Setting the stage for a sale

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Call it the HGTV effect.

Home buyers have high expectations when it comes to a new home. You have to grab them in the first seven to 10 seconds or they move on.The National Association of Realtors said 90 percent of homebuyers look online to find their new homes.

It’s critical to make a good first impression, and that’s where staging and good photography come in.

“You can sell a home without staging, but you’ll take a hit on the price for resale homes,” according to Jennifer Manchester, the president of the Charlotte chapter at the International Association of Home Staging Professionals.

Manchester’s also a licensed real estate agent with Suburban Properties of Charlotte. In her experience, staging works. “In the last 12 months, I sold houses in a week or less when they were staged.”

But she cautions they have to be priced properly. “If you don’t have the mix right, the house can sit there for over a 100 days,” she said. “It’s like baking a cake, all the ingredients have to be just right.”

Nationally, 95 percent of staged homes sell in 11 days or less, the home staging group found in a survey, and they sell for 17 percent more than non-staged homes.

National Association of Realtors numbers also show that staging is a good investment. The average staging investment is 1 percent to 3 percent of the asking price with a return of 8 percent to 10 percent.

Manchester said staging is catching on in Charlotte, but it’s ubiquitous in some markets, such as California, New York and Boston. “It’s a given, sellers expect it.”

“Brokers have always had a group of people they could contact if they needed carpets cleaned, walls painted and yards cleaned up; now they can add stagers to the list and bring them in as a third party,” said Manchester.

Return on investment

There is a definite correlation in shaping up a home for resale and getting a good price. HomeGain.com asked realtors about the top projects they recommended to sellers, their cost, and the return on investment. Ninety-seven percent of agents said lightening and brightening a home prior to putting it on the market cost between $233 and $370 and increased a sales price from between $1,178 to $1,566.

De-cluttering typically cost between $190 and $318, but increased home values between $1,505 to $1,937: a 578 percent return on investment.  A little landscaping went a long way. Yard work costs ranged from $378 to $546 and netted sellers anywhere from $1,718 to $2,158. Staging a home for sale cost $403 to $584, but returned a price increase of $1,938 to $2,431.

Cindy Barnes with Allen Tate Real Estate in Charlotte said staging is vital.

“I hesitate to take a listing where I’m not allowed to stage,” she said. “I consider it editing. Usually a client has what I need in a home, I rearrange what’s there.”

Barnes stages homes herself with the help of her assistant. She’ll ask the seller for a small allowance of $400 to $500 for things like fresh towels, greenery and new artwork.

“People remember the negative,” said Barnes. She shows clients before and after photos of staged homes. “I tell them it’s not about their taste, it’s about selling a product.”

Peggy Peterson with Cottingham Chalk Hayes in Charlotte said some vacant homes can benefit from staging if it’s not obvious what a home will look like when it’s lived in, but staging is mostly for owner-occupied homes. In some cases, it can sometimes take six months to get a home ready for listing.

Peterson sometimes handles the staging herself. “I physically help the owner make it happen and make it a partnership with the seller,” she said. For complicated jobs, she’ll bring in a professional stager for a consultation at a cost of $200 to $400 to the owner.

Peterson admits talking about staging with a seller can be difficult. “We’re talking about how they live. I tell owners once you decide you’re selling, it has to appeal to the buyer.”

Reluctant sellers are usually won over after staging. “I can’t tell you how many have said. “Why didn’t I do this ten years ago? I love my house!’”

To learn how to stage, Manchester suggests taking classes at the Mingle School of Real Estate in Charlotte.

No second chance at first impression

Buyers have high visual expectations, and before they even schedule an appointment to see a home, they want to be wowed online. That means, if you’re listing a property, you need good pictures and lots of them.

Cal Mitchener, the owner of Charlotte Virtual Home Tours, has been photographing homes as a full-time job since 2008. He’s seen tremendous growth in his business with revenue tripling. “The recession hurt the real estate industry, but it helped my business. Agents had to work harder to sell properties,” explained Mitchener.

Peterson has been using professional photographers for 10 years and includes their services as part of her marketing plan.

“I use them for all my listings,” she said. “It’s critical that the pictures are sharp and clear and the home is free of clutter and sparkling.”

She added that open houses are a thing of the past. It’s about virtual tours now. The more pictures the better. She has every room, the front of house, and the back and front yard photographed at least once.

What kind of impact has it had on her business? She says it’s hard to quantify, but her number of listings has improved by 20 percent while the time a house sits on the market has fallen by 20 percent.

“Smart agents are using good photos,” added Peterson. “I’m often shocked at the low quality that is out there.”  According to a National Association of Realtors survey, 30 percent of agents use digital cameras daily.

Barnes said she still uses traditional advertising in newspapers and “snail mail with comps,” because “there’s a demographic group that responds to that.” But she gets calls from prospective home buyers saying, “These are the houses we want to see,” based on internet listings.

Pictures are very important said Barnes. Her assistant, who’s taken photography classes, photographs her listings or she’ll use Allen Tate’s staff photographer. “With a very high end house, I’ll consider bringing in a professional photographer.”

Mitchener’s fee starts at $150 for 20 photos.

The grass really is greener

As more buyers turn to the internet to search for homes, a listing has to look ideal and this sometimes requires retouching photos.

“I do it all the time,” Mitchener said of airbrushing. “Normally, I make the skies blue when the sky is gray. If someone is in the process of seeding a lawn or distributing mulch, I can create virtually grown grass.”

Mitchener cautioned that you have to be judicious in Photoshopping. “You can’t remove power lines” from a photo if they’re at a property.

Peterson agreed. “If the day is cloudy and rainy, we blue the sky. I don’t think that is deceptive.” She added that it’s not a good idea to doctor photos to deceive buyers because they’ll be disappointed when they see the house.

Barnes said her goal is to never misrepresent a listing. “I don’t add trees if there are none.” She remembers one time when a homeowner still had boxes sitting in the house the day of the photo shoot so she had her assistant Photoshop them out.

Janet Thoren, the director of regulatory affairs at North Carolina’s Real Estate Commission, has never heard of a complaint to the agency about misrepresentation of property. She added that making grass greener is one thing, but “removing something like power lines is misrepresenting property. That’s a problem.”