Showhomes St. Petersburg: Florida

Showhomes held its first annual Home Staging Certification class this past Thursday at a $1 million dollar Brentwood, TN mansion that has been on the market for some time. 35 Showhomes home stagers from markets all over the country descended for an intense Home Staging class taught by the Decorating and Staging Academy, Showhomes' advanced staging trainers.

The builder of this home graciously agreed to open the home for our group of talented stagers to transform and the results speak for themselves:

Dining room before (above) Master Bedroom before (Below)

Staging class prior to the hands-on

Sandra Racz, staging intructor from the Decorating and Staging Academy talks with over 30 Showhomes franchise owners and stagers. Talk about some strong opinions in one room! I learned a ton myself listening to so much talent.

Dining Room after (Above) and Living Room after (below)

Master Bedroom above and below - Showhomes stagers Carla Chiefetz from Princeton, NJ and Sandra Wicks from LA

This is an actual home for sale and all training aside, we staged this home in an unbelivable 3 hours (having 30 expereinced people helps.) Just in time - a Realtor showed up for a surprise showing as we put the finishing touches on the home followed by the listing agent and the builder and his wife.

The buyer spent over an hour in the home and at least 30 minutes in the master - it was calm and serene. This was their second showing and it made a real impact; we bet it sells!

This event was both educational for our group and clearly beneficial for the builder and Realtor - we're planning to make this an annual event in Nashville so stay tuned!

 

What do you think?

Thomas Scott

Showhomes

www.showhomes.com

We're recruiting: www.showhomesfranchise.com

 

 

 

 

 

Showhomes is a national franchise and we train new Home Stagers often. One of my favorite parts of training is a field exercize that clearly demonstrates the difference in a vacant home for sale and a home that is both occupied and fully staged. Our company's success is based on the premise that vacant homes are much harder to sell, take much longer to sell and sell for far less money.

For this exercise, we used two homes for sale in a suburb north of Nashville. Both homes are in the same neighborhood, are priced the same and have been on the market for the same amount of time. We carried a group of people through both houses and recorded their feedback from both homes:

House #1: vacant house:

Here is the positive and negative feedback from 5 people who visited this home:

Negative Feedback	Positive Feedback
weeds in planter	Lot of space
dark – lighting	Master bath big
temp cold, uncomfortable	Well maintained
No color	Tray ceilings nice
Inconsistent shine of wood floor	Bonus room nice and private
Sink dirty	Like high finish in garage
no fridge	like recessed stair lights
portable chairs	Good windows and lighting fixtures
empty mantle	Solid house
Tub dirty	Good looking house
shower missing enclosure	high ceilings nice
house seemed not finished	wood floor nice
Misc parts on counters
Carpet dirty. Dusty
windows have dead bugs
dirty windows
Toilets not clean
Large empty loft room
No place to sit
No window coverings – no privacy
Too close to neighbors
Front yard not kept
Lot of leaves
no curtains – feels colder
To big – get lost
Unfinished room at top of stairs
Hard to visualize space
smells like paint
Paint peeling on back door jamb
spiderwebs creepy
scrap of carpet for welcome mat
Storage by fridge left over
Cold and dark
Echo on floor
Echo on marble made subfloor seem hollow or poorly built
Granite didn’t match house – colors don’t match
dead leaves in front
dust bunnies on floor
low outlets framed awkward – looked like substandard building
dead grass
wood floor to marble floor uneven
House empty
Master tub too small
shower odd
scratched wood floor in study
lights out
living room and kitchen eating area small
Pink tint odd

Here is the home staged by Showhomes with a live-in Home Stager:

Here is the positive and negative feedback from the same people:

Negative Feedback	Positive Feedback
too many personal photos	wel lit
	clean
	homey feel – warm
	comfortable
	very nice colors – eye catchy
	great furniture
	felt luxirous
	upstairs bedroom nice as master
	big house – good space
	felt more usable, easier to live in
	music and fans
	full of life
	really liked it – cozy
	very welcoming
	music makes great impression
	sitting area in master great
	very funstional house
	great floorplan
	keeping room – great space
	extra family room – bonuns room huge
	nice playroom
	smells nice
	closets really nice
	garage not cluttered
	food in fridge
	nice and clean home
	curb appeal great
	wreath on door
	seems like a model
	felt like a perfect model home
	linens like a spa
	patio nice
	staging really great
	master bedroom awesome
	music really helpful
	clean garage
	warm and very clean
	woman’s touch
	holiday decorations tasteful
	feels like a great family house
	live plants look great

Look at them side by side and it’s obvious which home is going to sell faster!

In a pricing survey, all 5 said they preferred the staged home and if they were to put in an offer would start at 5-10% below list price and would all go up to list price to get the home. Several stated they would ‘be embarrassed to low-ball the owner since the home was so well cared for.”

The vacant home, on the other hand, did poorly on the pricing survey. Even though the homes were comparable in most ways, the viewers said they would submit a low-ball offer starting at 70% of the list price and would only go up to 75%.

What do you think?

Thomas Scott

www.showhomes.com