Showhomes Greenville opened in early 2008 to bring the same high-quality, whole-house staging to the Upstate at a fraction of the traditional cost. Contact us at 864.423.4936.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Just Staged in Minneapolis
Cindy Montgomery, our top stager and one our Top-Performers each year, sent these photos of some homes she staged last week. Cindy is a dynamo with an average of almost 50 homes staged at any given time. Take a look:
Showhomes Greenville opened in early 2008 to bring the same high-quality, whole-house staging to the Upstate at a fraction of the traditional cost. Contact us at 864.423.4936.
Showhomes Greenville opened in early 2008 to bring the same high-quality, whole-house staging to the Upstate at a fraction of the traditional cost. Contact us at 864.423.4936.
Monday, March 23, 2009
What is a Home Manager?
Home Managers become temporary caregivers of vacant properties while they are for sale. Home Managers benefit from reduced living expenses and they enjoy luxurious accomodations without long-term leases. Home Managers and their fine furnishings are matched to houses according to style, size and location.
If you are selected as a Home Manager, you become a vital member of a growing team that is revolutionizing the way residential real estate is marketed. Your style, flair, and fine furniture turns a vacant house into a valued home - a luxurious home that you enjoy at a cost far lower than you'd imagine.
Home Managers profit by enjoying an enviable, yet eminently affordable lifestyle. The Realtor always finds the home in show-to-sell condition. The home owner sells the home faster and for a higher price. All of the participants in the Showhomes program receive genuine value.
If you are selected as a Home Manager, you become a vital member of a growing team that is revolutionizing the way residential real estate is marketed. Your style, flair, and fine furniture turns a vacant house into a valued home - a luxurious home that you enjoy at a cost far lower than you'd imagine.
Home Managers profit by enjoying an enviable, yet eminently affordable lifestyle. The Realtor always finds the home in show-to-sell condition. The home owner sells the home faster and for a higher price. All of the participants in the Showhomes program receive genuine value.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Small Changes, Great Appeal
Steve Thomas, owner of Showhomes Naperville, sent these photos of a tricky room he and his team restaged for a Home Manager in a $700k Downers Grove home.
Here's what they had to work with to start:
Pretty crowded and not what you want to walk into when you first enter the home. The entertainment center is nice but belongs in another room, the access to the conversation grouping is tight for a Realtor and clients to navigate and there is solid furniture along the wall, especially in the dining room.
He went to work and in short order his talented team produced this:
Amazing! The Realtor and homeowner are really happy and the room works the way it should to help sell the home.
Showhomes Greenville can produce the same results for your high-end listings here in the Upstate. Contact us at 864.423.4936.
Here's what they had to work with to start:
Pretty crowded and not what you want to walk into when you first enter the home. The entertainment center is nice but belongs in another room, the access to the conversation grouping is tight for a Realtor and clients to navigate and there is solid furniture along the wall, especially in the dining room.
He went to work and in short order his talented team produced this:
Amazing! The Realtor and homeowner are really happy and the room works the way it should to help sell the home.
Showhomes Greenville can produce the same results for your high-end listings here in the Upstate. Contact us at 864.423.4936.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Property Stylist
What is a property stylist?
Here is an interview with property stylist and luxury home stager, Tanya Venable.
What do you like best about your chosen career?
One reason why I love what I do is because it creates interest all around. People are interested to know what Home Staging and ReStyles are all about. I love to educate them.
Why did you choose the title Property Stylist?
Because it really encompasses all that I do as a Home Stager. The average home stager is not average at all! Most Home Stagers provide additional services. From downsizing and organizing to restyles and/or holiday decorating, Home Stagers offer a variety of services that deal with making a home stylish and functional.
I always say “Invigorate your space, Invigorate your life.” Simple budget-friendly changes can breathe new life into a space. Property Stylists do just that and give properties style and function.
How do you help sell a home?
If your home needs staging to be sold, a Property Stylist will create a neutral and inviting palette that will appeal to the majority of buyers to get that home sold quickly and profitably.
What other services do you offer?
If you want to update the look of your home and create a dream space, we do that too. By listening to your vision for the space we will bring your dreams to life and create the space you have always wanted.
Can’t see past the clutter to determine what you want? We can help there as well.
And here's where Tanya gets to put in a shameless plug....
De-cluttering is a major aspect in Home Staging and we do it well. De-cluttering is not just for selling a home. A clutter-free home can not only help increase your creativity but also helps you feel more relaxed and you will enjoy your space more.
