Master bedroom before staging

I’ve featured New York home stager Donna Dazzo before here in the Home Staging Business Report after one of her impressive media appearances. I’m happy to have the opportunity to write about Donna again because she is such a model student!

In January, this Staging Diva Graduate was featured in Yahoo! Shine with her inexpensive and easy design tricks for selling and she was also recently featured in Newsday’s weekly paper and online in the “Long Island Makeover” column.

Donna certainly deserves this recognition because she so obviously knows what she’s doing as demonstrated by her latest success story.

Donna’s home staging company, Designed to Appeal, was contacted by the owner of a Manhattan apartment who was relocating to a different state. She and her husband had one month to move due to a job relocation, so needless to say they needed to sell fast.

Master bedroom transformed

Luckily, these homeowners had family members on the West Coast telling them they just had to have a home stager because “no one puts a home on the market in California without having it staged.”

It wasn’t too difficult for Donna to evaluate what wasn’t working in the space as it was. The dining room had a sofa, the living room had two dining room chairs and little else, the master bedroom had a set of bunk beds in it and the children’s room had a full-sized bed and was also doubling as a home office.

Donna made recommendations for the furniture placement and the homeowners decided to simply move their own items out and bring rental items in to show the apartment in its best possible light.

What happened after staging was finished?

• The real estate agent booked 35 showings the first week
• The homeowners received 3 offers at the first open house
• The house sold in 8 days after the first showing

This homeowner was happy she listened to her family members so she could carry on with her move with that much less stress.

About her home staging training Donna says, “The Staging Diva Program’s emphasis on continuous marketing and marketing to more than one group (not only real estate agents) has helped me with increased exposure and more clients.”

Donna is obviously focusing on marketing to the media just as she was taught in Course 4 of the Staging Diva Program. Home stagers, do you consider the media one of your target markets? What have your experiences been? How have you managed to get noticed by local media? Please share your experiences and let’s discuss!

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould developed the Staging Diva Training Program to create opportunities for others to grow their own profitable home staging businesses. More than 4000 Staging Diva Students around the world have been trained by Debra.

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With two very young children at home it was a risky move on Fabia MacNair’s part to quit her job in the residential development field to run her Ontario home staging business, Styling Spaces, full-time. But it’s a risk that continues to pay off for her and her family.

Fabia has worked hard to put what she learned in the Staging Diva Home Staging Training Program into practice (she was obviously motivated to make her business work having given up her steady job). She has even been mentioned in her local newspaper after giving a staging seminar to local members of the community.

In December of last year, Fabia received a call from a homeowner who was listing his home and despite the fact that his real estate agent did not feel the home needed to be staged, he called in Styling Spaces to do the job anyway. After being a home stager for 7 years, I can assure you what happened to Fabia in this case is common. Savvy home sellers use their own common sense even if their agent isn’t a believer in staging.

When the agent came back and saw the transformation she was “wowed” and immediately hired Styling Spaces to stage four of her other listings.

One of those listings had been on the market on and off for a year before staging and it sold that same weekend.  Two of the homes sold same day and one that had been overpriced for its market sold for $15,000 over market value.

That skeptical real estate agent became a big fan of Fabia and spread the word around her office leading to lots more work for Styling Spaces.

This story proves you cannot depend on real estate agents for your business. (That’s a lesson covered in Course 4 of the Staging Diva Program when you learn about the four key target markets a home stager has). Obviously the homeowner in this case had been educated about the value of staging and look at the snowball effect that followed.

Fabia writes, “The Staging Diva Program, hands down, has given me the answers I need to run my business. My class notes still guide me when I am stuck. Debra Gould is very knowledgeable about this industry and is willing to teach it. When you have spent enough time with those other courses and you are ready to get to work call The Staging Diva.”

Stagers, I would love to hear your best “agent-proven-wrong” stories! Please share yours in a comment below and perhaps I’ll compile them for a future post if we get a good discussion going.

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows the key to success in business is in how you market it. She’s taught thousands of people around the globe how to make money using their natural creative talent as home stagers through the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program.

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Many home owners choose to sell on their own instead of working with a real estate agent and giving 5% or 6% of their selling price over in real estate commissions. These properties are known as FSBOs, an acronym for ‘For Sale by Owner.’

The very fact that they’ve chosen to sell without an agent tells you these types of clients are interested in making more money on their sale. Home staging is an excellent way for the owners of FSBO properties to maximize their selling price, as demonstrated in the following story about Staging Diva Graduate and Omaha home stager, Dolly Dewald.

Bedroom before home staging

After doing an initial home staging consultation for a busy couple with three young children who were selling their home without a real estate agent, Dolly was asked to stage the home for them.

The home owners spent weeks cleaning and painting their home. They had little in the way of furniture so Dolly helped them get set up with a furniture rental company and assisted in selecting furniture for 4 bedrooms and an entertainment room. Dolly went on to purchase bedding and accessories. The home took an entire day to stage.

