Since creating the “to be continued” blog, I’ve been closing each post with the words “dwell in possibilities.” I must confess that I borrowed this phrase from the great poet, Emily Dickinson. I saw her quote and realized that it summed up what I am doing as a professional home stager and interior designer.

I am most grateful to Ms. Dickinson for her insightful and inspiring phrase.

Regardless of the size or price range of a house, my objective is to find the possibilities in that house. I am looking for those unique features of that house and finding possible ways to accentuate them for the potential buyer. I am analyzing those unusual spaces that buyers find difficult to understand upon first glance and finding possible functional uses for those spaces.

In the end, my mission is to help the potential buyer see how they could dwell in the possibilities of this house!


Saturday, April 7, 2012

Tulsa World Promotes Home Staging

Earlier this week, I discussed my goal to make professional home staging the standard in our area.  Today, the Tulsa World promotes home staging with two articles headlining the Scene section. 

I was pleased to be interviewed by the reporter, Brevetta Hassell, and included in her article about a Tulsa resident preparing her house for market.  The interview was fun because I was able to talk with Brevetta about my passion for home staging and my belief in how it can make a huge difference. 

It was great that Brevetta picked up on a key fact about home staging:

“The biggest perk of home-staging to the seller is less time on the market. According to a study conducted by the Real Estate Staging Association in 2011, homes that are staged before being listed sell more than 70 percent faster than unstaged homes.

A troubled economy has made for a buyer's market, and for sellers, the stakes are high for setting their homes apart and getting them noticed, seen and sold.”

You can read this article (Tulsa resident readies her home of 28 years for the market) at http://www.tulsaworld.com/scene/article.aspx?articleid=20120407_44_D1_CUTLIN669483

The Tulsa World Scene section also featured a second article on home staging (Setting the stage:  Home-staging allows buyers to see the potential of the home).  In that article, they feature Emily Brown and Janet Rusley of Sell Smart Home Staging who stage a Florence Park home.  You can read that article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/scene/article.aspx?articleid=20120407_44_D1_CUTLIN249420  

I’ve been staging homes for 7 years.  It is so gratifying that I can see real signs that home staging is taking hold in our area.  It is not the standard like it is in other parts of the country, but we continue to make progress. 

As I say over and over again, with professional home staging, the transformations are dramatic and the results impressive.  And, the possibilities are endless. 

Dwell in possibilities

Cindy


Tuesday, April 3, 2012

It Was Bound To Happen

It was bound to happen because I sometimes feel like I meet myself coming and going.  Today, I am staging a house for a lovely young family who are selling to move up to a bigger house.  I received a call this weekend from the seller wife all excited that they found the house they would love to buy.  It turns out that it is a house that I staged!!

They visited this house and fell in love.  I am not surprised that my clients fell in love with the layout and the incredible possibilities of this house.

Now my new challenge is to help them make their house “show ready” and sell it quickly and for the best possible price – my primary goal with each and every staging project.

This situation also helps me realize I am making progress toward achieving my second goal – which is equally important and in some respects much more challenging:  To make professional home staging the standard in our area. 

If home staging is the standard, then Realtors and sellers (partners or not; savvy or not) will realize that their house needs to be staged by a professional because most of the other houses on the market are being staged.  Buyers expect that the houses they consider visiting first are the ones that have been staged and have “eye popping” online photos.  If home staging is the standard, then those staged houses will sell for all of the right reasons.  If home staging is the standard, my sellers become buyers of other houses I’ve staged!!

I must admit that I see more and more progress in making professional home staging a standard in our area.  In the past month, we worked with three new Realtors who want to partner.  We continued to have staged houses sell (check out the March 15th blog post – Show Ready, Staged Houses Sell Quickly).  We continue to grow the readership of this blog (more than 5,300 total page views to date) which is another sign that our messages about home staging are being read.  We have daily visitors to our website which tells the home staging story exceptionally well in pictures and results. 

With professional home staging, the transformations are dramatic and the results impressive.  Plus, the possibilities are endless. 

Dwell in possibilities
 

Cindy