Do you have a special event coming up? Need to host a dinner party, a bridal shower, or holiday dinner? Property Stylists have that covered too. Most ReStyles or themed decorating can be completed in a day.
Need serious work done? Property Stylists can also oversee remodeling or renovation projects.
Realtors, Investors or Builders, we offer services for you as well. From simple design and color consultations to full service home staging, we can assist you in securing a quick and profitable sale for your property/listing.
Thanks Tanya! A few months ago, Tanya Venable became affiliated with Showhomes of Greenville. She continues to run her own company, Fresh Eye Designs, LLC, and together we offer one-stop shopping for all of your home staging and redesign needs. Contact us at 864.423.4936.
Here is an interview with property stylist and luxury home stager, Tanya Venable.
What do you like best about your chosen career?
One reason why I love what I do is because it creates interest all around. People are interested to know what Home Staging and ReStyles are all about. I love to educate them.
Why did you choose the title Property Stylist?
Because it really encompasses all that I do as a Home Stager. The average home stager is not average at all! Most Home Stagers provide additional services. From downsizing and organizing to restyles and/or holiday decorating, Home Stagers offer a variety of services that deal with making a home stylish and functional.
I always say “Invigorate your space, Invigorate your life.” Simple budget-friendly changes can breathe new life into a space. Property Stylists do just that and give properties style and function.
How do you help sell a home?
If your home needs staging to be sold, a Property Stylist will create a neutral and inviting palette that will appeal to the majority of buyers to get that home sold quickly and profitably.
What other services do you offer?
If you want to update the look of your home and create a dream space, we do that too. By listening to your vision for the space we will bring your dreams to life and create the space you have always wanted.
Can’t see past the clutter to determine what you want? We can help there as well.
And here's where Tanya gets to put in a shameless plug....
De-cluttering is a major aspect in Home Staging and we do it well. De-cluttering is not just for selling a home. A clutter-free home can not only help increase your creativity but also helps you feel more relaxed and you will enjoy your space more.
Do you have a special event coming up? Need to host a dinner party, a bridal shower, or holiday dinner? Property Stylists have that covered too. Most ReStyles or themed decorating can be completed in a day.
Need serious work done? Property Stylists can also oversee remodeling or renovation projects.
Realtors, Investors or Builders, we offer services for you as well. From simple design and color consultations to full service home staging, we can assist you in securing a quick and profitable sale for your property/listing.
Thanks Tanya! A few months ago, Tanya Venable became affiliated with Showhomes of Greenville. She continues to run her own company, Fresh Eye Designs, LLC, and together we offer one-stop shopping for all of your home staging and redesign needs. Contact us at 864.423.4936.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Home Staging
Another great article that mentions Showhomes. It appeared in the New York Times.
All the Home’s a Stage
By LISA PREVOST
Published: January 2, 2009
WESTPORT, Conn.
WANTED: Compulsively neat, highly organized people to live in houses being marketed for sale. Must keep house suitable for showing at all times. Dirty dishes, used bath towels and stray newspapers strictly prohibited.
Salary? None. Length of time in house? Unpredictable.
If this description serves only to remind you what a mess your own house is, you are probably not “home manager” material. For people who simply cannot leave the house before making the bed, however, the role of home manager might actually sound appealing. And according to firms that recruit and place home managers, the bleak housing market is driving more of the naturally tidy into their programs.
A home manager is essentially a live-in stager, as well as a caretaker and cleaner extraordinaire. The service is marketed as a tool to sell a vacant property more quickly. Prospective buyers will be less enticed by an empty, stale-smelling house, the theory goes, than by a meticulously kept home decorated with high-quality furnishings.
Home managers are required to accommodate real estate agents who want to show the house any day of the week. They pay a reduced rent and their own utility costs and have to keep up the grounds.
What they get in return is the privilege of living in what are usually large, expensive homes for a fraction of what it would cost to rent such a property. And in instances where they have to leave a house because it sold, staging companies usually try to place them in another house as soon as possible.
Economic uncertainty is making it easier to find reliable, trustworthy people willing to live on a month-to-month basis, said Susan Hendee, an associate at Show to Sell, a Westport firm that offers home manager and staging services. For people who have sold their homes and don’t want to buy another right away, “we’re a very good option,” she said. “This is actually a pretty good time for us.”
Likewise for Susan Hendrickson, the owner of Unique Property Marketing, also in Westport. “In just the last month,” she said, “I’ve put three new home managers in houses.”
