This week we met with Realtor® survey respondents, home stagers, staging bloggers and members of the press to discuss the results of the HomeGain 2009 Top 12 Home Improvements Survey on HomeGain Radio.

If you didn’t have a chance to attend, listen to it here:

Participant Comments Included:

Stephanie Decker, Staged Homes Marin: “The timing of the results coming out was amazing because I had an office presentation that day and it was very useful information for me to include. It gave me more substance to what I was trying to say and what I am trying to do to help the Realtors. I really appreciate it.”

Lise Desormeaux, RMR Real Estate Marketing: “More people are becoming aware of what needs to be done to market a property these days. I agree with the survey findings that HomeGain has compiled. I’m appreciative as a home stager for this information.”

Gina Vierra, StagedHomes: “When was the data compiled? Where can I find the data?” (answers: October 2009; blog.homegain.com)

News coverage of the October Home Improvement  includes: Continue reading this post

HomeGain.com recently conducted its third nationwide home improvement and home staging Home Sale Maximizer™ survey (previously conducted in 2003 and 2007) to reveal the top 12 low cost*, do-it-yourself (DIY) home improvements for people getting their home ready to sell.  Nearly 1,000 REALTORS® responded to the survey. (See complete survey results)

Thousands of REALTORS and Home Stagers use "Home Sale Maximizer" to advise their home seller clients.

Home Staging is reported to be the 2nd most valuable home improvement project to a seller when it comes to selling a home by return on investment (ROI), according to surveyed Realtors.

Home Staging is also the 3rd highest price increase to a home’s resale value ($300 cost / $1,780 price increase to a home’s selling price, which is a 586% ROI)

82% of Realtors nationwide recommend home sellers do DIY home staging.

Staging has rose on the list of priorities over the years. In 2007 survey results, Lightening and Brightening had the second highest ROI followed by Home Staging. Two years later, Home Staging overtakes Lightening and Brightening.

How many Realtors recommend professional home staging the majority of the time? Continue reading this post

This next video features Lise Desormeaux of RMR Real Estate Marketing Results at the August 2009 HomeGain Nation Live Real Estate Forum in San Francisco.

Lise presents powerful tips to REALTORS® who work with home sellers for maximizing the value of the home sale through professional home staging.

Lise refers to HomeGain’s Home Sale Maximizer™ guide for homeowners as a “must have tool” when selling a home.

Watch the video of the Home Staging session: “How to Sell the Value of Home Staging to Sellers”

Keep checking back as we will be adding more videos over the few weeks!

Watch more session videos

Also see more HomeGain Nation videos on the HomeGain YouTube channel and on the HomeGain Nation Blog. Continue reading this post

As a REALTOR®, communicating on a regular basis with the seller is a crucial component of the listing’s success. And, as I have so often found from experience, sellers who have mentally made the transition from “homeowner to home seller” have a much easier time accepting advice and feedback from their real estate agent realizing it as a means to an end: the sale of their home.

Such was the case for one of my listings (before and after pictures, below), a truly beautiful single family home that I sold back in early February, recently featured in the May, 2009 edition of REALTOR.org “Best Room Makeovers”.

Painted in a South-West Adobe orange color motif, many buyers just found the family room too loud for their tastes.

The seller originally gave me resistance about changing the color, but after reading the feedback I was sending him from buyers, he finally realized the family room needed to be re-painted. Continue reading this post

Although, in Shakespeare’s words, “All the world’s a stage,” in the world of theater, a play is rather hard to enact without a stage. It’s been tried over the years, but traditional theatergoers prefer a conventional stage.

And so do homebuyers.

GREAT. Yet another blog on staging, you say. One more appeal to get sellers to pay money they don’t have to sell their home in a market that’s upside down like the Poseidon. Why bother? Haven’t we heard it all?

In the immortal words of Bullwinkle the Moose, “BUT WAIT! There’s more!”

The three pillars of a successful sale are: Preparation, Promotion and Price. Of the three legs, price is without question the most important of the three. Using the Pareto Principle, price actually accounts for 80% of a successful sale. Currently, discount pricing reigns supreme as REOs are flooding into the market like water through the cracked levees of New Orleans. How can a normal seller HOPE to float a normal sale against the incoming surge of lower priced homes?

Believe it or not, there are buyers out there who don’t want an REO.

They aren’t “handi” types. They don’t have the will or desire to “make the house their own.” They can’t “see the potential” and quite frankly, aren’t interested. And not everyone has the Martha Stewart gene for using a twisted fork as a curtain tieback. Many of these buyers are actually willing to pay more to buy a nice house that’s ready to move into.

Scratch most REOs off your list.

This is where an understanding of buyer psychology is critical. Sellers need to realize that

Continue reading this post

Karen Breen Elia of RE/MAX Exclusive Properties in Chicago is the special guest in this month’s “Winning Agent Call” on HomeGain Radio, hosted by Peter McCullough. The topic is home staging.

In Karen’s opinion, home staging is on the rise. “The more successful agents are finding that home staging is the key to moving properties, especially for agents in the more competitive markets,” said Karen.

Listen to Karen Breen Elia’s advice to real estate agents on home staging:

On this call, Karen shares how she provides value to her clients, overcomes objections (like personal tastes), and why it’s important to get “commitment” from clients before she begins working with them. Continue reading this post