Bedroom after staging

Each Sunday they held an open house and they ended up receiving multiple offers, not bad for a FSBO. The couple eventually sold for 96% of their asking price.

The clients were thrilled with the results and later told Dolly the buyer said her staging is what sold the house.

About her home staging training, Dolly writes, “My goal was to have a job I loved. The Staging Diva® Program gave me the structure and know-how to create a business and make it work. With Debra Gould’s help I now have an outlet for my creative juices and a job I love.”

Do you have a story like Dolly’s that proves home staging works? Just follow this link to share it with me and you can be featured in a post like this too!

Have any of you worked on FSBOs? Have they provided any special challenges or opportunities? Please share your thoughts and comments below.

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows the key to success in business is in how you market it. She’s taught thousands of people around the globe how to make money using their natural creative talent as home stagers through the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program.

Technorati Tags: FSBO, staging FSBO, home stager, home staging, dolly dewald, staging diva, home staging success story, home staging program, staging diva graduate, home staging course

I haven’t heard a story that demonstrates the power of follow up better than one recently sent in by Staging Diva Graduate, Susan Atwell of New York-based AtWell Staged Home.

On a spring day in 2008, Susan was out touring model homes being built nearby, a practice she considers “continuing education for home stagers.” During her visit, Susan signed up for the builder’s mailing list under her personal email account.

Weeks later, an email came through from that builder announcing a seminar for potential home buyers with home staging being one of the topics.

This is one of those potential potholes in one’s road to success that can swallow you up if you’re not careful to simply go around it! I’ve seen so many entrepreneurs get stopped in their tracks for no good reason.

Here’s what I mean:

Many new home stagers would have been discouraged by this builder’s announcement assuming he already had a solid relationship with a home stager. Some would even blow their own disappointment into something bigger and use it as an excuse not to keep promoting themselves. They would listen to the negative voice in their heads saying, “See, this will never work. There are already well established stagers who are better than you. Who are you kidding, trying to make a living as a home stager?”

Fortunately, Susan Atwell knows that growing a business takes work and she is very single-minded in her commitment to her staging business success. She thought that in view of his upcoming event for home buyers, the builder might be interested in speaking with a local home stager so she picked up the phone and called the manager.

During this call, she learned that the builder would be offering a $1000 credit towards home staging for any buyer needing to sell their home before buying.

They had a brief discussion about recommending her company to his clients and several days later, Susan got a phone call saying that the builder would recommend Atwell Staged Home as a preferred local staging company.

Of course, Susan didn’t hang her hat on that and sit back waiting for new projects to fall in her lap, instead she continued to work on marketing her business.

She started a home staging newsletter and a blog, two topics she’s been getting coaching on during her monthly participation in Staging Diva Dialog. She also got a new company brochure (free) because of her listing on the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers.

By the time January rolled around, having received no calls from the builder and approaching a new spring selling season, Susan decided to follow up under the guise of sharing these new resources she’d been developing.

Two weeks after that follow up note, Susan was asked by the builder to present to two potential home buyers, a presentation that ended in two scheduled home staging consultations.

After that successful engagement, Susan was asked to present again and again and she ultimately ended up with 25 hours of home staging projects from that one builder in 2009.

One of those homes was staged for a couple in the Bronx who were up-sizing to a new home. They got a signed agreement from the first couple to view their existing home making them and the builder very happy with AtWell Staged Home’s staging abilities!

About her great home staging success, Susan writes, “Having a solid business plan is key. Debra Gould’s  home staging program is extremely logical and effective. The beauty is that it is also simple. With a strong IT background, this appeals to me!”

This is not the first time I’ve written about Susan’s home staging successes. She’s followed what she learned about marketing to the media in Course 4 of the Staging Diva program and realizes that by virtue of all the articles and blog posts I write about home staging, I am a member of the media on this topic!

As a Staging Diva Graduate, Susan shares her news, giving me everything I need to write a story about her and then put it on this blog and submit it to hundreds of other sites across the Internet, which gives her tons of free publicity and web links back to her listing in the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers.

If you’d like to take advantage of this free service for Staging Diva Students too, simply visit this link and tell me your story!

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows the key to success in business is in how you market it. She’s taught thousands of people around the globe how to make money using their natural creative talent as home stagers through the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program.

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Few types of people are in as much of a rush to sell as those going through a divorce. It’s a wonder that all couples going through the process don’t choose to work with a home stager, especially with stories like the one Staging Diva Graduate Carol King recently sent in, proving that home staging works.

Before becoming a home stager at the age of 62, Carol was a single mother operating her own hair salon. Though she’d always loved redecorating, she hadn’t considered changing careers to pursue a career in the field. Not even when she found herself staging a vacant home for a divorcing couple.