Before home managers are accepted into such a program, they usually undergo a rigorous screening process. Firms may do background checks and ask for financial information in addition to scrutinizing the applicant’s furniture and décor.
“You probably have friends who every time you go to their apartment they’ve moved their furniture around, right?” said Thomas Scott, vice president for operations of Showhomes, a national chain of offices offering home manager services. “Those are the people we like.”
With 44 franchises, Showhomes is wrapping up its best year ever, company executives say, and hopes to establish more of a presence in the Northeast in the coming year.
Showhomes charges homeowners a fee for their services, in addition to charging a monthly rate to the home manager.
The two Westport firms, which serve Fairfield County, provide the service to the homeowner, and make their money from the manager’s “rent” — usually $1,000 to $1,500 a month. Market-rate rents for similar properties might run as high as $4,000 a month or more.
“Financially, it was such a benefit for us,” said Sally Bohling, who, with her husband, four children and two dogs, managed two houses in the last two years. The Bohlings were building a house in Westport and didn’t want to get locked into a rental lease in the meantime. So they signed on with Unique Property Marketing.
They spent the first five months in a restored antique home on prestigious Beachside Avenue. Then, when the owner decided to rent that property, they moved their Oriental rugs and baby grand piano to a new 12,000-square-foot colonial in a gated community in Fairfield.
There were some inconveniences beyond the obvious challenge of keeping up with the clutter potential of four children. They couldn’t use the fireplaces or fancy built-in coffee maker. Last-minute Sunday showings were “precarious.” But Ms. Bohling said she treated the role as seriously as a job, and used the experience to teach her children the importance of getting chores done and respecting other people's property. The family moved into their own home last month.
Kerrin O’Brien worked with Unique Property Marketing as a house manager for two Greenwich properties after she and her partner, Tamara, sold their own home there. “We were thinking we’d be moving to New Jersey at some point,” said Ms. O’Brien, a real estate investor, “but we weren’t ready to buy or build, given the economy.”
One of the properties they moved into had been on the market and vacant for at least two years. After they moved in, it sold within a few months, she said.
Having left the second house in November, the couple now live in Monmouth Beach, N.J., and are considering starting their own home manager business.
Kim Elstein, co-owner of Gallery 33, in Westport, finds that being a home manager with Show to Sell enables her to showcase her company’s 20th-century vintage furniture, while also reducing storage costs for her inventory. Every piece of furniture in the renovated ranch she currently manages in Fairfield is for sale. Although the furniture’s sky-high prices are out of reach of the average buyer, Ms. Elstein has noticed that, because the pieces are so unusual, people tend to linger in the house longer. “It should be just enough to give an impression, without clutter,” she said.
Show to Sell’s president, Debra Grant, says most of her home managers come to her through referrals, sometimes from divorce lawyers. Divorced men, it might pain their ex-wives to know, often turn out to be very good home managers.
“We do the decorating, tell them this is how it has to be,” Ms. Grant said. “And then they don’t touch anything once it’s set up.”
All the Home’s a Stage
By LISA PREVOST
Published: January 2, 2009
WESTPORT, Conn.
WANTED: Compulsively neat, highly organized people to live in houses being marketed for sale. Must keep house suitable for showing at all times. Dirty dishes, used bath towels and stray newspapers strictly prohibited.
Salary? None. Length of time in house? Unpredictable.
If this description serves only to remind you what a mess your own house is, you are probably not “home manager” material. For people who simply cannot leave the house before making the bed, however, the role of home manager might actually sound appealing. And according to firms that recruit and place home managers, the bleak housing market is driving more of the naturally tidy into their programs.
A home manager is essentially a live-in stager, as well as a caretaker and cleaner extraordinaire. The service is marketed as a tool to sell a vacant property more quickly. Prospective buyers will be less enticed by an empty, stale-smelling house, the theory goes, than by a meticulously kept home decorated with high-quality furnishings.
Home managers are required to accommodate real estate agents who want to show the house any day of the week. They pay a reduced rent and their own utility costs and have to keep up the grounds.
What they get in return is the privilege of living in what are usually large, expensive homes for a fraction of what it would cost to rent such a property. And in instances where they have to leave a house because it sold, staging companies usually try to place them in another house as soon as possible.
Economic uncertainty is making it easier to find reliable, trustworthy people willing to live on a month-to-month basis, said Susan Hendee, an associate at Show to Sell, a Westport firm that offers home manager and staging services. For people who have sold their homes and don’t want to buy another right away, “we’re a very good option,” she said. “This is actually a pretty good time for us.”
