Do you think that there is still an importance to staging a home

I look at it in basically two silos. One is an emotional and one is a logistical.

This is about to be the most disappointing story. I think virtual staging is actually a really good option. it's important to stage your house to its best showing and its best potential. this next point you're about to make is going to be unearthly.

It's been shown over and over again that we can list homes and get a lot of money for it and We don't have to spend thousands of dollars bringing a stager and dealing with all logistics.

welcome back to Millennia Podcast, everybody.

So is staging still a thing? It is

Actually, I have no idea what your take is on this.

Then why don't you ask me what my take is

Do you think that there is still an importance to staging a home? Should we also talk about what staging is? preface

house. There will be two parts. So one is a vacant home. I'm really

okay, there's two, there will be two parts. So one is a vacant home should, I'm really thinking like staging companies actually like setting up a vacant home to look like somebody lives there, like a little model home type. So That part of staging, and then there's the owner occupied still staging of what I did in Paoli of going in and moving things around and reconfiguring. My answer to that one, that's an obvious yes. Of course you want to stage a home. There is home that is already being lived in. Yes, obviously you would want to have it show its best, and we can get into what that kind of staging looks like later, but in short, taking out clunky furniture and rearranging a few things. I spend a solid amount of time rearranging a Book wall of shelves to make it like balanced and look more appealing and visually aesthetic and pictures to make it, elevate the room. So there's stuff like that, but I think I was really thinking more along the lines of vacant home already moved out. Do you stage it or do you keep it empty?

What do you think?

asked you, I have an opinion, but I want to know what your opinion know

so what is the purpose of station

To be able to show how the house can best be utilized. people view them differently. So there's the advantage of being able to walk into a blank canvas and having the buyer's imagination be able to see like where they would put their stuff and how they would configure home. Whereas if it's already staged, then it's harder to envision what like your stuff would look like in there because there's already existing stuff there. There's two different points of it. I want to know what your

So, I look at it in basically two silos. One is an emotional and one is a logistical. So yeah, you're absolutely right. A house that is staged. People can better get an idea of how to set up a house. Ideally that is a logistical consideration.

And there have been times where I've shown houses Wait, on a minute it goes on what you just said.

You asked for my opinion about five times and now you're interrupting me while I am, I am.

So you're going to get to your next point next because on that one, in your defense, I was in a home.

By the way, this better be a damn good point. I can't, I, this better be something that's earth shattering where I'm like, I sit back from this microphone. I'm like, wow, I never really considered it that way. Jen,

this next point you're about to make is going to be unearthly. So go ahead, make your next one, and then I'll go no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Go ahead. End point. And?

I see you have a logistical, which is like, how do we put things in the house? The other one is an emotional. You want to create an emotional connection to the property and the better way to do that instead of some stale, empty house, you have furniture in there. It's well appointed. There's flowers, there's books, there's something

chic.

farmhouse chic. So that is, those are the two levers you can pull on. Good staging does both. That's what I consider staging to be in its purest form. There's also other things like virtual staging and then there's just moving stuff around, but I do not want to go to those topics until you have had a chance to make this profound follow up point to what I just said. The floor is yours. just, it was time

how one time I was in a house showing for a client.

I build it out too much? Jen or what?

up way too much. This is about to be the most disappointing story. There are Jen stories, and then there's going to be this. All I was going to say is that I showed a place, this room would

That was staged the

Shut up. Doc, it wasn't staged. It was just still lived in regardless. I would have thought the room was so small and that nothing would have been able to fit in it. Had there not been anything in there, I would have been like, God, I honestly would have recommended, said you're going to have a hard time making this room functional. But we were going in and I was like, this room is actually I'm glad they have furniture in here because I wouldn't have thought that you could put this much in here. did that blow you away, Seth? Did that completely just change your way of life and

just changed your way of

why I tried to throw it in as a footnote, but

a new one. That's why I tried to throw it as a footnote, but no. Let's talk about that for a second and how important that because that is more applicable. I have not hired a staging company and a very long time. A lot of times it's because I don't work in like ultra luxury and I haven't sold a lot of homes that need it. So like sometimes if you have a house with a really wonky, Layout you need that like logistical piece like how the hell do you set up anything in this house? Where does everything go? But most of the time when we're when we talk about staging at least in Philadelphia now I was just away with a bunch of people from Canada And they're in Toronto like the city and this is a thing even in Philadelphia you gotta stage the condo. You can't just have a condo sitting there. It's a lot of times you have to stage it.

