Real Estate Show Home Staging

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RE Show Home Staging

Alice Lema: [00:00:00] Well, hey, there's Southern Oregon. Welcome back to the Real Estate Show. So glad you could join us today. I'm Alice Lema, a broker with John L. Scott Real Estate here in Southern Oregon. And today we have such a treat. We're actually gonna be talking to Ready, Set, Show, Home, Stagers. And home staging is a really important part of real estate.

And today, Jan Houston and Teresa Hutley are gonna be joining us from the company that they started Ready, Set Show Home Staging. And they're gonna give us some tips, answer some questions clear up some misnomers about home staging. Super exciting to have Jan Houston and Teresa Hutley on the show today.

So before we get started to that, let's talk briefly about what's going on in the market. Another interesting week, gosh, it's just never boring oh my goodness. So in the meantime one of the reports that came out from Zillow this week that was very interesting is 45% of the buyers that are out on the market right [00:01:00] now are first time home buyers. It's just fabulous. We're so excited. And you know, that kind of matches up with my experience the last seven to 10 days. Lots and lots of first time home buyers getting out there, getting their offers accepted and just really understanding that we have a gentle appreciation already for, 20, 22 in all three counties.

We've still got about five to 6% in Jackson County, six to seven in Josephine County, and up to 9% in Klamath County. And those change every week, right? So , but the point is that even through all this volatility, all this weirdness in 2022, our prices have gone up a little.

And I think the first time home buyers are totally into understanding the value of purchasing a property right now, especially if the Feds raise the rates again. Can it be true? Did we see that, that in November they might raise it again? [00:02:00] Well, I don't know. It's hard to keep track of the feds, but in the meantime just wanted to point out this Zillow report is very, very encouraging. It's very exciting. So good for you all. First time home buyers and sellers, take note. There's still people out there writing contracts, so don't be shy. And if you've got your house on the market, listen to your feedback and keep your house show ready. Okay?

Okay, let's get to our interview with Ready Set Show Home Stagers, Jan Houston and Theresa Hutley. Got a lot of questions to ask them. Home staging is really fun. It's important, it's beautiful, and it's helpful and we're pretty excited to hear what Jan and Theresa have to say. So let's take a quick break from our sponsors and say thank you to John L. Scott, Ashland, Medford, Guy Giles Churchill Mortgage, and our local Rogue Valley Association of Realtors. Thank you guys for sponsoring us. We'll be right back.

Well, welcome back Southern Oregon to the Real Estate [00:03:00] Show. We're so glad you could join us today. I'm Alice Lema. I'm a broker here in beautiful southern Oregon with John L Scott Real Estate and your host of the show. Today we're so excited to welcome Jan and Teresa. They are professional home stagers and they own Ready, Set, Show Home Staging. Welcome ladies. Well, so home staging is such an interesting business. Before we start diving into things, can you tell us a little bit about yourselves and your company?

Teresa Hutley: Sure. We actually just got started a few years ago dreaming about home staging and recognizing the need for it and what a wonderful business that it is. I love all things home beauty, I love DIY repurposing, that kind of thing. And so that's kind of how Jan and I even got started talking about different things. And so I'll let Jan tell how our business got off the ground.

Jan Houston: Yeah. So we, my husband and I we're real estate investors. [00:04:00] We run our own remodels. And so I had done a full remodel of a nice house and I hired a home stager, and this was five years ago. And I was hooked. I watched the way it made people feel when they walked in the door and, it was, it was completely different than, than if it was an empty house.

So I started taking business classes and then Teresa and I found out, cause we were working together at the time, and we found out that we had the same dream that we both had the same idea of home staging. And so we started ,dreaming together. And and then we let, we spoke with an agent, friend of ours, and she hired us for our first consultation. And then she asked us to stage her booth at the home show. And then she hired us for our first vacant stage. And so she really, that's Julianne Rawlins. She helped us get a great start.

Alice Lema: Oh, I love, And we really appreciate her.

Jan Houston: Yeah. Yeah. Neat gal. So she's hooked on it now too.

Alice Lema: So what did [00:05:00] you guys do before you got into home staging? Well, where did work before?

Teresa Hutley: Okay. For many years I've been a hair technician, so as far as like colored design, all that kind of stuff, I feel like that kind of even rolls over into home.

Alice Lema: Oh, it does. It's that artistic sense?