Likewise for Susan Hendrickson, the owner of Unique Property Marketing, also in Westport. “In just the last month,” she said, “I’ve put three new home managers in houses.”
Before home managers are accepted into such a program, they usually undergo a rigorous screening process. Firms may do background checks and ask for financial information in addition to scrutinizing the applicant’s furniture and décor.
“You probably have friends who every time you go to their apartment they’ve moved their furniture around, right?” said Thomas Scott, vice president for operations of Showhomes, a national chain of offices offering home manager services. “Those are the people we like.”
With 44 franchises, Showhomes is wrapping up its best year ever, company executives say, and hopes to establish more of a presence in the Northeast in the coming year.
Showhomes charges homeowners a fee for their services, in addition to charging a monthly rate to the home manager.
The two Westport firms, which serve Fairfield County, provide the service to the homeowner, and make their money from the manager’s “rent” — usually $1,000 to $1,500 a month. Market-rate rents for similar properties might run as high as $4,000 a month or more.
“Financially, it was such a benefit for us,” said Sally Bohling, who, with her husband, four children and two dogs, managed two houses in the last two years. The Bohlings were building a house in Westport and didn’t want to get locked into a rental lease in the meantime. So they signed on with Unique Property Marketing.
They spent the first five months in a restored antique home on prestigious Beachside Avenue. Then, when the owner decided to rent that property, they moved their Oriental rugs and baby grand piano to a new 12,000-square-foot colonial in a gated community in Fairfield.
There were some inconveniences beyond the obvious challenge of keeping up with the clutter potential of four children. They couldn’t use the fireplaces or fancy built-in coffee maker. Last-minute Sunday showings were “precarious.” But Ms. Bohling said she treated the role as seriously as a job, and used the experience to teach her children the importance of getting chores done and respecting other people's property. The family moved into their own home last month.
Kerrin O’Brien worked with Unique Property Marketing as a house manager for two Greenwich properties after she and her partner, Tamara, sold their own home there. “We were thinking we’d be moving to New Jersey at some point,” said Ms. O’Brien, a real estate investor, “but we weren’t ready to buy or build, given the economy.”
One of the properties they moved into had been on the market and vacant for at least two years. After they moved in, it sold within a few months, she said.
Having left the second house in November, the couple now live in Monmouth Beach, N.J., and are considering starting their own home manager business.
Kim Elstein, co-owner of Gallery 33, in Westport, finds that being a home manager with Show to Sell enables her to showcase her company’s 20th-century vintage furniture, while also reducing storage costs for her inventory. Every piece of furniture in the renovated ranch she currently manages in Fairfield is for sale. Although the furniture’s sky-high prices are out of reach of the average buyer, Ms. Elstein has noticed that, because the pieces are so unusual, people tend to linger in the house longer. “It should be just enough to give an impression, without clutter,” she said.
Show to Sell’s president, Debra Grant, says most of her home managers come to her through referrals, sometimes from divorce lawyers. Divorced men, it might pain their ex-wives to know, often turn out to be very good home managers.
“We do the decorating, tell them this is how it has to be,” Ms. Grant said. “And then they don’t touch anything once it’s set up.”
Monday, February 23, 2009
Help for Vacant REO Homes!
Showhomes, America's largest home staging company, has begun a national partnership with NRI Relocation to stage and manage REO homes while they are vacant and on the market for sale. So far this partership is generating results: the first two homes staged with live-in Home Managers sold in less than 30 days.
Here is a photo of a $500k home in Scottsdale that had been on the market for over 9 months before selling in 30 days:
We also sold a home in Portland that had been on the market for over 6 months in 15 days and are now staging a third home in Charlotte with several others in the pipeline.
NRI is a great Relo company, staffed with some very seasoned professionals. We are excited to get the opportunity to work with them nationwide and help their clients stage and sell homes using Home Managers in a really tough market.
Showhomes is in a unique position in the staging industry; with offices in 44 markets and growing, we are able to provide consistent, high quality staging services with a single point of contact. Add to that Showhome's state of the art insurance programs and we hope this is a recipe for sales success in 2009!
Here is a photo of a $500k home in Scottsdale that had been on the market for over 9 months before selling in 30 days:
We also sold a home in Portland that had been on the market for over 6 months in 15 days and are now staging a third home in Charlotte with several others in the pipeline.
NRI is a great Relo company, staffed with some very seasoned professionals. We are excited to get the opportunity to work with them nationwide and help their clients stage and sell homes using Home Managers in a really tough market.