There's a lot of that in

there are a lot, that's what I mean. These people that I was with, they're agents, and they actually own warehouses with furniture because they staged so much that they scaled it to a point where they own their own

It would make sense at that

At that point, because it's it's,

in condos like and you start listing in condos And then you start getting multiple units within the same condos Like that does make logistical sense. You already have all the furniture just to bring in and put in each one so there was also talking about like wonky layouts and wanting to do that There was the one that I had in rogersford So it was one of my investor client did a flip. We already knew that the layout of the living room was going to be caused for concern. And so when we were doing one of our walkthroughs towards the end of the flip, before I was getting ready to list it, that was one time that I did advise him cause like you'll have this like standard Props for staging, like in kitchens. And as like the flowers in the cookbook, it's all the same stuff. And I see it in every single one of the flips. And it's so fun to go and be like, Oh yeah, that's Same thing. But the one time that we actually did stage a house and I did tell him like living room is going to need to be staged here because it was so small in comparison, it was going to be difficult. We had stood there, we had a multiple walkthroughs of like, how is somebody going to configure this room? And then we did figure it out. We bought furniture or like Wayfair used it for the house and then we offered to sell the furniture with the house for an additional price to, keep it there. I think they ended up selling it. That's why I sold it on like Facebook marketplace or something. And cool. Whatever guys, money back serve purpose, got the house sold, but that was a time where it was actually necessary. And I haven't also haven't run into too many times where I need to, but I think virtual staging is actually a really good option.

And you do.

Rewind. It was a very declarative statement. I'm going to contradict myself because something I did not like about virtual staging that happened last week. There was a house. I don't know if it popped up on any air portals. I didn't even tell you about this yet. There was a house that showed, it was, these pictures looked really cool. And Went to go show it really excited. It's like a old barn. This house was from like 1800s And this virtual staging made it look Phenomenal go to the house. Oh my gosh These floors weren't even supported with anything underneath of them and like you're gonna fall through to the basement any second There were holes from previous pellet stoves that were never even fill their caps when they were taken out and it was this whole house was just not and I was like, oh Okay. So that doesn't show to what the pictures showed and then it did its job to pull people in because even another friend of mine who I'm in the process of getting ready to buy also sent me that. And ironically enough is also friends with the person I had shown it to. I said, Oh no, don't worry. She was like, this is exactly what I'm looking for. I said, don't worry. No, it's not.

I said

was already in it. It does not show anywhere close to what the pictures do. And the virtual staging

did a great

job at making it look good.

Virtual staging can absolutely outkick coverage. Whether it's just the fact that when you get there, there's nothing there. Or the fact that it makes it look unbelievable, and then it's really like a piece of shit.

back to, I've always said, I've said before in previous episodes that I've told clients, Hey, you can do some editing and whatever on your pictures, but I don't want to over edit them to oversell it because I don't want the reaction and the impression somebody to get when they walk in the house to be disappointment. That's the worst

thing Somebody to get when they walk in the house to be disappointed. That's the worst. Get an offer from those people so Not to say you shouldn't make it look as attractive as possible get as many people through the door But I have actually never done virtual staging. I've never done the house that I bought with my wife this house Was virtually staged came in here thing was empty completely cleared out But if you go back and look at the old pictures, it looks pretty good

do you have to disclose In the MLS, if it's virtually

no, because it's not considered a furniture and furnishings. I don't think it's considered a misrepresentation of the property.

I like when agents do mention it, there'll be like captions under the picture saying this is like virtual, virtually staged,

I'm usually pretty good at I'll come up to the front door with my client back. I'm pretty sure this one's virtually staged, but we'll see what we get in. And sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised. There was one over in Phoenixville and I was joking two showings before this one, I'm like, yeah, wait till this one, it's definitely virtually stationed. I went in there, and the police was Unbelievable. Like she had to have been like an interior or he or she, they had to have an interior decorator. It was just the part of the, that I was like, I was joking, like nobody furnishes their house like, like here she is with

nobody lives this sterile and perfect.

house. We, we ended up we ended up securing the property too. So it was good. But I will say also that forgetting about virtual staging, it is also let's use the shit in your house. Most of the time it is about getting rid of things. It is about creating walkways. I always say to people, not only is it just with the furniture, because people think staging, they think furniture. I just say every flat surface needs to be cleared off. That means floors, mantles, countertops, vanities end tables, coffee tables, that type of thing. So that alone is a function of staging.

and I was a visual merchandiser for 13 years and specifically as my job title as visual merchandiser for probably half of that. I've had plenty of trainings of like where your eyes go, of utilizing space

Do you mention that to your clients?

