J. Philip's Westchester Real Estate Blog

Marie Graham, in addition to being a friend, is the founder of the Refreshed Home. Her specialties include interior design and killer staging for getting your home sold. On Saturday, January 30th at 10 am, she'll be putting on a workshop on how to stage a home for sale optimally, and I will be in attendance. I am encouraging my seller clients to check it out. The event will be in the conference room of the Ossining Public Library at 53 Croton Ave.

What sellers need to understand is that buyers in this market are very choosy and the competition for their attention is brutal. A home that is not attractive or set up to it's full potential can have it's chances hurt for selling in a timely fashion for the most the market can bear. People buy with their eyes in many cases. 

If you are for sale or are considering it, you should make this event. 

I will be the first to say that staging is important. A home should be tidy, well-kept, and laid out in an sensible way. There are lots of simple things people can do to raise their appeal- scented candles, clearing off kitchen counters, removing unneeded furniture, and TURNING ON THE LIGHTS (pet peeve of mine. Hard to show a dark house). Appearances and first impressions matter.

All that said, some agents take it a little too far. While holding a house open today I noticed that some walls were bare, with nails sticking out. I recalled a passing remark my client made about her old listing agent telling her to take down the family pictures so that buyers would have an easier time envisioning it as "their" house. This agent had the listing for a year and couldn't get the job done. Why were they taking her (ahem) psycho-babble advice?

Some people overdo it; we've all walked through homes where the sellers have their mugs in every room, Mom's portrait above the fireplace, and a family pictures everywhere as if they are afraid that they'll forget what each other look like. Real vanity. This isn't that kind of home. We aren't talking 40 photos, we are talking 5 or 6.

Nothing sells like a happy home. And if a few tasteful wedding portraits and family photos are bad staging, we had better build an ark.