Teresa Hutley: Yeah. So I did that for many years and then where we actually met is working for the, the Medford School District. Oh, so something completely different than home staging or hair design. But that was a fun job for us to have because then you have summers off and all that kind and those kinds of things, you know? But our whole goal once we got to know each other and our love for homes and all things beautiful was to do home staging.

Alice Lema: Wow. So what a great story. And how did you come up with the name Ready set show?

Jan Houston: Well, my husband and I years ago were thinking of having a business that we would help people get their rentals ready because we saw these houses that people were putting on the market [00:06:00] that frankly just didn't look, that are not ready. They were not ready. They had sheets in the windows and the lawn was too long. And all this, we thought we could have ready, set, rent, and we could have ready, set, sell. And so that was our idea long time ago. And then when Theresa and I were like, Okay, Oh, when we were getting ready to stage the Home Show, we said we gotta have a name now,

Oh. And so we had also staged about a dozen, a dozen times before we started. We were staging my rentals for practice. Oh in between and so that was terrific. We were able to get good photos. And that's one thing too, that I don't think very many rental property owners think about staging, but it's definitely a great idea.

Alice Lema: Yeah. That is a great idea. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about the process itself.

Teresa Hutley: So basically like what is staging? And staging is Yeah. Basic, you know, just really getting your home ready to sell and making it be a, so that it's appealing when people walk in and they can recognize, [00:07:00] wow, I would want this to be my home. So it's not cold, it's not empty, it's not packed full of, of other people, you know, of other people's stuff. It feels spacious and so it just really helps you to, you know, helps the person recognize that this would be the home that I want. It adds value to your home.

There's just so much about staging that I don't think people even recognize as a seller, how important it is whether it's a, you know, us doing a consultation and that, and we'll talk about that here in a second. But it's like merchandising a product and you want whatever you're merchandising to look the best, feel the best, smell the best you know, for the people that are coming.

Jan Houston: It's kind of like when you're getting ready for a date. You know, you wanna make a good impression, right? You, Yeah. If you're, if you're about to go on a first date, you want your hair to be fixed and your nice clothes on and your jewelry on. When you're getting ready to market your house, you certainly want to be [00:08:00] ready and you want to be dressed and have your jewelry on , and that's like all the furniture.

And even with their own, you know, a lot of times we use we can come in and, and work with other, with the homeowner's own furnishings and decor.

Alice Lema: I was gonna ask you about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think you guys hit it spot on and it's so interesting how you describe the, the importance of staging, cuz I, I don't think people understand when a perspective buyer walks in the door, they're nervous, they're excited, and they're also kind of kinesthetic, even if you know, they're super linear people. There's something going on, they're having an experience and staging makes them feel good about the space. And you can't, it's hard to explain that to people. Yeah, exactly.

Jan Houston: It feels like the potential that it could be their new home. And when we're dealing with someone who is living in their home while they're selling it when we [00:09:00] go in for our consultations, that's one of the things we try to help them to understand, understand and to, to to work around is we don't want it to feel like their old home, you know, or their previous home, that person's home. We want it to feel like the buyer's next home. Right. Well, that's a huge mind shift though, right? I mean, because the photos, the diplomas, the, the calendars, they're all, they all implied that somebody else's home. And that's why people kind of tip toe around and you know, but if it's like, wow, this is what we could, this is how we could live. You know?

Teresa Hutley: The other thing, when people go through someone's home with all of their stuff packed in there, they usually go a lot faster through the house, , they look at it and they wanna get out. As opposed to when it feels roomy, it feels fresh, it feels clean. They actually stay awhile and they, they look at things more. And that's been one thing that we have noticed a lot.

Alice Lema: So. And why do you think that is? Cuz I noticed that too. Yeah. [00:10:00] Yeah. I stand back and I watch how people are reacting in a space and make little mental notes, but yeah. So why do you think that is? That people will hustle through when it's the seller stuff, but they'll linger when it's been staged?

Teresa Hutley: I think a lot of it has to do with them feeling like they're in somebody else's house. And so they just feel like I gotta get out. I don't wanna take up too much time. Right.

Alice Lema: Like they're intruding. They're intruding. Oh, wow.

Teresa Hutley: A little bit.

