What Is Home Staging & Other Frequently Asked Questions

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What is Home Staging a house?
What will it all cost to stage my home? How much should I think about spending?
But isn't Home Staging just another name for Interior Design?
How does Home Staging make my property stand out from the crowd?
Who would use a Home Staging service?
Why would I spend money on Staging my Home just when I am about to leave it?
Can I do the Home Staging work myself?
What is a Home Staging Report ?
Why does it take so long to carry out a Home Staging Report?
Can The Property Coach manage the whole Home Staging process?
I don't want to buy furniture for a house I am going to sell. Any ideas on Furniture Rental Companies?

1. What is Home Staging a house?

Presentating your home to sell or Home Staging is quite simply a term to describe the process that can help to sell or rent your home in the fastest possible time, at the highest possible price by preparing the property prior to putting it onto the market.

Think about how manufacturers of cars, clothes or even food, work hard to present their product. They are attempting to ensure that your attention is held, that you perceive the qualities of the item and that you desire the product they are selling.

Your property is just like any other product that may be for sale or to rent. It has to fight its corner along aside other similar properties that are also on the market at a similar price with similar qualities.

The key to Home Staging is to understand what you re trying to achieve ‘Appeal to the widest possible audience’

2. What will it all cost to stage my home. How much should I think about spending?

It is always more difficult to make the decision to spend on a property you intend to leave. It is even more difficult if you have no idea how much it is all going to cost. You don't want to sign up to an open ended deal where costs keep rising.

As Property Stagers it is our job to make the most of your property on an agreed budget. Remember that this process is different from Interior Design in that you work with 'What you have' changing things only where necessary to make the most of your interior decoration.

The Property Coach™ increases the appeal of your interior decoration and helps you to get the maximum out of every pound you spend, only spending money on work that will improve your property's chances of selling or renting.

'So how much should I think about spending on
Home Staging and preparing my property to sell?'

This all depends on the answer you give to the following question...

'How much work and time are you prepared to put into preparing your property?'

If you want The Property Coach™ to write the Home Staging report and advise you on the necessary interior decoration work but then you are happy to follow the Home Staging report and carry out all the interior decoration work. You need to consider spending around 1% of your property's aksing price to cover materials, fixings, paint, wallpaper and new furniture and soft furnishings to supplement what you already have.

Take a look at Sally & Davids case study - They paid for the DIY Home Staging Written Report and carried out all the work themselves. Follow this link...

If you want The Property Coach™ to write the Home Staging report and then bring in labour to carry out the interior decoration work and styling, then you need to consider spending between 2-2.5% of the asking price of your property. This again covers the materials for the improvements such as paint, wallpaper, soft furnishings etc as well as the labour and management fee.This can only be seen as a guide and each individual property will have it's own budget.

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3.But isn't Home Staging just another name for interior design?

Whilst both Home Staging and Interior Design have their roots in creating a pleasing and desirable environment using colour, light, texture, space and rely on the designers understanding the concept of ‘Design’. They differ in their aim:

Interior Design is a process of ‘adding in’ the desires, likes and requirements of the individual homeowner, thus creating a personal space highly specific to the client.
Home Staging is almost the opposite of the Interior design process, editing out the personal values in the home, creating a more neutral environment that helps a wider audience visualise how they could use the space.

It is important to remember that Home Staging is not a ‘natural’ state of living in the property. Quite often the homeowner will say:

‘I wouldn’t normally have a bowl of fruit on the kitchen counter, bed throws and cushions on the bed, fresh flowers in the living room’.

And this is the point. Home Staging is a temporary measure to maximise the marketability of the property. Anyone selling needs to understand that they are mentally moving out of their home. The comments and suggestions enclosed in the consultation report are not a comment on anyone’s preferred way of living, they are simple proposals designed to increase the ‘saleability’ or ‘rentability’ of the property by enhancing the positive elements of the property and creating a comfortable interior that will appeal to a wide audience.

Home Staging is an economic process. It is not The Property Coach™ purpose to totally redesign your home, rather to reuse what is already there and supplement where necessary. Occasionally a barrier exists that will be an obstacle to the potential sale or rental of the property, for example a broken bathroom basin. In this situation it is necessary to carry out a little more than cosmetic work to remedy the problem and thus remove the obstacle. This work would only be carried out if the return on the money spent were guaranteed by the increase in the selling or rental price. Removing all the obstacles, both physical and subliminal is the key to good Home Staging.

