the amount of a mortgage payment to stage the home when your savings is that enormous!  Who can argue with this logic?  Well, since most of the clients who call us, actually use us to stage their homes…it’s not them doing the arguing.

Hey there all my Realtor Friends!!!

I have a question, and I want you to be completely honest. Do you recommend staging to your clients?  Do you work with a stager?  Why or why not?

Here’s the why behind the questions.  I would like to know what works for you and what doesn’t.  You might be asking, “What difference does it make?” so let me explain. 

Here at MMH, we are brainstorming ways to step up the game.  We want to know what works for you so that we can keep doing it.  What doesn’t work for you so we can fix it.  What you need that you aren’t getting so that we can provide it!  See!  It’s all about YOU! 

In all serious-ness, we love and appreciate our Realtor friends, our Investor friends, our Builder friends, and our Homeowners.  And since our business is service based, we want to make sure that our services are SERVING YOU.  I figure the best way to give you what you need is to hear it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.

So, please, let me know.  I want it all….the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly!

Thanks!

Kimberly ~ MMH

HUH?  Have I lost you? 

Take a builder for example.  They understand the importance of creating an emotional response in a buyer.  Oh, yes they do, or they wouldn’t spend their hard-earned money on Model Homes!  But, guess what?  That price tag comes with a huge payoff.  Don’t believe me?  Just go out some afternoon and visit some models.  Pick any model, anywhere and I promise….you will have an emotion.  Love it or hate it, that home is going to make you FEEL something. 

When we are staging, we want that potential buyer to emotionally “live” in that HOME.  That house needs to become a HOME.  Let’s take a look.Here we have a model home we did for Holiday Builders and it’s a great house. Walking through the home we will visit what will be the little girl’s room, and had this builder not invested in our staging service, this is what their buyers would see:

Is it a great room?  Sure, but where is the emotion?  It’s just some walls, and that pink?  Your client might be thinking, baby girl will love the color, but what in the world would I do in here?

Well….let’s show them!Now!  I can see my little princess sleeping here!

Let’s take a room the family is going to use every single day…

It’s a great space, but walking through it, well, it’s just a room.  We need to create a response!

And, one more room for good measure:  First, it’s just empty.

And now, full of character.  You see, buying a home is hard.  It’s stressful and exciting, and scary, and amazing all at once!  Give your potential buyer something to be passionate about!  Give them something to get excited over!  You have a great product!  Market well, and showcase with style!

Visit our Facebook albums to see more of this home and many, many others!

Thanks for stopping by!

Kimberly Hartley, Model My Home

The reason I ask is….are they going to know what the room is by looking online?  Some of our biggest selling points for staging involve the World Wide Web!  Did you know that 90% of potential buyers are looking online before they EVER consider driving to view a home? And why not?  They have the world at their fingertips!  How many homes do buyers just pass up because the rooms look tiny? And that is assuming they can even tell what the room was designed for. 

In my experience of online home shopping, it is so frustrating to me to look at a picture of a big, empty room and move on to the next picture without ever figuring out what the room even was, much less would my furniture fit into it.

Take this room for example.

Do you know what room this is?  If you are diligent, you can probably look at the ceiling fan and guess from either a living area, a bedroom, or maybe a study??  Who can say?  If I am looking through pictures of this home online, how will I know?

Enter Staging.

Now, if this home is staged, I know exactly what the room is, and I get a great idea of its size.

Now, the picture I see if full of life!  It’s a gorgeous living area with natural lighting, beautiful floors, and I KNOW my furniture will fit in there with room to spare!

THIS is the magic of staging, far beyond the emotions that it draws out of buyers when they actually walk through the home.  There are some people who can walk into an empty room (or look at one online) and visualize everything they want to do with that space.  These are the few.  As a Home Staging Expert, I am looking to appeal to the masses, and I know that as an agent, an investor, or as a homeowner who is selling, you want to do the same.  Give yourself the BEST chance POSSIBLE to sell quickly! 

The way to do that is to appeal to those who have a difficult time visualizing empty space, because trust me when I say, if a person can visualize empty space, they will absolutely be able to overlook furnishings and accessories to see their things in the home.  But that mass group we talked about before?  Those who CAN’T see beyond the emptiness?  They NEED to see what can be done.  They NEED the visual. 

So why not give yourself or your client the BEST CHANCE to find their dream home?

Kimberly Hartley

 Model My Home

• Put away the personal effects.  Family photos, bills, etc.
• Keep the color neutral but not bland.  You can use neutral shades of greens, beige, and blues!
• Lighting: layers of light…no dark corners
• Open, clean, and smelling good! especially in the kitchen.
• Closets: clean and organized with your best things showing first.  Remember, you are not just selling a home, but a lifestyle.
• Fresh flowers for open houses is always a great idea, but keep it simple.

Some more tips included investing in a closet system.  One source they quoted on the show was easyclosets.com for affordable organizing.  Also an easy fix…matching hangars!  Great idea!

The main things to remember is making your home appealing to the broadest audience.  “Time and attention = good payoff!”  Great quote from the show!

Notice in the photo above the minimal decorations and clean counters.  Also notice my mistake in in the photo where I forgot to turn on the lights?  Good thing there is a lot of natural light flowing in the room:)  oopsi!

Now….up and at ‘em!     Pick a room and get to de-cluttering!                            

Kimberly Hartley

Model My Home