Jan Houston: And think about too, the way that we try really hard to make things a little bit more spacious, people tend to crowd their house. You know, it's like, where do we wanna put this? Okay. Just put it over there. Right. You know, you keep things that you might not need to keep, and we want it to feel more like there's some elbow room. And so when you have elbow room, then you can relax. And you can. You probably wanna sit down because it looks so comfortable.

Alice Lema: So can they sit on your furniture?

Jan Houston: Sure. Yeah. Okay. I mean, we'd rather they not [00:11:00] change the way the pillows look. They can't, they can't take a nap on it. They can't touch the pillows. You can sit, but don't move anything. We expect that there's gonna be some conversations between agents and sellers because, or buyers, the agent and the buyer are gonna end up wanting to sit down and write their offer.

Alice Lema: Or at least definitely have a conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So staging creates more space, elbow room, and that makes the buyers feel more comfortable and they stay longer at the showing. Yeah. Wow. Mm-hmm. . . Yeah. That is true. I bet A lot of people don't know that. Yeah.

Jan Houston: And it's also really, really, really true with the photos. I'm sure all the agents listening know that you know that those photos are being scanned through every day by their buyers, right? And so they always know when something's new on the market, right? Cause they've already seen all the others. But those photos that look like a little magazine photo, you know, that looks like something from a pretty photo shoot. They'll click on that because they wanna see [00:12:00] that, and they'll spend longer on those photos than they will on an empty home or just someone else's stuff. Unless they're like, what is that? On some of those occupied homes sometimes it's like, what's that in that room? Yeah. The other, the other great thing about us doing a consultation for the real estate agent of an occupied home is we can tell the clients the things that they need to get rid of.

Teresa Hutley: It's kind of like we take it off of your plate. You don't have to be the bad guy, but we also make them feel really good about why they're doing it. Why it's important and how we love their home. We love the way they've decorated it, but for to sell it, you know, these are the things that we recommend. And so by the time we're done, they're actually excited about taking the stuff down, moving the furniture back, or, or getting rid of some of the furniture. And it just becomes kind of a friendship between us and them with their home.

Alice Lema: So you mean instead of the seller feeling insulted.

Teresa Hutley: Yes, exactly. [00:13:00] Which is kinda a dance. It is a bit of a dance sometimes . Yeah.

Jan Houston: If our honesty does ever offend someone, at least it wasn't the real estate agent offending them. Right. They need their, that real estate agent needs to maintain their relationship with that seller. And so we can help say the things that are hard to say.

Alice Lema: For the agents that are shy about making those comments, that is an excellent thing for sure, for sure.

Jan Houston: Yeah. And we've even had, you know, I've, we've had our great agent, our loyal agents, that still say, no, the client doesn't wanna take those curtains down. And we're going, you're not helping , you know, let us talk to them then. Yeah. But you know, sometimes people have things that are very important to them, like the special curtains that they, you know, have had forever that were custom made.

But we can, we can convince them with photos or with statistics to talk about letting the light in and the new trends that [00:14:00] are not. You know, we wanna appeal to the people who are more interested in the newer trends and things like that.

Alice Lema: Well, and really by the time you're listing your house, it's kind of not your house anymore. And that's a very hard mindset. And I love the comment you made about the pictures looking better and the buyer's spending more time online cuz then you have a higher chance of getting a showing. Yeah. And now the market's changing and things are taking a little longer. Absolutely. So maybe this is a great time to start talking about staging.

We're speaking with Jan Houston and Theresa Hutley of Ready Set Show Home Staging. We're getting some good tips and some good information. We are gonna have to take a quick break. We're gonna say thank you to our sponsors, John L. Scott, Ashland, Medford, Guy Giles, churchill Mortgage and our local Rogue Valley Association of Realtors, will be right back. Do not touch that dial.

Well hey everybody. Welcome back to The Real Estate Show. We're today talking to Jan Houston and [00:15:00] Theresa Hutley of Ready Set Show, Home Staging Company and wow, we've already learned so much. Thank you so much ladies, for coming on the show today.

Jan Houston: We really appreciate being here.

Alice Lema: Yeah, well it's, it's a big help. I've already learned a bunch and I'm sure our listeners have too. So let's talk about what the next step is in home staging. We talked a little bit about why it was important. We were finishing that up. Okay. Here at the last segment. Yeah.

Jan Houston: And one thing we wanted to mention is just basically when, when to think about home staging.