Carol naturally brought in furniture and accessories, art and flowers to make it feel warm and inviting, knowing that the home shouldn’t be on the market vacant.

The home sold on its first day after being staged after the divorcing couple was presented with multiple offers. They ended up selling for well over their asking price.

It’s a shame that Carol didn’t take before and after photos of this project, but this was before she realized she was a home stager.

This goes to show, even if you just enjoy decorating right now and don’t have plans to start a business, you should be taking before and after photos just in case!

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager and she developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love while helping others at the same time.

Technorati Tags: home stager, home staging, staging diva, home staging training, home staging business, staging diva graduate, home staging training

Becoming a home stager was a natural evolution for Debbie Fiskum who worked with her husband doing “fix n flips” and rentals in Denver, Colorado before taking the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program and starting her business, Perfect Home Staging Denver.

It didn’t take long for Debbie to learn that there was a future in home staging because through successful staging projects she was steadily educating her market that staging works.

One excellent example is a “fix n flip” she was hired to do for a real estate investor husband and wife pair last month. The wife was sure home staging was an excellent idea but the husband wasn’t so quick to get on board. The home had been beautifully renovated and upgraded and he didn’t see the need to go further before going to market.

Luckily, the wife ended up making the ultimate decision to go ahead and stage the vacant home before putting it up for sale.

Rental furniture and accessories were brought in. Furniture was kept minimal but Debbie splurged on accessories, creating vignettes and “emotional pockets” throughout the home to draw in potential buyers.

To her clients’ delight, the home sold in two and a half weeks, at Christmas time!

That’s all it took to educate the husband about the power of home staging and needless to say, both investors will be staging all of their future investment properties.

“Taking the Staging Diva Program helped me to speak more effectively to agents, investors and homeowners and to convince them of the value of home staging,” writes Debbie. She adds, “I gained insight about marketing my business and that continues to be an ongoing process as I follow Debra on Twitter and keep up with her blog posts. By doing the things Debra recommends in her program, you can build a profitable business.”

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager and she developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love while helping others at the same time.

Technorati Tags: home stager, home staging, staging diva, home staging training, home staging business, staging diva graduate, home staging training

It wasn’t until Interior Designer, Linda Scaglione, found herself in the midst of Southern California’s housing collapse that she became desperate to find a way out of the sinking retail side of design.

When a friend suggested that with her skills she should consider getting into home staging, Linda made the decision to take the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program.

What Linda’s friend knew was something Linda hadn’t realized at the time.

In poor economic times, nobody is spending money on frivolous things like interior design. But, with people being forced to sell their homes and wanting to keep all the equity they possibly can, they are willing to invest in a designer who is skilled in home staging.

By taking her talent and experience in interior design and combining them with the business knowledge she gained by taking the Staging Diva Program, Linda was setting herself up for great success.

Linda’s home staging business is called Haute Decors. Marketing primarily to the real estate industry, Haute Decors is known for updating existing cabinetry using decorating painting as well as providing home staging services.

Her first project after reinventing herself as a home stager saw Linda staging a condo that then sold within 24 hours! On top of that, it sold for more money than many other units in the same condo development.

The remarkable success of that project led to Linda being hired to stage a 2.6 million dollar beach home that had been sitting on the market for more than a year. After a kitchen renovation and Linda’s home staging the owner had several pending offers within one week!

About the training she received through the Staging Diva Program Linda says, “It gave me the courage to start my own interior design business specializing in home staging. For anyone wondering if the investment will be worth it, I say ‘Go for it’!”

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager and she developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love while helping others at the same time.

Technorati Tags: reinvention as a home stager, home stager, home staging, interior designer, california home stager, haute decors, staging diva, home staging training

Judging by the professional quality of her photographs and the dramatic transformations shown in her before and afters, you would probably never guess that the owner of Holly’s Home Matters, a home staging company located in Bel Air Maryland, has actually spent the past 20 years working as a Registered Nurse.

In fact, Staging Diva Graduate, Holly Battaglia is the mother of four children aged 7-14 and she still works part-time as a nurse while operating her creatively fulfilling home staging business on a full-time basis.

The fact that Holly can make positive changes in people’s lives through home staging while working part-time to help people in the most literal sense as a nurse is remarkable.

Holly recently wrote me to share her most memorable home staging experience where she left quite a lasting impression on her client.

After a home had sat on the market for ten months, the owners switched real estate agents and the new agent called Holly on Labor Day. That evening, Holly met with the exasperated homeowners and their new agent to discuss what needed to happen get the home sold. Four days later the home was completely transformed.

The property sold that weekend after its first showing post-staging.

The price had been increased to cover the costs of staging and updates, but they actually received over and above their asking price.

