Entrepreneur Magazine recently rated the home staging career as one of the best businesses to get involved with for coming years. And with good reason. This market is hot right now! With the recent down turn of the real estate market, people need to sell their homes – and fast. And that’s where a stager comes in.
The need for a home staging trainingis needed in for sale by owner homes as well as professionally listed homes and if you have a flair for decorating, or just a creative bone that needs to be tapped you are the perfect person to take advantage of this opportunity.
Setting up a home staging business is quite simple because you do not require a great deal of overhead, or start up costs. In fact, you can run the business out of your own home and during the hours you choose. Most people require the services of a home stager in the evenings or on weekends which means that you can even work part time while you’re getting started and you don’t have to give up the security of your full time pay cheque for now.
Marketing is a piece of cake right now because with the abundance of design shows, house flipping shows and even shows dedicated to property staging on television right now, your potential customers are already aware that they need your services. And they do. In order to sell a property fast and for the highest profit in a slow real estate market, their property needs to stand out to potential buyers which it can if you use your talents and skills to stage it properly.
Take advantage of this hot time to get your home staging business up and running. You don’t want to miss a great opportunity to be your own boss, work from home and do something that you will love and that will excited you every day!
By Karen Schaefer, Founder of Simple Appeal, Inc. and APSD – The Association of Property Scene Designers. To learn more about staging, marketing and selling houses quickly go to http://apsdmembers.com/homestager/directoffer.html for a free 30 day trial.
About the author:
By Karen Schaefer, Founder of Simple Appeal, Inc. and APSD – The Association of Property Scene Designers. Through Karen, with her best home staging training strategies, you can learn more about staging, marketing, selling houses quickly and make property buyers swoon over your home stager training.
Millions of homes are for sale right now and owners are desperate to sell, yet are continually given advice leading them to excessively longer days on market and ultimately lower prices.
“In a buyers market, sellers have to utilize every powerful tool they can to sell their home as fast as possible and for the best price,” says Karen Schaefer, national real estate sales expert. “Unfortunately, sellers are subject to antiquated direction that immediately tips off the potential buyers that they are being “sold” which often stops the sale on the spot.”
Karen Schaefer will tell your audience:
1) The 3 worst things you can do when trying to sell your home-that nearly every realtor recommends doing!
2) How to get everyone that looks at your house to fall in love with it on the spot and forget about the other 25 they looked at that day.
3) Making a room by room checklist to guarantee your home shows perfectly every time.
4) Give it a name! Giving your buyer a reason to name your house so they start to remember it immediately
5) Letting your buyer laugh until they cry with delight as they pull back a shower curtain, open a vanity drawer and peek into the linen closet—with a surprise that makes your home unforgettable.
Karen Schaefer, Founder of Simple Appeal, Inc. the Premier Nationwide Staging and Design Company and author of The 5 Proven Steps to Selling Your Houses in any Real Estate Market (even a lousy one) has helped thousands of investors, builders, sellers and agents sell their houses immediately. Karen speaks nationwide, consults in multiple markets and instructs other investors and designers on the key concepts to selling properties fast.
Karen Schaefer is an entertaining and informative interviewee. To interview her call 719-244-3420
About the author:
By Karen Schaefer, Founder of Simple Appeal, Inc. and APSD – The Association of Property Scene Designers. To learn more about home staging, marketing houses and selling houses quickly go to www.OnLineStagingTraining.com for a free 30 day trial.
Everyone who has ever walked through an open house knows that having a clean house is extremely important if you want to make the sale. But is it everything? The simple answer is no. There is much more involved in getting your home ready for a successful sale, than simply cleaning it. The unfortunate fact is that far too many home sellers fail to realize this right away.
I don’t want to understate the importance of a clean and shiny house, because obviously a dirty house with cob webs in the corners and toothpaste residue in the sinks is not going to appeal to buyers. However, cleaning your house should be the bare minimum that you do to get it ready for sale.
Once you are finished scrubbing and polishing, it’s time to go beyond the gleam. A shiny clean space – while it looks nice – is not enough to sell your property. That’s where home staging comes in. At Simple Appeal (www.simpleappeal.com) we take your house from nice to sensational by using simple staging techniques that appeal to a buyer on an emotional level. A clean and shiny house will appeal to a buyer on a logical level. They may think, “Wow this is a really nicely kept house.” But you want more than that. With a little strategic home staging, you will have buyers envisioning their child’s next birthday party in the kitchen, Christmas dinner in the dining room and a family barbeque in the back yard.
Appealing to a buyer on an emotional level, so that they can picture themselves in your home, living their life – is what will sell your home. At Simple Appeal, we help you go beyond the surface by creating Pockets of Emotion that keep a buyer thinking of your home long after they leave it. Instead of thinking of your home as one of the dozens of clean homes they saw that day, they will remember it as the house that they could picture themselves living in.
