Maine real estate needs staging (Bangor: hotel, houses, buying)

[beauty4ashes]

We just relocated here and have been house hunting for 3 weeks and I gotta say...Mainers (at least in the Bangor region) need tips on staging for selling.
Not staging your home when selling is like showing up at a job interview in your pajamas.
You must "stage" your home to both sell quick and get your asking price. (Or close to it in this market anyway.)
My suggestions when selling:

• Paint your walls neutral earth tones!
• Take down the kids' posters of rock stars.
• Box up your dusty collections
• CLEAN everything.
• Move half of your belongings to a storage unit.
• Keep your home immaculate and clutter free
• clear away the clutter
• decorate for the masses.

All this helps buyers "see themselves" living there rather than YOU. Too many reminders of YOUR life there makes buyers feel like they're trespassing.
We have passed up many homes because they're either dirty or so cluttered and poorly decorated we can't see the HOUSE. Oftentimes we want to run -and not walk- to the nearest exit.
No wonder so many of the houses here have sat on the market for months (and some for a year! )

No offense - just my 2 cents.

[Maineah]

Originally Posted by beauty4ashes

We just relocated here and have been house hunting for 3 weeks and I gotta say...Mainers (at least in the Bangor region) need tips on staging for selling.
Not staging your home when selling is like showing up at a job interview in your pajamas.
You must "stage" your home to both sell quick and get your asking price. (Or close to it in this market anyway.)
My suggestions when selling:

• Paint your walls neutral earth tones!
• Take down the kids' posters of rock stars.
• Box up your dusty collections
• CLEAN everything.
• Move half of your belongings to a storage unit.
• Keep your home immaculate and clutter free
• clear away the clutter
• decorate for the masses.

All this helps buyers "see themselves" living there rather than YOU. Too many reminders of YOUR life there makes buyers feel like they're trespassing.
We have passed up many homes because they're either dirty or so cluttered and poorly decorated we can't see the HOUSE. Oftentimes we want to run -and not walk- to the nearest exit.
No wonder so many of the houses here have sat on the market for months (and some for a year! )

No offense - just my 2 cents.

And tune in next week for another episode of Sell This House with Tanya Memme and Roger Hazzard!

[Elcarim]

I was just going to keep my mouth shut! What I really want to say is, all that stuff considered, I appreciate the fact that Mainers have figured out there's more to life than "staging".

I prefer the real deal!

[SantaFeSisters]

You Are SOOO Right! El

I could'nt agree with you more! Living in a staged house feels like living in a Hotel , it's yours because you paid for it, but you sure cant make yourself at home or put your feet on the coffee table.

Viewing a staged house, it doesn't feel like a home. It feels like a movie set. I'll take real and warm any day.

[moughie]

Another tip:

Get rid of your Xmas decorations 3 months after the fact??

[Nor'Eastah]

We have noticed this from time to time...with friends who were selling, and even when we bought our present house (OK, when my WIFE bought this present house! ). This will do it every time:

Interior or exterior upgrade/construction in PROGRESS.

It doesn't need to be a big project. Maybe adding a closet somewhere, some simple thing. Most people cannot resist the smell of fresh lumber being cut, or the sound of hammering. They love to stand around and watch somebody paint. Even if you're still living in the house, and have clutter around - this is a good escuse to say, "Oh, forgive the way the house looks - we're remodeling", and buyers will be charmed. I think there are a lot of realtors who don't know this...or else they're not telling! Buy a new front or back door for the place, and stretch out the installation over a week!

Many people rush to do a few minor upgrades before putting a house on the market, thinking the mess will be out of the way before buyers come to look. Wrong. Seeing the front of your house half-torn apart while a new window is being installed is MUCH better than showing the finished job and saying, "We just put a new picture window on the front!". Uh-huh. I'm tellin' ya, they love the smell of sawdust! THAT is the only kind of 'staging' you need. Will we be doing this when it comes time to sell? I already have the project picked out!

[mollysmiles]

I can completely understand the *idea* behind staging, and I'm a sucker for the TV shows that help people do it effectively. That being said though, I think most of us have the ability to look beyond the staging or the personalized clutter belonging to someone else and see what WE would do as owners. Of course, sometimes that vision is long term and not shared by a DH!! Not that I'd be speaking from experience there.....

[Bydand]

Last time I looked at a house that was staged, I turned around and walked out. To have a company come in and stage a house isn't free, and the sellers are not going to eat the cost out of the goodness of their heart for you. That is a cost that whoever is buying the property is paying. As a seller I still would/will not stage a house. It comes across as fake and sterile. If I were selling a Hotel room then sure, but it is a house, people live in houses.

[starwalker]

Originally Posted by Bydand

Last time I looked at a house that was staged, I turned around and walked out. To have a company come in and stage a house isn't free, and the sellers are not going to eat the cost out of the goodness of their heart for you. That is a cost that whoever is buying the property is paying. As a seller I still would/will not stage a house. It comes across as fake and sterile. If I were selling a Hotel room then sure, but it is a house, people live in houses.

I agree with you totally... makes me wonder what they are trying to distract us from seeing...

Of course in the price range I am looking at, my main concern in that the floors not fall in, the roof not fall in or leak (too badly)... etc... LOL

I, too, understand the concept of staging... and having the house CLEAN (enough that one doesn't feel the need to house-hunt in a HAS-MAT suit at least) and neat enough that you don't have to walk on the "floor clothes" in the kids rooms is good too... but beyond that, I would rather see a lived in home rather than a House and Garden setting... for that is how I live and how I can best "see myself" in it.

Oh, and don't remodel either! Replacing those "terrible old" fixtures and cupboards that have been there since the dark ages that "you" hate and replace with cheap, generic stuff from the big box are what give the home character. If it wasn't a cookie cutter tract home in the first place, please don't make it into one and try to sell it to me, at least!

Yeah I know I am odd...

[flycessna]

Originally Posted by beauty4ashes

We just relocated here and have been house hunting for 3 weeks and I gotta say...Mainers (at least in the Bangor region) need tips on staging for selling.
Not staging your home when selling is like showing up at a job interview in your pajamas.
You must "stage" your home to both sell quick and get your asking price. (Or close to it in this market anyway.)
My suggestions when selling:

• Paint your walls neutral earth tones!
• Take down the kids' posters of rock stars.
• Box up your dusty collections
• CLEAN everything.
• Move half of your belongings to a storage unit.
• Keep your home immaculate and clutter free
• clear away the clutter
• decorate for the masses.

All this helps buyers "see themselves" living there rather than YOU. Too many reminders of YOUR life there makes buyers feel like they're trespassing.
We have passed up many homes because they're either dirty or so cluttered and poorly decorated we can't see the HOUSE. Oftentimes we want to run -and not walk- to the nearest exit.
No wonder so many of the houses here have sat on the market for months (and some for a year! )

No offense - just my 2 cents.

As a buyer, why would you want sellers to add value to their home by staging it?

As an investor myself.............I LOVE IT when people don't fully appreciate what they have.

So...............I truelly believe in what your saying........FOR THE SELLER. But I just don't get it as a BUYER Other wise I agree......coming from out of state....I am always suprised by the state of trashiness people keep their homes in when tring to sell them)