And of course, as most people will know, it's when you're going to put your house up for sale. And we want to talk to you, if possible a little early so that we can have time. Because you know, there's some of the things that we might recommend and that you might want to do, will take a little time. Not, it's not always going to be, you know, a two day project, a weekend project.

Sometimes you'll, you might want to. You know, get some painting done or something like that. But we also want [00:16:00] people to consider using it, using staging with their rentals so they can get terrific photos and with professional staging and professional photos. Basically it's, you know, back to those days where you would see apartments with model apartment, model units, right?

I mean, you know, you walk in and you're hooked, right? And you're going to get a better, a little higher end clientele. You're going to have, it's, you're gonna be able to ask a little higher price. And you're going to maybe attract renters with a higher income level.

Alice Lema: Staging for your rentals. That is such an excellent idea. So how does that, how does that work do you?

Jan Houston: Well, in a rental, in a rental situation, it would have to be a pretty quick turnaround because you wanna get that unit rented right away. So we would come in. It would be just be a quick two day process where we would stage it and then you'd get your professional photographer in there and then we would de stage it.

Rentals are one of the only places that I would, I feel comfortable recommending virtual [00:17:00] staging, which we don't do. But the photographers are, there's some great photographers around here that we can recommend that do some nice virtual staging. And the reason I might recommend it for a rental would be just because it is such a quick turnaround.

And You know, you might want to get a, get your rental, get, get your renter in there right away so that you don't wanna wait for us.

Alice Lema: Well, and I think a lot of people may not know what virtual staging is. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Jan Houston: I can talk a little bit about it. Like I said, we don't do it, so I'm not super familiar with it.

But basically you send, you provide empty, you provide photos of empty rooms and the photographer will put furniture in.

Alice Lema: Right. They superimpose digital couches and digital ferns.

Teresa Hutley: So, but they look real. It all, it looks real. It looks nice.

Jan Houston: And when you, the only downside, the main downside to it, of course, when with selling a house is that when the, the photos will bring them to your door. But once they're in the door, the staging will [00:18:00] get them to write an offer. You know, when they walk in, we still have to convince them, they still, they're not ready to write an offer right when they walk in. So they still have to feel good. And so we still believe in the full staging for, and of course many people are still living there.

And whether, I don't know that virtual staging can be done with all of your stuff in the photo ?

Alice Lema: No. I think they have to have a, a vacant property for the virtual staging to work. But then it's like you said, you get 'em to the door and then it's like we talked about in the first segment, they might not have that warm, cozy, I could live here, I could make this space my own.

And they're watching all that on TV now, so. They, they have that expectation, yeah as like having, a romantic moment with the property, you know? Right.

Jan Houston: And staging makes the house feel Move in ready. And typically they are, when, when, when a seller is able to stage, then typically the house is move in ready. But it really gives that feeling of like, it's ready for us, you know? And you just don't, [00:19:00] and you don't want them to be disappointed at the first moment they walk in, you don't, cause they've just seen these beautiful photos and now they walk in,

Alice Lema: We lose more buyers. Yep. When they're disappointed at the actual showing.

Teresa Hutley: The other thing that I'd love to say, to share with home sellers is that when we do a consultation with them, it actually makes them feel, it reduces their stress because sometimes you can feel like, I don't know what I need to put away. I mean, most real estate agents tell their clients, You should do this.

This and this, you know for sure. But when we come in, we actually tell them exactly what to pack. And so they're already getting things put away, They're getting ready to move, and it, it literally, they have a checklist and they can feel like, okay, this is what I need to do. And it changes, it completely changes what their house looks like.

Alice Lema: Well, I think just having something to do is handy. Yeah, that'll take your anxiety away just Yeah, for sure. Having a list, . Yeah. Yeah, so it's fine.

Jan Houston: So I'll tell you a little bit about the process. We have basically three [00:20:00] typical services, and so the first service that we really want people to know about because it's so affordable and we believe in it, 10000% , but it's the consultation and it's a good solid one hour visit on site from us, and we will go over from head to toe, front to back the entire, We walk through the whole house and go over all the recommendations that we. That we can share for getting the house prepared for the photos, for the showings to really be like you, like we were saying, merchandising the product.

And so we talk about what to prepack very specifically and how to arrange what's left out. And let's see and so we cover things, everything from say, just general guidelines. We like maybe around pets and cleanliness onto specific things for their home that might be needed. Everything from the front yard to the backyard.

