The new year has officially started and, based on my experience as a home stager, this is the time home sellers start working on an action plan to prepare their house for the market.  According to real estate guru Barbara Corcoran there are some facts to be taken into consideration when selling a house. Listen to what she has to say in this video taken from the “Nate Berkus Show”

To summarize:

1. First thing buyers ask as soon as they enter into a house is: a. “How much does it cost?”, followed by “How long has it been on the market?”.

2. In the good old days 30 days was the amount of time a house was considered “still”, now it is 3 MONTHS.

3. In this market if you have 14 SHOWINGS on average you should have a bid.

4. The first reason why people buy a house is LOCATION, and we kind of knew that, right? But, did you know that the second reason is LIGHT? What a good news for us living in Seattle and surroundings…

This is the part where Barbara Concoran talks about home staging and its benefits:

And again, to summarize, these are the things to remember:

1. Quoting what Barbara had to say: “I think what has changed about STAGING is that it IS NO LONGER OPTIONAL, it makes a difference of a house selling or not. Home owners do the heavy lifting with renovations of kitchens and bathrooms, and that’s a lot of work and money, but it is the staging, quite honestly, that makes the biggest difference on first impression”.

2. First impression has a dollar value of 5% to 7% of what the house is worth.

This means that with a $500,000 listing that is $25,000 to $35,000!

I already knew that staging is a powerful marketing tool, and most importantly that it is not an expense, but an investment. And surely it is far less than your first price reduction. But I had no idea that you can actually put a dollar value on first impressions!

So remember: the first impression is crucial (and I mean thi$ crucial) and a professional home stager can help you achieve such an important goal!!