Why Would I Pay for Staging My Real Estate to Sell It?!?

So, you already have a bunch of furniture, too much, maybe?

OR, you don't have any furniture and don't want to drag anything into your house before selling?

In either of these cases, or, anything in between, you may be wondering why your real estate broker is asking you to invest $1,500-$2,500 in staging your property to sell.

 

What did you wear to prom?  I am guessing it wasn't cutoff jeans and a Bon Jovi t-shirt.  Here's why you need staging consultation and/or staging material brought into your home:

1.  Like you think your son/daughter is a shoe-in professional athlete :) you cannot be objective about your home.  You do have, no matter your price range, colors, features, arrangements and smells that personalize your home to you.  Emotionally this turns buyers off.  Think of staying at a bed and breakfast room that was very personalized; it feels "icky."

2.  Stagers are professional artists that understand space, color and placement better than the majority of the population.  They can make small spaces bigger, weird spaces normal and dark places light.  Have a room that you've never liked?  A stager can drastically lessen that impression.  They see things we can't and in a way we won't.

3.  I shave every morning because my facial hair grows faster than Homer Simpson; if I don't, no matter how awake I am, I look like I slept in a dumpster.  Stagers hide imperfections.  Recently, a customer was worried about whether or not buyers would notice different types of trim on wainscoting in the same room.  He painted the room above the wainscoting (a color the stager picked), and my guess is the buyer will own the home and never, ever pickup on the difference/imperfection.

4.  How do you feel when you walk into an accountant or financial planner's office and see a broken desk handle swinging by a hinge or picture frame designs from 4 different decades or a run in the carpet.  GROSS.  These are extreme examples, but, stagers bring unity and collectiveness to your home that is inviting and warm.  If buyers that are going to pay top dollar come inside, do they want to stay?

Unless you are intentionally trying to present your home so it appears "distressed," becomes a "fixer" in the minds of investors and attracts a bidding war, I believe you need to consider staging.  I promise I will shave when I show your house :)

Solid First Month!

Winning the "Multiple Offer" Game in Seattle

It's baaaaaaa... ack!

...Every property you like has multiple offers on it.  They are selling faster than you can see them.  Sale prices are higher than list prices...

How do you purchase in this environment?  Someone is winning these battles, why can't it be you?  Here are some guidelines:

1.  If you don't have a preapproval, or, a proof of funds from a trustworthy bank/lender on file, you are better off staying home and watching "River Monsters."  This isn't a guideline in this market, it's the rule.

2.  Have an inspector in-pocket; have an inspector you know, trust and will work quickly for you a text message away.  A lot of multiple offer situations, especially bank properties, allow 3-8 days to submit offers before they review.  Inspect before you make an offer so your contract looks better to the seller (This is very important.  If you submit without an inspection clause, you can't walk from the deal dumb reasons, it would have to be failed financing or bad Title.)

3.  Remember, by having your offer accepted you are not buying the property.  Go a touch higher than you are comfortable going, tie the property up, and then make your decision.  Odds are, in the 3 weeks it takes to get through most of escrow, local prices will have increased 1% or so (I believe Seattle will show 1-2% price increased PER MONTH in February, March and April ).  If you made a bad decision,  make a business decision to walk away.  In coming on ten years in this business though, in tight markets, I have never seen someone win a multiple offer situation and get bad buyer's remorse.

4.  Here is the guideline only the savviest real estate buyers follow: target overpriced properties and AVOID multiple offers.  As humans, scientficially proven here, we measure the QUALITY of a home by it's price/value ratio.  I guarantee you have seen waterfront homes you said were "atrocious (choose your word)" even though your house is nowhere near it's quality.  Why?  Overpriced.   Look for overpriced homes, ignore the price and imagine what it could be at the right price.   Then offer 10% less than this.  No multiple offers, no imaginary timelines, better deal.  Don't follow the lemmings, there's always another deal.

Best of luck!  If you want, I can help you find a great agent proven to navigate multiple offer situations in your locale :)

Why Is There a Shortage of Homes in Seattle?

Seems the Seattle Real Estate market is a bipolar personality as of late.

Twelve months ago your broker is telling you to accept any offer you get on your house.  Now, we are begging homeowners to list their homes.

WHAT GIVES!!!