Showhomes is in a unique position in the staging industry; with offices in 44 markets and growing, we are able to provide consistent, high quality staging services with a single point of contact. Add to that Showhome's state of the art insurance programs and we hope this is a recipe for sales success in 2009!
Monday, February 16, 2009
Why Stage?
We love these quotes by Juliet Johnson, author, speaker and leading authority on home staging luxury real estate in suburban New Jersey.
"Home staging - aka getting your home into the best possible show shape so as to trigger an emotional response in the prospective buyer - is the proven way to shore up the value of any property offered for sale. Studies have shown that a staged house sells for 20% more than non-staged homes on properties priced over $200,000 and for 10 - 15% more on homes less than $150,000 - according to Thom Scott of Showhomes. So, if you want to get rich with your investment property... or maybe just sell your house for the best possible price, stage it!
"To shore up the price of your property for sale (i.e. get rich... or at the very least get what's rightfully yours), take the time to present your property really well. (which is just another way of describing staging!)
"Show the buyer how to live in the home. We have an 'add water and stir' society; people prefer to have an expert tell them something rather than have to go down a learning curve, make expensive mistakes and not have an optimal experience. Give each room a function, some color and some style. Buyers respond to emotions, and the best way to engage the emotions is with color (hence the existence of painters for as long as there's been mankind!)
"If a house costs $255,000. Your first price reduction is going to be at least $5 or 6 thousand, no? For half of that, you could have staged the whole house, or at least the principle rooms, for 3 months! Yes, you would have out of pocket expense on the staging, but what would your carrying costs have been?
"Staged homes sell 20 - 30% faster. In your market, how long is the average days on market? Chances are it's at least 60 - 90 days (and getting longer as 2008 progresses) If you can sell you home for a higher price, and not have it sit on the market deteriorating thereby saving untold amounts of money, to say nothing of time and emotional expense, wouldn't you agree, it makes financial sense to stage the home?"
Sellers often say that they can't afford to stage. If you look at it this way, you can't afford not to stage in today's market.
20% more....that's the difference between getting the $360K your house is worth or $300K a buyer might offer if your home is vacant.
10% more on homes valued $150K or less. That's $15,000 dollars you may have left on the table.
Remember this if nothing else: Staging always costs less than a price reduction!
Quotes were excerpted from Juliet's blog post: "Home Staging is a Rich Man's Game - Yeah, If You Wanna Be Rich!" To read the full article click here.
"Home staging - aka getting your home into the best possible show shape so as to trigger an emotional response in the prospective buyer - is the proven way to shore up the value of any property offered for sale. Studies have shown that a staged house sells for 20% more than non-staged homes on properties priced over $200,000 and for 10 - 15% more on homes less than $150,000 - according to Thom Scott of Showhomes. So, if you want to get rich with your investment property... or maybe just sell your house for the best possible price, stage it!
"To shore up the price of your property for sale (i.e. get rich... or at the very least get what's rightfully yours), take the time to present your property really well. (which is just another way of describing staging!)
"Show the buyer how to live in the home. We have an 'add water and stir' society; people prefer to have an expert tell them something rather than have to go down a learning curve, make expensive mistakes and not have an optimal experience. Give each room a function, some color and some style. Buyers respond to emotions, and the best way to engage the emotions is with color (hence the existence of painters for as long as there's been mankind!)
"If a house costs $255,000. Your first price reduction is going to be at least $5 or 6 thousand, no? For half of that, you could have staged the whole house, or at least the principle rooms, for 3 months! Yes, you would have out of pocket expense on the staging, but what would your carrying costs have been?
"Staged homes sell 20 - 30% faster. In your market, how long is the average days on market? Chances are it's at least 60 - 90 days (and getting longer as 2008 progresses) If you can sell you home for a higher price, and not have it sit on the market deteriorating thereby saving untold amounts of money, to say nothing of time and emotional expense, wouldn't you agree, it makes financial sense to stage the home?"
Sellers often say that they can't afford to stage. If you look at it this way, you can't afford not to stage in today's market.
20% more....that's the difference between getting the $360K your house is worth or $300K a buyer might offer if your home is vacant.
10% more on homes valued $150K or less. That's $15,000 dollars you may have left on the table.
Remember this if nothing else: Staging always costs less than a price reduction!
Quotes were excerpted from Juliet's blog post: "Home Staging is a Rich Man's Game - Yeah, If You Wanna Be Rich!" To read the full article click here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