Holly writes, “This was a couple that spoke minimal English but they were very trusting of everything I did. Four difficult days of rearranging, bringing in updated furniture and hauling unwanted clutter to the dump, all paid off. It was a great feeling. This past New Years the homeowner emailed me from his home in Korea to thank me once again. He wanted to know if I remembered him because he would never forget me. It was the most rewarding project I’ve ever been part of.”

The fact that Holly is able to manage a large family, continue working as a registered nurse part-time and operate a successful home staging business should inspire many people wondering if they could manage to stage homes around their “day job.”

Do you operate your home staging business alongside another professional career? Did you leave a meaningful career to explore the world of home staging? Please share your experiences by leaving a comment below.

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager and she developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love while helping others at the same time.

Technorati Tags: home stager, home staging business, staging diva, holly battaglia, home staging business, home staging success story, proof home staging works

Colette Smith has always had an entrepreneurial spirit. This former owner and operator of a picture framing and gallery shop is now using her business acumen and talent for decorating to help homeowners in the Perth Metropolitan area of Australia sell their homes fast.

Colette is a Staging Diva® Graduate and the owner of Perth home staging business, Staged with Finesse. Her company recently helped a real estate investor increase the value of a property by $30,000.

This real estate investor was preparing to sell her unit in a 200 unit complex.  The 2-bedroom unit was in a great location with river views but because it had been a long-standing rental, it needed to be updated before going to market.

Colette determined that the home’s target market was a professional couple or a small family and the home staging was done with that demographic in mind.

First, though, maintenance issues were attended to with non-working exhaust fans being replaced, new carpets installed and old cupboards removed. Walls were then painted in soft shades of grey and doors and trim were done in dark charcoal to give the unit a smart, crisp and modern look.

The unit was staged with rental furniture, lamps, art, draperies and accessories all expertly chosen by Colette.

Colette’s client was a real estate agent in addition to being an investor and quickly determined that the asking price would have to go up after the transformation. There were two other units in the building for sale at the same time – one for $250,000 and another for $265,000.

The unit “Staged with Finesse” went on the market for $295,000 and sold to the first person to view it. Clear proof that home staging works!

Colette recently wrote to say, “Training with Debra Gould gave me the confidence to take what I knew I had and put it into practice. What I did for free before I now do for money and love what I am doing. The gleaming smiles of satisfaction on clients’ faces when they view the transformation is more important than the financial rewards at the end of the day. What a difference a day makes!”

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager and she developed the Staging Diva Home Staging BusinessTraining Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love while helping others at the same time.

Technorati Tags: home stager, australia home stager, staging diva, staged with finesse, real estate investor, home staging success story

Last year, an aspiring home stager by the name of Katie Mines, left a comment on one of my blog posts saying that she was overwhelmed with the choice of where to obtain her home staging training. While she enjoyed my Staging Diva home staging newsletters and blogs, she was advised to take a course where she would get a set of credentials at the end. If you’ve been reading my blog and newsletters for any amount of time, you know there’s no such thing as real home staging credentials, so this was a case of someone being mislead by the unfortunate marketing tactics used by some in the home staging industry.

I’m happy to report Katie forwarded my blog post (Want to be a home stager? 15 questions to ask before handing over your money) to the person telling her to get “credentials” and decided on Staging Diva for her training instead.

What a difference less than a year makes!

I recently received a home staging success story from Katie. This Staging Diva Graduate is a former floral designer now operating her own successful home staging business, Sweet Villa Home Staging, in Blair Nebraska.

The first home Katie Mines staged had been on the market for three months. She worked with the homeowner on a Sunday afternoon, moving around furniture, taking out items that wouldn’t be used, rearranging and organizing. Before she left, she gave her client a list of things to work on, some suggestions and a few items to purchase. Katie’s client contacted her the next evening and asked her to help put up the new items and arrange her art work.

Two days after the next open house, Katie’s client had an offer and the following day, the home sold. Not bad for someone without any home staging credentials!

I’m thrilled that Katie chose Staging Diva Training because she learned what it takes to build a successful business. It sounds like she’s happy with her choice too. She wrote to say, “The common sense approach given by Debra Gould and her experience in the business world is invaluable. Her enthusiasm is catching!”

I’ve heard from many people like Katie who are being advised to take a program for those certifications. The decision is ultimately yours but if you’re in a similar situation or overwhelmed by the choices before you, here is some recommended reading:

Will the first home staging program you take meet your needs?

Sucked in by promises of a guaranteed staging job

Look out for home staging training snake oil

Home stagers, have you been pushed to get credentials that don’t really exist. Have you ever encountered a client who did not want to work with you because of your lack of “credentials”? Please share your experiences by leaving a comment below.

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager and she developed the Staging Diva Home Staging BusinessTraining Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love.

Technorati Tags: nebraska home stager, home staging certifications, home stager, home staging training, choosing home staging training, home staging credentials, staging diva, debra gould, katie mines