About the author:
By Karen Schaefer, Founder of Simple Appeal, Inc. and APSD – The Association of Property Scene Designers. To learn more about staging houses, marketing and selling houses quickly go to www.5stepselling.comfor more info on Karen Schaefer’s “5 Proven Steps to Selling Your Real Estate in 1/2 the Time at Full Market Value”
Starting a home based business can be full of challenges and setbacks, but the rewards are immeasurable. In today’s economy, more and more women go everyday to jobs that they aren’t passionate about just to pay the bills, and pay for the daycare that they would rather do without. Life should be about more than just making ends meet. You should love what you do every day and have the opportunity to spend quality time with your family, instead of endless hours slaving away.
What if I told you that you could have it all? You might not believe me! Because as women, we are taught that we must sacrifice something. Well don’t believe it! By setting up your own property design business, you can have a career that you are passionate about, putting you in the driver’s seat of your career, and giving yourself the opportunity to spend more time with your family.
Home staging is an industry that is on the verge of exploding because of the slowing real estate industry. And there has never been a better time for women to get involved with it. In order to make a home stand out and sell it in this tough market, it has to appeal to a buyer’s emotions. And this is where a professional stager comes in. At APSD (www.APSDMembers.com) our program for Property Designers teaches you how to create Pockets of Emotion™ that will sell your clients homes.
Naturally women have an eye for what looks good and what will appeal to buyers on an emotional level. As a Property Designer, you will have the opportunity to help other people sell their homes and reach their goals while realizing your own dreams by finally living the life that you deserve.
About the author:
By Karen Schaefer, Founder of Simple Appeal, Inc. and APSD – The Association of Property Scene Designers. With Karen, you can learn more about home staging, home marketing and selling houses quickly. www.OnLineStagingTraining.com shows you just how to do home selling to people buying properties.
In the 2005 best seller Brand Sense, author Martin Lindstrom says that as much as 83% of all marketing communication is limited to sight and sound. In the real estate business most of the marketing communication is done by sight. Ads placed in local newspapers, the MLS, and post cards announcing open houses etc
However, the most important marketing communication happens when prospective buyer crosses the threshold of a house.
This is very similar to the experience a shopper has when entering a store for the first time. It is at that point, that first impression, where you must use emotions as the media for your message.
The more senses you appeal to, the more dramatic the emotional response will be. I am not talking here of the old trick of baking cookies to get that smell throughout the house. Everyone likes it, but they know the trick so now, it appeals to their logic versus their emotion. But what if you had a fresh basket of lavender at the front door just as they came in? For some reason, which they can’t even articulate, they feel welcome. It might give them a cozy feeling of when they were a child going to their grandmothers home (because we all remember the lavender sachets grandma had in her drawer). It feels right and it completely appeals to their senses, not their logic.
When staging a home for a retail sale, it is vital to appeal to as many senses as possible. For that reason I use a variety of what I refer to as “Pockets of Emotion” throughout the house. These are those moments in a home that surprise you and make you laugh, give you pause while enjoying a fond memory, or appeal to your senses on such a high level that often times, you can’t even describe why it feels so good-it just does. I strategically place these “Pockets of Emotion” to suggest that “yes this is a perfect child’s room, because my child is playing right now” or “this is a great kitchen for our family holiday baking projects”. These Pockets of Emotion are designed to truly engage all the senses, not just the sense of sight.
In addition I use the sense of hearing when ever possible. If the home is in a high traffic zone, I may have light music playing in the background to take the focus away from the outside noise. Another great sense of sound is a fountain bubbling and birds chirping (and yes, I know how to make that happen at just the right moment!).
When I stage a house, you will find that I use not merely the senses of sight, smell, and hearing but of touch as well. I love having people touch something as the feeling stays in their fingers then entire time they enjoy the home. It is also a great reason to have them remove their shoes, if you have really wonderful carpet, so they can feel it on their toes. I also use interesting and textured fabrics to draw people into a room. It is so interesting to watch people as they are drawn into a room and encouraged to reach out and touch a window treatment or pick up a pillow. It helps them to fall in love with the property and feel as though they are home.
As for the sense of taste, I have found it is always a good idea to put a tasty surprise where prospective buyers are sure to find it. I often will put a bowl of big beautiful apples in the refrigerator, so it’s a surprise when they open it-with a sign that says “An apple a day keeps the Doctor away-enjoy!” or even seasonal cookies or candy inside an intriguing container that it is so attractive you can’t help but take the lid off.
