Buying or selling your home can be one of the biggest financial decisions of your life. I sat down with Brandon Ware, real estate broker, founding partner of The Signature Realtor Group and the top sales representative for Private Service Realty Ltd., to ask about the value of home staging.
Brandon has been selling residential real estate in Toronto for the past 9 years and is passionate about his business and helping clients invest with solid market knowledge. His brokerage is located in the heart of King West and during the wee hours of the night a
nd early morning when he?s not working, he loves chilling with his wife, playing Ultimate Frisbee and walking his pup. Brandon works with Phillip Costello of Principle Staging and Duncan Scott of The Scotts Group to enhance the aesthetics of his listings and ensure they sell for premium prices in short periods of time.
Nicola:
What is home staging?
Brandon:
Home Staging is dressing a home to sell. ?It?s the lipstick, the mascara. It?s highlighting the positive features and downplaying the negatives. An appropriate analogy might be prom night, or a big date. You want to choose the dress, the lipstick, and the hair to compliment all of your best features. You don?t want your date to see any of the negatives. You want to evoke that dreamy atmosphere.
That?s really what staging is all about: creating the perfect abode and the perfect atmosphere for the buyer to fall in love when they walk in the door.
Nicola:
What degrees of home staging are there? Can you describe what the least to the most amount of work might look like?
Brandon:
There aren?t hard and fast rules when it comes to degrees of staging. But the amount of time and money you put in could range from a quick IKEA run for some plants and light fixtures, all the way to Italinteriors on King East for custom faucets and finishes. It could entail hiring a professional stager for a complete overhaul where you?re replacing all the furniture or renting a whole new set of pieces for a vacant property.
Nicola:
How important is home staging in the selling process?
Brandon:
In my experience it is of paramount importance. The challenge with real estate is that you can?t sell a home twice ? once staged, once unstaged ? to illustrate the value that it brings. But statistically speaking, staged homes sell about 2-3 times faster and for more money than unstaged homes.
Over 95% of buyers start their search online. They?re not even going to consider going to see a home if they don?t like the photos. So right off the bat, without staging to produce good photographs online, you?ve lost a potential buyer.
Once you get buyers to your door, staging plays another huge role. A few people call it the 30-second rule; I call it the 10-second rule. It?s that instinctual, visceral response that people have when they walk in the front door. You have to win people over immediately. When you create the illusion of the ideal home, it can create a sense of urgency in the buyer to act incredibly quickly to purchase that ideal home before someone else does.
So it?s this domino effect of factors that leads to a quick sale for a great price. Staging really affects the mindset of the buyer.
Nicola:
Part of your job involves viewing properties and making suggestions to your clients about which ones to see. Does staging a property influence whether or not you will recommend it to your clients?
Brandon:
Without a doubt. Contrary to popular belief, realtors are people too! I can see beyond the dressing, but that doesn?t mean that subconsciously I?m not influenced by a home that shows very well. If I am really impressed by the home, there?s no question that I?m going to get excited about it and tell my clients.?
SOLD: Two-storey, 1353 sq ft loft in King West
Check back soon for PART 2.
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