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All my friends have now been well-educated on the importance of staging in the selling of a house. A close friend of mine recently went to an Open House in her Townhouse complex and was shocked! (For the record, we do love it when neighbours drop by our Open Houses…so never feel ‘nosy’ about doing that!!)Anyway, I’ll let my friend take it from here…
I have watched enough of Krisztina’s videos and read enough of her Blogs to know that a well-staged, well-priced, well-marketed home will sell within 30 days and often sooner. So when a townhouse in our complex went on the market, I had to check it out. Turns out the home was a mirror image to the one I live in, but structure is where the similarity ends. (For the record, no – I don’t live in Oakville…and all names have been changed to protect the innocent!!) I’ll start at my first impression – the lawn. It’s only a postage stamp piece of Canada, but it managed to look somewhat unkempt. Enter. Dark hallway, folk-arty stuff all over the hallway walls and…wait for it…at the top of the half staircase leading to the main floor…a mangy looking cat! Ugh. And to top it off, just below a fridge
completely covered in notes, clutter and magnets – 2 cat food bowls, one with half eaten wet food still in it. I was blown away. I know Krisztina constantly harps on things like this – keep pets out of the house for showings, hide pet food bowls, don’t advertise that you have a pet etc. etc., but I never really believed an experienced Real Estate Agent would be so lackadaisical about an Open House. And this was a very experienced Agent hosting the Open House. As we looked around the open concept kitchen/living room/dining room, my jaw dropped. You couldn’t see the kitchen counters for the clutter, the living room was jammed with large furniture and the dining room was equally mis-sized for the space. I told the Agent I was from the complex and that in fact, our home had the exact same design. I expressed some shock regarding the owner’s décor and furniture choices. The Agent admitted to how dated the property looked, how it needed a new paint job and how over-sized the furniture was for the space. I kept my mouth shut. But my brain was reeling.. Why didn’t she edit the furniture, get a storage unit, lose the folk art and dried flowers, and most of all, why didn’t she paint? The person I was with said that perhaps the Agent was unable to convince the owner to make these changes. I can’t buy that for an instant. That is a huge part of the job for any experienced Agent. Short term pain for a quick selling cycle, and it’s over. Your best price is always within the first 2 weeks. As it stands, this home has been on the market for over 2 months. I’m sure they’ve had to drop the price. I jokingly said to my friend that the Agent should pay us to have showings in our home to see what in fact this townhouse could look like. Someone with the proper vision will end up getting a great deal on this property. It has fantastic potential. And it could have been sold already if the Agent had only pushed their Client harder to properly stage the home. Let it be a lesson for all potential homesellers!!! (And if Krisztina is your Agent, LISTEN TO HER!!!!!)