Showcasing vs Full-Service Staging by USC™
Spring has finally sprung. Like so many, you have been waiting months for this season to arrive. This year though it isn’t just for the end of winter’s cold grip. You have your eye on a bigger house; but first, you need to sell your home. You have had it all planned out: once the temperature rises, your home will go on the market. Only now that the time has come, yours’ is not the only house for sale on the street. Traditionally, the most important factor in real estate has always been “location, location, location”. If that still holds true, then neither you nor your neighbour will have the advantage. How do you ensure that your house will beat out the competition? The difference maker now is Professional Home Staging by a Certified UltimateStager™ (USC™). He or she will create the “wow” factor that will guarantee that your house will spend less time on the market and sell for more money than your neighbour’s.
What is Professional Home Staging? The misconception is that it is all about decorating. Decorating, however, is styling a home for the individual living in it; it is all about personal taste. Staging is styling a home according to the demographic of the area, in order for it to appeal to as many potential buyers as possible. Amazingly, only 10% of home buyers can envision the potential of an un-staged home. With this statistic in mind, it is no surprise that Staging is a great tool for promoting a listing. It is a proven way to impress purchasers and show a home to its full potential. The key is to depersonalize. By keeping it impersonal, possible buyers can then see themselves living there.
A USC™ Stager is trained to use a proven Professional Home Staging system that garners consistent, superior results each and every time. He or she will employ creativity and resourcefulness to assess and implement the best strategy to make the optimal use of the space. It is all about improving the show value of a listing by creating a clean, presentable home that highlights the positive features. The question now is, what kind of Home Staging does your home require? There are two main types: Showcasing and Full-Service Staging. Again, a USC™ Stager will advise you on the difference and which type your home could benefit the most from.
Showcasing: What is it all about?
The definition of “showcasing” is “to show to the best advantage”. As any type of Professional Home Staging is designed to show a home to it’s best advantage, what is the difference between the two types? Showcasing is referred to as Staging with the homeowner’s items only; there are no added accessories or furniture. The Home Stager works with the existing furnishings and accessories rather than renting furniture and adding items from a Home Stager’s inventory.
Showcasing is all about the ideal placement of furniture, lighting, art and accessories to highlight the best features of every room. With decluttering and depersonalizing, it will sell not only the spaciousness and beauty of the home, but also the lifestyle that the house affords. Using the homeowner’s own items, a USC™ Stager can optimize each space with proper accessory and furniture placement and create strong focal points. By optimizing proper traffic flow and enhancing or creating focal points, the USC™ Stager will guide the potential buyer’s eye through a successful showing.
This type of Home Staging is ideal when there are budget restrictions with the homeowner as it bypasses the cost of renting accessories and furnishings. It is also a great idea for homes that already have newer furnishings. These can be further enhanced through the creative rearranging and styling of a professional Home Stager.
Full-Service Home Staging: What is it all about?
Homeowners decorate their homes according to their own taste and style. As can be expected, this doesn’t always translate well to presenting a home to its best advantage. Afterall, not every perspective buyer will appreciate a particular design style. Furthermore, furniture placement can be a personal preference and not ideal for showing off a room’s spaciousness. A USC™ Stager knows how to remedy such situations.
Professional Home Staging theory dictates that each room in the house should show its purpose and function as it was originally intended to be. What this means is that your dining room should feature a gorgeous table and chair set, rather than a toy room for your children. Although you might find it convenient to have your children’s Tupperware containers of stuffed animals nearby, this might not appeal to potential buyers. Thus, with Full-Service Staging, the Stager would bring in dining room furniture, transforming the room into a space perfect for family dinners.
Equally as important, in this era of individuals living “online”, most potential buyers begin their home search on the internet. This gives creating a positive first impression even greater meaning as photos of a listing can make or break a potential home search. If a home doesn’t show well in pictures, it can be a deciding factor on whether or not a listing is seen in person. Bottom-line: a home needs to be as appealing as possible. Full-Service Staging is the optimal method for doing this.
By renting furniture and providing the best artwork and accessories to highlight a home’s potential according to the demographic, Full-Service Staging gives the advantage. It creates broad appeal for a property and accentuates the positives and minimizes the negatives. The accessories and rental furniture will not only fit the room size, but the placement then will enhance the ideal flow of traffic. Adding “neutral” artwork and removing personal photos, encourages potential buyers to see themselves living there. It is very distracting for a purchaser to view a space containing personal items of the current homeowner. In other words, Full-Service Staging creates the “wow” factor.
Either method of Professional Home Staging will act as a great tool for promoting a listing. Showcasing is ideal for when a homeowner has a tight budget, or for when a home has newer furnishings and accessories and only requires a creative touch. Full-Service Staging has the ability to transform any home into an ideal property, and ultimately, a quick and profitable sale.
