They may not be the oldest profession in the world, but home stagers go back a long way among those who help make houses marketable for sale.
“Staging is as big in Europe as it is in the U.S., and in fact was started in Switzerland,” said Kahai Tate, who owns Aloha Staging of Pleasanton. “It’s a proven way to get more prospective buyers coming through your home and for bringing in top offers.”
Tate and Lisa Warren and Cyndi Snyder, who operate another staging company called Time for a Change, work with local Realtors and hundreds of homeowners to improve the insides and outsides of houses before they go on the market. Although they’re not just like model homes when finished, they’re as close as 10- and 20-year old homes can get to perfection, which buyers in today’s tightening market conditions prefer.
Realtors call stagers after they’ve met with clients and discussed a time to put their home on the market. Only a few are in marketable condition when the agent signs the sales contract, and some need weeks of repairs and redecorating before they’re ready.
“We try to be honest with people when a Realtor asks us to look at a home being placed on the market,” Warren said. “We tell them it’s all about presentation and what makes each room look best, from coming through the front door to checking out the bathrooms. We want to make the home look inviting, neutral and friendly.”
Using stagers is a benefit to Realtors, who can avoid the problem of telling homeowners that their home “needs work,” Warren said, “but it also leaves us with the challenge of dealing with sensitivities. People who have lived in their home for many years don’t like hearing that it’s too cluttered or that their kitchens and bathrooms are terribly dated. We try to deal with those concerns in a gentle way.”
Tate trained under Barb Schwarz, the chief executive and founder of the Web site StagedHomes.com, who is considered the country’s leading authority on home staging. She has appeared on a number of television shows to talk about staging, including a recent interview on ABC’s “20/20.”
“Remember,” Schwarz said, “The way you live in your home and how it should look when you sell it are two different things.”
Tate agreed. She said homeowners should look at empty homes where the seller has moved out to see for themselves how important furniture is to a buyer. Developers such as Greenbriar Homes and Ponderosa spend several hundred thousand dollars to creatively furnish their model homes. Smaller builders may call Tate or Time for a Change, who will spend much less in outfitting an empty home. Those living in their homes and now wanting to sell them will spend a lot less, although stagers charge from $300 to $3,000, depending on the work that has to be done.
Unlike developers, stagers seldom bring in new furniture, although they’re not reluctant to move a lot of what’s there to the garage or closets. Photos of the family and collections gathered from global trips are usually the first to go, followed by what stagers view as clutter that won’t appeal to buyers.
Tate said her technique is always to “honor” every home because what she might see as eyesores are often valued cherished furnishings by those who have put them there.
“A chair that grandmother once used or a large picture on an entry wall that interferes with a smooth presentation to the home have to be moved, but only after I tell the homeowner how beautiful and valuable they are, and that the move will be only temporary,” Tate said.
“It’s important that as a stager I don’t come in and shake my head in disbelief,” she added. “I always find positive things to say and compliment the owners on their good taste. Then I get rid of it.”
Odors are often major turn-offs for prospective buyers, especially pet odors or those from ethnic cooking. She touts a product called PURE Air, which she said is available only through a special Web site for stagers. Instead of covering up smells, it breaks them up.
Warren also warns against using commercially-available air fresheners, which often leave their own odors that cause allergies. On a positive note, Warren said tobacco smells, which used to plague buyers visiting a smoker’s home, seem largely gone.
“Either smokers are going outdoors or there just are very few of them,” she said. “It’s just not a problem anymore.”
Warren and her partner Cyndi Snyder co-chaired the decorations committee for an eighth grade promotions dance at Harvest Park Middle School four years ago when their daughters, now seniors at Amador Valley High School, attended. They found that they both liked decorating and home furnishings and decided to pool their talents to start Time for a Change. Warren keeps plants and room accessories at her home and Snyder keeps other furnishings at hers, which they use as substitutes in or add to homes they are preparing for sale. Working afternoons and evenings and many weekends, they also said their work requires “very understanding husbands who don’t object to garages and backyards filled with stagers’ materials.
Tate, whose husband is managing director for the Merrill Lynch office in Menlo Park and lends a hand and much support, often takes her daughter, Remy, 6, a kindergartner at Hearst Elementary School, and preschooler son Ryder, 4, on her staging trips. They help her move lighter items around and even plant flowers to spruce up the front yard of homes she’s handling.
“My job is to make a home inviting to prospective buyers from the front curb and in every room inside, to make it look more spacious than it really is, and to show prospects that it’s ready to be lived in without requiring any work or additional expense.
“I had to persuade one woman to repaint a light pink living room and hallway that just didn’t look inviting,” Tate added. “When she got four offers on the house, with everyone saying how much they liked the colors of those rooms, colors that I had chosen, that was satisfying.”