Teresa Hutley: And [00:21:00] something super simple that a lot of people don't necessarily do is just make sure they have all the same light bulbs.

Do you know what I mean? Having warm, it actually changes the look in your whole home. And that's a big thing. I know Jan especially, she's always like, Okay, our recommendation, you know, and of course people can do what they want, but it's the recommendation that we give them and it really does make a difference.

And they'll even say to us, Oh, I didn't even think about it. You know, cuz they have, you know, whatever light bulbs all over in in different lamps and stuff. So something as simple as that can change the tone of the home well.

Alice Lema: And having access to another opinion besides the real estate agent. Mm-hmm. Cause a lot of us, you know, we tell people this, but until they hear it again. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. That's true. Yeah. Yeah.

Jan Houston: And, and I think, I think as home sellers, especially if we're handy, right? We think somebody's gonna come in here they, they're gonna see that that's broken. But they're gonna know it's an easy fix, but that's not the truth.

They're gonna come in and they're gonna say, Wow, this house must not [00:22:00] be well maintained, and that's probably gonna cost $10,000. You know? And so we don't want those little question marks to be left open, open ended for them. We just want them to feel like this house is ready.

Alice Lema: Yeah, this house is ready and it's not gonna bleed me dry. right?

Jan Houston: And at the end, so at the end of our consultation, we leave them with a very thorough checklist that they can use for preparing for their showings and their photos. To just reminders, like even little things like making sure the toilets closed before the photos are taken and Yeah. You know, making sure all your lights are on and make your, take your trash out. Take your trash out every single day when you're, when you might have showing. Yes. So, And then, and then we're happy to talk with them later, like on a, just a coaching phone call. So if we've gone over everything and they've forgotten what we said about the bedspread or whatever, you know, we'll, we'll be happy to talk on the phone.

And then a great follow up to our consultation for some people is going to be what we call occupied staging. And [00:23:00] probably you would probably know the statistics, but I don't know exactly the number in our area, how many houses are on the market that are still being lived in while they're selling. Would you say it's well, more than half, right?

Alice Lema: Yeah. Right now. Yeah. Yeah.

Jan Houston: People are still living in their home when they're, when they're selling. So we want to if, if they're not able physically or don't have time to do the all the recommendations, or they just don't have a knack for like, what do I, where do I hang my art? You know, how do I, how high do I hang and things like that. We can come in and help 'em arrange the furniture. Help 'em hang their art, make the beds, things like that. Get ready for the photos.

Alice Lema: Oh, that's lovely.

Jan Houston: So yeah, that's called occupied staging. And we can come in and work with what you have and, you know, in a few hours, make your house look a lot different. You know, it's like, have a few boxes ready. Cause we'll probably pack a few things away because most of us have more than we need sitting out.

Teresa Hutley: In a empty house that we, that we actually stage, we really take time to look at who they're trying [00:24:00] to sell to, the price range, and that's the kind of furniture that we bring in. That's the kind of artwork, you know, we, we want to really be intentional when we are actually staging the home, bringing our own our stuff into the home. And that's of course what we love to do. That's so fun to just completely transform.

Alice Lema: Well, and a lot of times people have beloved furniture and items that don't always fit the house they purchased, that they're now selling. And so this idea that you can kind of come in and make the space a little more, not only beautiful, but more functional. Just a different size furniture, people sometimes have the wrong size furniture right for their house.

Jan Houston: Or they just really need that recliner for their, for back or life happiness. Yeah. But it's right in the middle of the aisle, you know, right in the middle of pathways. So we're like, okay, we need good flow. You know, we talk about the flow and the you know, the proper, proper width of [00:25:00] some pathways around the house and things like that.

Yeah. So on vacant stages, we always do a preview so we can take some measurements and some photos, and then we schedule the, the installation day. And we come in and usually we can have the whole house or you know, however many rooms they choose to stage, we can have that done in four hours or less.

Alice Lema: Wow, that's really fast.

Jan Houston: Yeah well, we work, we work with movers who help us bring in the furniture and we focus on well, we have our systems and we have our, flow. Yeah. And so we get it done. Of course, that doesn't include the packing time. The packing time, . Yeah, it's fun.

Alice Lema: Now, you had mentioned earlier d staging. What is d staging?

