Comments on: Stop Insulting Home Buyers’ Intelligence with Silly Staging Tricks!

By: lisa

lisa — Fri, 06 May 2011 15:58:41 +0000

Thanks, Debra. I really appreciate getting your e-mails and blogs. I have learned so much from you. Thanks for sharing so freely as I think it really does help elevate our industry as a whole.

By: Home Staging - The Fascinators of Real Estate?

Home Staging - The Fascinators of Real Estate? — Fri, 06 May 2011 11:00:07 +0000

[...] table. I call these “silly staging tricks,” and in my opinion, they do nothing to help a buyer fall in love with a house— they are just distracting. They scream “this house has been staged so you’ll pay as [...]

By: Debra Gould

Debra Gould — Thu, 05 May 2011 18:01:32 +0000

Lisa, glad we sorted that out and are both agreed that “fake and unlivable” is not the way to go! Not that we have to always agree of course!
I too wouldn’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater! I love when my readers share their comments so we can get a discussion going back and forth!

Anyone else want to weigh in on this subject?

Comments help me know what kinds of things my readers want to learn more about. Imagine sitting down to a blank computer screen 2 to 3 times a week and thinking, “what to write about today?” I’ve been blogging and writing about home staging since 2002 and to be honest I still worry about running out of something to say!

Your comments to my blog often inspire new article ideas for me. In fact, thanks to Lisa’s comment, I’m going to do one on setting the table next week.

By: lisa

lisa — Thu, 05 May 2011 16:01:06 +0000

Debra, I absolutely did not mean to imply that you were advocating ho-humness:-) I just don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. So much of what we do is subjective and I still think a table set here or there can work but, I’d rather see stagers err on the side of much less of that sort of thing. Once I walked into a staged home with things like an open book with a pair of antique spectacles placed on top, towels festooned with ribbons and shells, wine glasses on the tub, fake food on the table and YES…Yuk…the house felt fake and unlivable.

By: Debra Gould

Debra Gould — Thu, 05 May 2011 15:24:10 +0000

Lisa, I’m not for a moment advocating keeping things “ho-hum.” Our job is to create magic and romance the buyer. My point is to be more artful and subtle about it.

By: lisa

lisa — Thu, 05 May 2011 15:06:26 +0000

Debra, you’ve made a pretty solid case here for skipping the diagonal throws, towel tassels and overdone table settings but I still think there can be a place for some ‘model home” effects. The key is subtlety and artistry. I believe you can add beauty and sparkle to a dining room, for instance, by adding a lovely tablescape without making it look too contrived. Like you said: the purpose of home staging is to show a home in a way that people can imagine themselves living there…so why not give them some fuel to spark their imagination? Of course they know it’s staged but I think buyers love to walk into a home that creates excitement and inspires them to dream about entertaining in that beautiful new dining room or relaxing in that spa like master bathroom. Our job is not just to demonstrate the ho-hum way they could live in the house but also to show them the possibilities for making it fabulous!

By: Stop Insulting Home Buyers' Intelligence with Silly Staging - Part 4

Stop Insulting Home Buyers' Intelligence with Silly Staging - Part 4 — Mon, 02 May 2011 17:41:13 +0000

[...] Tricks series of blog posts. In case you missed the first three parts – the first was about staging tricks that border on creepy, the next focused on common dining room and kitchen staging tricks with the last post talking about [...]

By: Stop Insulting Home Buyers’ Intelligence with Silly Staging Tricks – Part 3 | Home Staging Business Report

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:33:47 +0000

[...] examples of silly staging tricks you’ve seen. Please share!Earlier this week I shared some creepy staging tricks and some silly staging tactics which happen in the kitchen and dining room of many homes. [...]

By: Stop Insulting Home Buyers’ Intelligence with Silly Staging Tricks – Part 2 | Home Staging Business Report

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:32:42 +0000

[...] The Staging Diva on September 17, 2008 · 3 comments Print ArticleI hope you enjoyed the first installment in this blog series highlighting silly staging tricks. Please help make this series even more entertaining by adding [...]

By: Donna Ross

Donna Ross — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 06:47:30 +0000

I don’t know about anyone else, but I can’t get into the idea of the table set for a meal (fake food and all) or a tray on the master bed during inspections. I’d be freaked out that the family was just about to converge on the dining room for their meal..or worse that the sellers were trying to have a cozy morning laying in bed. Inpections can feel bad enough for house hunters without being worried about those kinds of scenarios.

Nor can I get into the music thing. It’d make me as a buyer think the place was haunted…and then I’d laugh at the cheak of the seller.