Remember the more senses you engage, the more emotional the response will be and because of that response the more memorable the experience. Your ability to reach a buyer with a truly memorable experience can be summed up in one word: “Unforgettable”
Often in the blink of an eye, a prospective buyer will a sense whether the environment they have just entered is authentic or not. They will be able to get “feel” if the property is right or wrong. It is my job to make sure that it always feels right and to give them the opportunity to fall in love with their new home, on the spot. When they fall in love-we know the house is sold.
At Simple Appeal we always say “Anyone can make your house pretty. We make your house SELL.” Our system consistently creates environments that appeal to all the senses and gives a genuine and authentic feeling that the buyer is really home.
About the author:
By Karen Schaefer, Founder of Simple Appeal, Inc. and APSD – The Association of Property Scene Designers. With Karen, you can learn more about staging, marketing and selling houses quickly. www.OnLineStagingTraining.com shows you just how to do home selling to people buying properties.
When it comes to marketing high end homes, you are dealing with an entirely different market then when you are flipping the average home. In order to attract the type of potential buyer that is in the market for a high end home, you need to get creative and start creating unique venues and events to peak their interest.
Instead of hosting a regular open house, host an event where people can come and mingle in the house while they are viewing the property. Not only will they be able to see the home and base an opinion on it, they will also be able to see the house in action. This is the ultimate in home staging because you are actually staging and running an entire event, instead of simply setting the stage.
The type of event you host in the home will depend largely on the home and the market. In high end homes that feature gourmet kitchens, invite a guest chef to come and showcase their talents. The chef can show off their cooking abilities in the gourmet and functional kitchen, while guests experience a free tasting of the culinary delights while they view the home.
High end homes with extensive gardens, or outstanding landscaping could play host to a benefit fashion show, a private concert of a popular musician or even a garden tour. If the home boasts a wine cellar and large sitting rooms, a wine tasting event would be the perfect way to attract potential buyers.
The high end home buyer market is much smaller than the average market and potential buyers want to see a home for everything that it is and can be. It’s also a time for crucial networking. Perhaps people in attendance are not interested in the home, but no someone who might be. Create an interesting and unique venue to attract potential buyers to a high end home and you will appeal to the right customers.
About the author:
By Karen Schaefer, Founder of Simple Appeal, Inc. and APSD – The Association of Property Scene Designers. With Karen, you can learn more about staging houses, marketing houses and selling houses quickly. www.OnLineStagingTraining.com shows you just how to do home selling to people buying properties.
That is the question that you should always ask yourself if you are working on your home or investment property. I am continually amazed at how people will over fix and blow their budget on a home or investment property. Then, they expect to get that amount and more out of their house. The basic rule of thumb is to ask yourself two questions and the answers to these two questions are within the reaches of an expert home stager.
Will I make more money if I do this?
Will it help to sell my property faster?
The latter obviously, then results in more money due to less holding time.
These are just some of the things that you need to know for your home staging careers:
More often than not, in bread and butter homes, (your blue collar, working class neighborhood, of 3 beds, 2 baths and a garage), I will rarely change windows, carpet, counter tops, cabinets, appliances or bathroom vanities. Rather, I will stage it and give the staging items as a gift to the new owner or tenant. This always results in a greater quality tenant that treats my house with respect, stays longer, and thankfully, pays their rent on time. With a buyer, they become emotionally tied to the property because they like the “stuff.” They will play by all of your rules, including put down extra earnest money, get their financing quickly and close on time. All of this with effective staging.
Most people believe that staging involves heavy furniture, monthly rental costs and a high up front fee. Most people are correct. The Simple Appeal staging system however is enormously different. On average, a home staged by the Simple Appeal system will transact in less than 30 days in a market of average DOM of 122! There is hardly ever a sofa or a dining room set and as a matter of fact, I can’t ever even remember a time that a sofa actually sold a home. There is strength in simplicity. This is a phrase that I find myself saying over and over again when people ask me “where is the couch?” Of course they quickly forget that question when their property sells at lighting speed for about a fourth of the normal staging cost.
What is the niche? Really it is simplicity. A home is sold on emotional. Once you understand your customer, you can appeal to their emotion, and transact the property. That’s it really, just the psychology behind human nature. Of course those humans are quirky, so I would advise you to really know what is important to your customer versus thinking that you know. In other words, don’t rehab and stage the property as though you are going to live there or stay there. Rehab and stage it for your end user. Understanding the psychology behind staging property will save you thousands dollars and months of time.
To find out more about the psychology of buyers, visit www.SimpleAppeal.com
About the author:
By Karen Schaefer, Founder of Simple Appeal, Inc. and APSD – The Association of Property Scene Designers. To learn more about home stager training, marketing housesand selling houses quickly go to www.5stepselling.comfor more info on Karen Schaefer’s “5 Proven Steps to Selling Your Real Estate in 1/2 the Time at Full Market Value” and the best home stager school there is.
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