Jan Houston: That's when we come and pick our stuff up. So usually the house will sell and we need to know the closing date because we have to come in and get all of our things out before the closing date. So we schedule that date at least 48 hours to quote before closing. It's recommended that, and that leads us to a good question is [00:26:00] how long do we stage for?

And so that's typically 30 to 30 days or more. We usually start with 30 days, and then once they get an offer, we ask, Okay, what's your closing date? You know, what's your contingency date? Because you really wanna keep your staging through your contingency date. Because I can tell you from experience I hired, I hired that stager for my remodel and then, the home sold. But then that buyer backed out and now I had no staging when I went back on the market.

Yeah, so we wanna keep the, keep that in there long enough and we can do weekly extensions if needed.

Alice Lema: Okay. Well that's handy. Weekly extensions. Yeah, it helps a lot. So we're talking to Jan Houston and Teresa Hutley of Ready, Set Show Home Staging company learning tons and tons about the pros and successes of home staging.

We're gonna take a quick break. This is going [00:27:00] to air again tomorrow at 6:00 PM so you can listen to Jan and Teresa all over again Sunday at 6:00 PM We're gonna say thank you to our sponsors, John L. Scott Ashland, Medford Guy Giles Churchill Mortgage, and our local Rogue Valley Association of Realtors, will be right back.

Well, welcome back to the Real Estate Show folks. We're talking to Jan Houston, Teresa Hutley of Ready, Set Show, Home Staging. Thanks ladies again for being on the show. We're learning so much. Thank you. So let's talk a little bit about, I wanna have you in my home. I'm gonna sell, I called you for a consultation. Let's talk about price, timing, all that.

Teresa Hutley: Okay, great. We Actually schedule a time to come that works for both of us. And it's an hour long. And right now we charge $200. So we come in and, like Jan said earlier, we, we [00:28:00] go through your whole house, you go with us and we are writing things down. You're writing things down, we take pictures and we're letting you know all the things that are great about your home that you wanna you know, accent and you wanna, you want people to see for sure.

And then some of the things that you need you know, dismiss or de clutter and that kind of thing. That takes about an hour. And it's, it's a great, it's a great conversation. And Jan, she loves to talk about just how the return that you get for that. So give us some of those. Oh, we, we really want people to know how, what a, the return on investment for a consultation we believe is 10000%, because you will only pay $200 right now as the current price.

You will, we believe if you follow our recommendations, that you'll see at least a 20%, $20,000 increase in your offers. Especially, you know, if your home has several issues that need to be addressed, we can really help you fine tune those before you hit the market. Yeah. And it just really [00:29:00] helps people to know what they need to do. So start packing there. There's just so much that goes into it and it's so great for the, the seller.

Alice Lema: Oh, and it probably cuts down on the overwhelm. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.

Jan Houston: And it reduces the stress. Yeah. Yeah. It, it, you know, because selling your house is so stressful and we recognize that this is your biggest asset and that it's a huge, And even we know that, of course, staging, especially if you have to stage a vacant home, it's a big investment.

But we, that's why we like Teresa said, we are careful with the target market and we learn that and we talk to the agent and we know, you know, what is important to that target market and that in that neighborhood and what we need, how we need to present the home. And when when a home seller is still living there, I was just at a consultation the other day where, you know, I was, I was asking her, what's your priority?

What's most important? Is it, is it a quick sale? Is it an easy sale [00:30:00] because maybe you don't have the time or the ability, you know what, How can I best advise you? Like if you've got, if you've got months to do the work that I'm gonna recommend, then I know I can really get into everything. But if you have a week, then I'm gonna hit the most important things.

So we really try to customize our recommendations to it. Cause it does make a difference them out telling them you've gotta change everything. I mean, we've just recently had somebody who really only had few days. Yeah. Because they had they had made an offer in Portland and it was contingent on them listing, so they had to hurry.

Alice Lema: So, and there's so much of that right now. And as you're talking, I'm thinking this is actually a great time for people to consider staging because the market is a little bit slower and you just hit it on the head. A lot of these sales that are happening right now are two fers. They're selling and they're buying at the same time.

Super stressful, super logistically challenging. And you don't wanna mess around and have your listing languish.

Jan Houston: And it's really [00:31:00] important to call us early because we really want to get your thing, we wanna help you get the house ready before you list so that you're not looking at days on market when you weren't ready.