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4. How does Home Staging make my property stand out from the crowd?

Remember this Mae West line

'It's better to be looked over, than over looked!'

Getting the viewers to your front door is half the battle won. When the property agent comes around to take photos, make sure that he has plenty of fantastic ones to put on the internet.

'A picture is worth a thousand words', (but make sure that those words are positive ones). Giving your home a magazine makeover means that when those photos are taken and put onto the details for your property they will help it to stand out from the crowd. Time pressured buyers will use the internet to sift those properties that they want to view from those that they don't - Make yours a 'Must View'.

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5. Who would use a Home Staging service?

Anyone who is contemplating selling or renting their home or property.

Most people have some idea of what to do before their home is viewed by potential buyers, but not all people can see what they may need to do to bring their own home and its interior decoration up to scratch.
Most people only sell their home a handfull of times in their lifetime, with years between each sale.

I help people by home staging, on a daily basis and so I know, from experience, what needs to be done.

Fashions change and so do the requirements of your potential buyers.

I encounter those buyers on a daily basis. As a stylist I carry out magazine home makeovers and know that today’s viewer is looking for clean lines, neutral tones & colour schemes etc.

Most people living in their home don’t notice the little every day things that they put up with: musty or other off-putting odours, temperature too warm or too cold, lighting too bright or too dim, lack of storage space. Potential buyers may see these aspects of the property straight away and form a negative impression of the property in their mind…

A fresh pair of eyes will quickly pick up ‘Red Warning Lights’ (the ‘negatives’ a buyer sees) and can offer a solution.

These ‘Red Warning Lights’ are the potential barriers to a sale, and worse they are a green light to any buyer to put in a lower offer to you. They see any potential problems as money that will need to be spent on the property before they would feel comfortable living in it.

Sellers are often too busy to put the time necessary into correcting the issues.
Sellers may not have the skills to correct the issues.
Sellers may fear that it will cost too much money to carry out the work needed to present their property.

This is why employing a professional who understands the process of Homestaging is important.

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6. Why would I spend money on Staging my Home when I am about to leave it?

At first it may seem an odd idea to invest money in preparing your home just when you are about to sell. However if, by carefully spending money, you were able to make the property more marketable, more desirable to your intended market, you may well increase the likely asking price and increase the speed and ease of the sale. A normal figure to work with is just investing 1% of the asking price on presenting your home for the sale market. Often the items that you buy are things that you can take with you to your new home.

7. Can I do the Home Staging work myself?

The Home Staging reports are designed to be fully DIYable. The home Staging report is in full colour and gives paint colour swatches, examples of fabric, soft furnishings and furniture to help you to create the look yourself. There is even a new room layout plan to help you complete the interior makeover. Suggestions of where to purchase and even an estimation of the likely cost of purchase.

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8. What is a Home Staging report ?

The Property Coach™ will visit the property, that you wish to prepare, to carry out a survey. This is necessary so that a full 'written report' can be prepared.

The report gives detailed information on the work that The Property Coach™ feels necessary to be carried out. The survey takes between 2 and 3 hours to complete.

Take a look at a sample report follow this link.

9. Why does the Home Staging report survey take 2-3 hours?

When a survey is carried out, The Property Coach™, need to take measurements of each room. This includes where fixed items are placed such as the radiators, windows and large pieces of furniture. Notes are also taken on the room layout, use of furnishings, any issues that may be observed.

All this information is necessary for the The Property Coach™ to be able to write a full report giving exact details on what the issues are and the solutions. In order to be able to estimate time and cost of work, it is absolutley necessary to have these details such as window measurements, radiator sizes etc so that the correct purchase can be recommended. A full set of photographs are also taken, both for reference and to help emphasise any points being made in the written survey.

Take a look at a sample of our report to see the sort of details and information you will receive. Follow this link to see sample pages from a Home Staging Report>>>

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10. Can The Property Coach™ manage the whole process.

Certainly. The Property Coach™ has a network of reliable tradespeople who can carry out any of the interior or exterior decoration work proposed. The Property Coach™ will undertake to obtain estimates, prepare work specifications and oversee the home makeover being carried out