The collective real estate economy measures housing inventory in months.  Nationally, a "balanced" market is referred to, generally, as a 6 month inventory; 6 homes on the market for every 1 buyer, 6 months to sell your home if you price it competitively.

When the market bounced off the bottom of the ocean in 2008, there were 18 month inventories in some suburbs of Seattle.  High end (greater than $750,000) inventory was over 32 months in some locales.

Now, we are seeing inventory measures from 2-3 months, sometimes less, in or around Seattle.

If you have tried to buy recently, particularly at or near median price points, you know we are back to trends buyers like as much as ugly termites - one day to look at new listings, multiple offers and escalated offers.

What happened?

1.  Loans for land, and new construction disappeared like Lady Gaga.  Builders, surprise, rely on these building loans to make our houses.  Without the loans, residential construction almost literally stopped.  Take these potential homes out of the market.

2.  The great short sale... sale.  No, not the sale at Ross right now, when the local market dropped 25-45% depending on your neighborhood, anyone with less than that amount of equity in their home was underwater.  If you had to sell, many of us tried a short sale, a listing process that puts a home on the market that is effectively unavailable to actually buy for 6-18 months.  Take short sale listings out of the effective market because the time required to buy them, and the stress, makes them almost un-saleable.

3.  If you kept your home, for any reason, and made it through the worst of times (knock on your wooden desk right now), you held on to sell for gain.  Currently, relatively speaking, the market is low (especially compared to 2007 pricing).  So, you didn't "hold on" to sell in a "low" market.  Take all of these sellers out of the market.

There are several more categories of sellers (banks, for one), who have justification to sit on the sidelines, but these are some biggies.

If you are a seller and I am working for you currently, please don't reject every offer we get in hopes of a better one ;)  There is still, of course, a ceiling to reasonable pricing in this market.

Have fun shopping in our spring weather, hope for rain during your inspection :)

Worst Real Estate Cold Call Ever (Ct'd)

... I made myself small, feeling the splinters from beauty bark poke through the knees of my slacks.  I considered running past the crazed man in flannel, but instinctively this was a bad idea.  He didn't seem like he was out for a fair fight, and snot-dripping tenacity with which he chased me left me believing he may have had a gun.

For a second, you have that instinct to suck your thumb.  I actually remember really wanting my mom.

The truck stopped, the heavy metal Ford truck door swung open.  The man's work boots made a "CLOMP" when they hit the pavement.

He paced back and forth directly on the other side of the hedge I was hidden behind.  The truck was still running, more exhaust leaked through the hedge.  I breathed it in and felt sick, considering what I would do if he saw me.

Lazy in his pursuit, he jumped back up into his truck and slammed the door behind him.  Again the truck peeled out as it sped away down the road.

Waiting about 30 seconds for him to get out of eyeshot, I left the front yard that had been my sanctuary and made for my car.

"SCREEEEEEEECHHHHHH!"

Unbe----inglievable.  The man had turned the truck around and was now about 1/4 mile up the street heading at me.  Now, I was past the houses that had been on my left and on the side of a multiple-acre greenbelt.

"If this guy couldn't catch me on concrete, there was no way he would catch me running through the woods I grew up in," I thought.

I abandoned the idea of getting back to my car; I was so deplete of adrenaline at this point I felt like a scarecrow without anything inside it, I felt weightless and weak.  I didn't think I had the juice to sustain another sudden need for a sprint or fight.  I had to flee.

Anyone looking out from their house on that street would have seen a 6' tall real estate agent in discount slacks wearing his Sunday best JUMP into the lush wall of the greenbelt and disappear into nothing.  Subsequently, a rusty beat down truck fishtailed at the exact spot.  Behind the wheel of the truck was a curly haired freak show with an "illegal drug intensity level focus" on the spot where I had just jumped in the bushes.

Completely at home in the woods, my confidence level high, I bushwacked my way to safety, walking to my parents house.

I would have called someone for help, but I had thrown my cell phone in the bushes when I entered the green belt.  Later that night, we came back and made calls on the street to me until we heard it.

Never in 8 years have I sold a house on that street despite having driven down it hundreds of times :)

Worst Real Estate Cold Call Ever (Ct'd)

(Ct'd from 3/7 post...)