I really don't I really should

you should

I don't know why I

Is that you've always been in real estate, but it's no, I have a very, I have a background in whatever you just said

Visual

with virtual merchandising, which is translated really well, but real estate, because I know how to make things look good and make people gravitate towards something.

I know what the brain is naturally drawn to and how your eyes travel,

put that initial virtual visual merchandiser

I was doing something at my, the client's house in Palo Alto telling you about where I was there for a couple hours, like staging the house and the amount of detail I was putting into very, what you would think are very small and minor things, those small minor things really add up to a full picture of the entire

think are very small and minor things. The small minor things really add up to a whole picture. You got to get rid of that. Get rid of that table.

because I was able, they said, do whatever you want with whatever you want. I was moving pictures from like different spots in the houses and like they started already packing some of them up. I said, can I have that one instead? I like that one over here better than that one.

Yeah,

We're going to switch this to go here instead. And the space of this takes up this wall better than the other one, which is going to whatever.

How old were they? The fifties? Sixties?

I don't want to say in case I'm wrong. Oh, 50s

50s. Yeah just say less. I have found with

Doesn't look a day over 35 though. I

have found with senior citizens, like 60, 70s, 80s, they are less likely to move anything. They like that. It's this is the house. Take it or leave it. That's more of the mindset. I had a client who she had Move basically relocated a 6, 000 or 6, 000 square foot house from the main

000

Into a she had taken most of the possessions in that house and shoved them into a 2, 700 square foot townhouse and So when I listed it and so when I listed it, I mean there was a lot of stuff In this house like a lot of stuff and I kept getting feedback like someone said and it did just it feels like a museum, like I'm afraid to touch anything, but they were like very like cool taste, wealthy people had the ability to bring we're in Europe, brought stuff back, like met keepsakes, that type of stuff. And I said to the, said to my client, I'm like, listen, I'm getting feedback. There's too much stuff in the house. I'm like, do you mind? Like for showings, I take. Some of the stuff and just put it in the garage Certain things like their chairs everywhere. They were like just these miscellaneous I called him like miscellaneous chairs like for sitting I guess and it was obvious that she had brought them no, but just sitting like randomly like next to the dining room not in the dining room But like right next to a doorway or like right outside the powder room or there was just like chairs everywhere That were like I guess if like,

you ever get tired when you're walking

Yeah, or if the mood strikes to sit, I've got a chair for you within anywhere within three and a half

May I interest you in a chair? May I interest you in a

And I'm not a comfortable chair either. So I asked her, I'm like, listen

well, how often do you sit in the chairs in there?

give it. Those are chairs are for sitting. That those are chairs that like we actually

what chair is not meant for sitting,

would be like a chair right here. The camera can't see it. It would be like if there was just a chair sitting here. It was like everything was in the way I'll show you the listing. I'm not gonna talk about here but and she was like Listen, if they don't want the house because they're all my stuff is in it Then they don't have to buy it and I stepped in a little bit, but I was just like listen can I remove like literally there were 15 miscellaneous chairs on this first floor that I was like I will literally show up early because I showed up and I accompanied all the showings I said You I will take the chairs out very carefully and put them in the garage for every showing, but we really need to open up the floor space. And we eventually did sell it, but that was like, it was like seven showings in a row. Everyone's Oh my God, like I feel like it's claustrophobic, doesn't feel as big as what the, and that, that's really the key. So the main thing that we talk about with our clients right now in 2024 is

not, to mention a lot of stuff, can block a lot of visibility of things that you may want to see.

It can block a lot of stuff, but also it can become overwhelming psychologically to the, now this house that I had, like everything was very pert, like very purposefully placed, but then it's like the other side of that coin is is there just shit everywhere? You've got piles of papers and it's just, it's a mess. That's like a, that's a different thing. So I think for our purposes in 2024 outside of Philly, like hiring a staging company is very rare. In the suburbs. If you're going into that luxury, that one and a half, two, five, 10 million property, and it's empty for some reason, you should stage it. People don't want to walk into an empty 7, 000 square foot home. It's going to feel like it's abandoned, and that's a different psychological mix. But for the 35 year old who's trying to buy a house, you don't really necessarily need to stage it.

it's a wonky.

Weird. Or, And I, I actually do believe that flips it's a good idea. I think, I do, because it's not bad, I like that idea just because it is The house is new, and I think you can put stuff in there to really make it pop. And also you can put stuff in there to hide shoddy work.