And then now we're coming back. Maybe it's cuz sometimes people are calling us now when they've already been on the market a couple months.

Alice Lema: I wanted to talk to you about that. Yeah, Yeah.

Jan Houston: We've had a couple of really good successes lately where they were on the market two and then another one, three months.

Taken already substantial price reductions, but it still wasn't, they still weren't getting calls even. And so we went in and we staged, we got new photos, they had an open house and one of 'em sold two days and one of 'em sold in five days. So those are our just real recent successes and Yeah. Yeah, it can, it can make all the difference.

We really want you to call us early, though, before you list if possible. If you've already listed, then feel free and call us in if, if you're not being, if you're not meeting the successes that you want because we can help you. Especially before your first price reduction, call us and we can maybe do something.

Alice Lema: Oh, that's great advice.

Jan Houston: Yeah. [00:32:00] Let's, let's get you some recommendations and then you maybe get some new photos if needed. Maybe do an open house at the same time as your price reduction. So that you can get some new energy, some new activity, looking at new photos.

Alice Lema: And if you're on the market now, and like Jan was saying, and you're not getting showings or you're not getting the kind of offers you want you're getting feedback. And sometimes the feedback is space looks too small for my king size bed. When in fact if you put a king size bed in there, they'd be able to see it. Yeah. It's just one of those things that people will completely discount spaces that might have worked.

Jan Houston: It's really true. It's really hard for them to envision it, and that's what staging can help, as they can envision, envision it as their home.

Alice Lema: Mm-hmm. , and it helps the buyer and seller both.

Jan Houston: Correct. Absolutely. It's a win-win. And the agent . And the agent.

Alice Lema: Right. So in the few minutes we have left, I wanted to ask a little bit about staging specialty kinds of spaces, like [00:33:00] spaces that are small or spaces that are super big. How can staging help with that?

Teresa Hutley: Well, actually we just did that in one of the houses. It was a big, it was kind of like a long double double living room. And so we had to figure out how to make that look. And that was something that people were not liking. I mean, they would just come out, it was a beautiful home, but they just couldn't get past this room.

So we ended up making it, you know, like a living room. And, and we didn't put dividers up, but the way we did the furniture, it made it appear to have, this is the space. And then we have another space, which we made into an office, sitting room and, oh it turned out great and it really helped. The flow of, you know, for the traffic and they could envision, Oh, this could be for another space instead of an oblong living room.

Alice Lema: You know, like, what am I gonna do with this silly, exactly.

Teresa Hutley: So that's a great, that's a great example. Some things you know, you can put a little reading nook. There's, there's obviously so many different things that you can do, but a lot of times it's turning something into [00:34:00] an office, or a, a place to relax or reading space, something like that.

Jan Houston: Quite often it's getting the right size furniture in there too. Yeah. Like if they have a small dining room, we, or, or maybe an extra big dining room, or like you said, a king size bed, a bedroom that's really big. We need to get a king size bed in there. Or if the bedroom's very small, then we show that a queen size fits nicely along with, you know a floor lamp instead of a table. You know, there's like all these little tricks that we can make it show, we can show the home's potential when it could be questionable.

Alice Lema: And so even if you are listed, if you're getting feedback like that, you could call Jan and Teresa at Ready Set Show Home staging and they could come in and help you move that house along.

Jan Houston: Yeah. Yeah. And we do have something I forgot to mention to you, Alice. I, I wanted to offer this especially for the agents in the community, but also just for home sellers. And so if you would, would like to get more tips from us, including our, our very [00:35:00] perfect checklist that will help you so much, if you'll just go onto our website, which is Ready Set Show Rogue Valley.com, and you can subscribe to our brand new blog and we'll get you every, anybody who subscribes will send them the checklist.

Alice Lema: Oh, that's awesome.

Jan Houston: Yeah, it's a little freebie for your listeners.

Alice Lema: And what's the website again?

Jan Houston: ReadySetShowRogueValley.com. Run together. Dot com. Okay. And then they'll get, they'll get our, our upcoming tips as well.

Alice Lema: That's great. Well, thank you Jan and Teresa.

Teresa Hutley: Ready Set Show. Thank you, Alice.

Alice Lema: We really appreciate you and we appreciate you. We'll have you back. Thanks everybody. Have a beautiful weekend. Bye now.