Pasadena Magazine is the bi-monthly magazine of Pasadena and its surrounding areas – the diverse, historically rich and culturally vibrant region that includes Glendale, the Eastside of Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley all the way to Claremont.
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to the NAR study, while the median amount spent staging a home was $675, over 70 percent of realtors surveyed believe that staging will increase the price offered for your home from between 1-20 percent, making it cost-effective for all but the most modestly priced properties. Not only should staging increase the price you get, but it should greatly speed up the sale as well. A recent study by the Real Estate Staging Association looked at 63 unstaged homes that had spent an average of 144 days on the market. Following professional staging, the same homes sold an average of just 40 days after being staged, meaning an average of 72 percent less time on sale. So now that you're convinced that staging works, what's next? I spoke to Jeanne Chung, local interior designer and owner of cozystylish- chic.com (now online, coming soon to an Old Pasadena storefront), about the process and value of staging your home for sale. Whether the home owner ultimately needs only a few simple suggestions or requires a full inventory of substitute furniture to show the house in its best light, "a professional stager," says Chung, "is experienced with making each room's biggest asset a focal point and can show a home in its best light while minimizing its fl aws." Much of it is simply about a fresh perspec- tive. We all know how, given great familiarity with a space, we cease to see many of its details. The brain actually fi lls in what it expects to fi nd. As Chung puts it, "Oftentimes we don't see what is immediately in front of us and it takes a set of fresh eyes to identify the changes that must be made to maximize a home's potential." It is important that you neither fear this process, nor take it personally. It's simply all about maximizing the value of your house in the mind of potential buyers. In fact, a prin- ciple goal of any good stager is to "depersonal- ize" the environment. To the degree possible you want to present the potential buyer with a blank slate onto which they can project their own personal ideal. To get there, you need distance from your emotional attachment to the space. Get a stager you trust, and trust them. As Chung says, "A professional stager can come in with an unbiased eye to suggest changes ranging from a simple rearrangement of furniture to a change in paint color and what seems to be a total redo, based on their knowledge of design and the market—without the infl uence of having chosen the original window treatments." Given the additional perceived value a good stager can add to your home you needn't fear the cost. "Most stagers offer a variety of services and fee structures, and something that can work with most budgets," says Chung. In any case, the opportunity cost of forgoing professional staging may be far greater. "First impressions DO matter," concludes Chung. 86 FEBRUARY 2016 L I V I N G B Y D E S I G N REAL ESTATE space_Feb16.indd 86 1/20/16 2:54 PM