But I don't like

I know, but if that's what people are doing, I know you don't like doing that, but that's, there, you work with good flippers though, like you work with investors who actually flip well, but if it's a strategy to,

And I won't work with do shoddy work.

Yeah. But anyway I like staging. I'm pretty good at it. I know just because of all the experience I have with my buyers. We definitely know that Jen does not like things that are not in alignment. Not at all.

Yeah, that is a skill that I really understate that I don't know why I do.

Yeah

Yeah.

You know what? You're telling the world here. That's good.

so for those who are willing to like declutter and move out some, cause sometimes you do need to get rid of big furniture and 14 chairs or whatever, it's say, okay, that would be nice, but then where does it go? So what I had told my clients is okay. So what space do you have? So you have the attic, which is like. You don't really need stuff, but they already have stuff in the attic. I said, okay, so this is why there's no such thing as too soon. But there is such thing as too late. One of the first things probably advise you to do is start going through. Everything start going through all of your shit. Start getting rid of stuff. you want to sell it, donate it, gift it, throw it out, whatever. Start going through and purging everything you don't need. Then you allow space into your house, into the storage areas. So clear out the stuff out of there. I always say, start with the garage and your attic first, because then those will be cleared out for us to then put the excess stuff up there. And then, they didn't really want to be bothered with having to take it back down again. they did end up getting a storage unit, which is another option, but say that's not really in your budget and that's not something you really want to do. Sometimes I'd advise it. Other times, I just say, start with your garage and your attic, get out the stuff and start clearing out, clear out house. And then you have, we have space to be able to be flexible with storing other things we don't need in regular

flexible with storing things you don't need in regular usability. as long as it's like organized and such as thrown into the garage. But that's where I usually tell if they don't want to do storage unit and they're like, okay if you have a two car garage. Take one of those spots, all the furniture, all the crates, everything you don't want. You take up one of those spots. And as long as it like looks organized it'll be fine. And the buyer will forgive you. But having this all

And a buyer's agent, when I'm going into a house that has that, where like everything is shoved into one side of a garage, I do tell them. on the bright side. Look at how much stuff can fit in here. like you get in store so things here,

their shit's on their way out the door. I they're ready to move. They're definitely going to be selling this house.

Yeah. And I'll say, there's so much stuff that can fit in here, so you already know there's gonna be plenty of more space for you. So it actually, it's not the end of the world. Yeah.

You don't need to be an interior decorator to list a house. You don't need to hire a stager necessarily. Not at least not in our market. If you're in more urban areas, you definitely want to think about staging. That's just more of the way that things are done.

think that the more the market gets corrected and the more of a

It'll come back.

now, as of today. It's not as pertinent in the hiring a staging company. I will always say I think it's important to stage your house to its best showing and its best potential. So that's one

But there's it's been shown over and over again that we can list homes and get a lot of money for it and We don't have to spend thousands of dollars bringing a stager and dealing with all logistics. It's just it's right now It doesn't have as much of an effect. But yeah, you're absolutely right

but you should ask your agent if that is something that should be part of your listing strategy.

That is true. Because we don't know what market you're listening to this in, but outside of Philly listen, we will stage for sure I have two or three staging companies that I could call, but in the end it's not necessarily going to,

make a break

make or break. There's just too much demand out there.

the return on the investment into it, too

That's right.

you pay like a couple thousand dollars to get this or even on the furniture Are you even going to get that back in your

It's probably not going to move the needle. I don't know if you're going to get an extra, four or five grand that you would probably spend, to, to stage a regular house.

It's like I told my own clients before that they were going to put a new roof on before we listed it I said, let's just wait out the market. Like it wasn't actively leaking I mean if there was like if it was damaged, that's one thing it was old I said Let's just wait out and see what the market says. We have all the information. We did a pre listing inspection. We have it ready for them and there was a lot of things that they wanted to do before we listed it. They wanted to update their entire bathroom and put in new flooring. I said, let's not. And then what we got for the house, I said, we got for the house the same that we would have gotten even if you had done all of that, but you would have been out that money and stress. So it didn't make a

that and staging is an extension of that. It's like the renovate we've already talked about on this podcast. If you hadn't go back, the ROI on home improvements is probably one of our best episodes. I think I got the most traction out there because it's something everybody wants to know about. Staging is another thing. It's a kind of a subset. Same psychology though, right now in 2024, redoing or staging a house is not necessarily something that you need to spend money on, which is great for you if you're looking to sell. So yeah, I think we've unpacked this. Yep. Yep. All right guys, we'll see y'all next one.

Bye.