...There was no sidewalk on the street I was being chased down.  On the side of the street, usually right up against the pavement where thick green hedges of any variety.  It felt like the star fighter jet scene in Star Wars where the planes had little room to negotiate on the edges of the Death Star; there was evil behind me and impenetrable walls besides me.

The rusty brown Ford truck that was devouring my tracks was bearing down on me, seemingly snorting steam out of it's headlights like the nostrils of an angry bull.  The source of my fear was no longer the ridiculous jeans-clad individual, it was this truck.  It had taken on the visage of some criminal cartoon beast truck.

At this point, I was in a dead out sprint, the type fueled by so much primal adrenaline you don't even feel your feet hit the ground.  I was just waiting for man-eating monkeys to descend upon me.

With nowhere to run, literally, a took a 90 degree left into someones yard (nice house, probably a 3 bedroom, rambler... I would happily take the listing :) ).  Of course the front yard was enclosed and the distance from the street-bordering hedge to the house was about 18 feet.  I had walked right into a trap.

Our wild animal instincts work amazingly well; I had to run, so I did.  Now, with nowhere to run, I was considering if/what a fight would look like.  Even though my assailant had probably ditched the steel garden rake, I still connected it to him in my mind.  To me, the man chasing me was thinking about beating me into the lawn of an unknown house with a Home Depot tool.

I could feel the insane anger and energy this guy promoted as he slammed on the brakes in his truck and got out of his car.  Those old Ford's have a very distinctive exhaust smell (probably very old catalytic converters), I could smell that enveloping my body as the steamy exhaust from his truck drained into the hedge next to me.

I got very small, crouching down so low I considered the beauty bark staining the knees of my slacks...

Worst Real Estate Cold Call Ever

"Get off my property, boy."

The man had a rake in his hands, a leaf rake, one of the hard metal ones.  Wearing a plad Nirvana fleece top, he held it over his shoulders, his hands draped over the front of the rake.

"Get off my property... Now!"



"Yes sir, I said," I'm sorry to have bothered you."

Usually I would have turned and walked away, but I was worried to expose my back to him.  The 10 foot gap between us closed as he started at me.  Running.  He dropped the rake from his shoulders, moving it to his right hand and gave chase in his thick blue jeans.

I felt the adrenaline drop from my chest to my stomach, the same one you feel when you know you are about to have your girlfriend break up with you unexpectedly.  I was shocked into a state of flight, and I began to run out of the long broken concrete driveway.  Their were thick cedar bushes on either side, seemingly masking the drive, and the house from daylight.  It was a kind of modern Mordor (Lord of the Rings), and now I was running away in slacks and Ecco shoes from Nordstrom's Rack.

"RUN BOY!"  He yelled.  Deliverance.

I am not making this up, my family and friends remember the day this happened.

There's probably a small handful of folks in the neighborhood I was in that could catch me in a short foot race.  This middle aged, wild eyed man had a 0% chance of doing so in big baggy blue jeans and work boots.  Within seconds I had put some distance between us.  I was running the best post-corner pass route of my life out of the doglegged driveway.

I started selling real estate when the market was on fire, the "early 2000's."  The manager that hired me, one of the best of my life, almost didn't because he said I looked like a kid and "No one would spend $1 million with a kid."

At first, no one would, and I struggled for 18 months to find customers in a market made of  middle aged agents, buyers and sellers.  At that point, the market was still trying to adapt to internet presentation and marketing.  I had no customers, so I went door to door, trying to talk to anyone that would.

This attempt, late on a spring afternoon, had the pours of my body stinging from breaking into an anxious sweat to outrun an aggro civilian (he turned out not to be the owner of the home I was at).  Once I cleared the driveway, I remember thinking "I have got to get some customers."

I slowed to a trot, out now on a relatively busy residential street with nice family homes behind big manicured hedges.  The adrenaline rush pushed out of me, and I dropped my hands to my knees, exhausted.  I shook my head.  Not knowing what to think, I just breathed for a moment, then started walking back to my used Lexus that I had bought for $3,500.  It was about 1/2 mile away.  1/4 mile of the distance had houses, the last 1/4 mile would walk me past a totally wooded ravine, unbuildable for it's slope.

"SCREEEEEeeeeeccccchhh!!!. " an 1975 brown Ford Truck catapulted out of the driveway behind me, laying rubber tracks on the road and skidding over the center line.  I didn't have time to swear.