There are a number of reasons that leading Toronto real estate agents use professional home staging as a key component of their home marketing program.
1) Home staging is proven to sell homes faster and at a premium price
Toronto real estate agents who use professional staging are at a great advantage over those realtors that skip this vital presentation step.Staging a home to showcase its full potential, accentuate its strengths, minimize the impact of its weaknesses and optimize the space’s flow enables a broad range of potential buyers to connect with the property and more easily see themselves living in it.
Here are the results from some relevant studies that have been conducted:
2004 Coldwell Banker Survey (2722 homes in 8 cities); Staged homes sold twice as fast as un-staged homes
National Association of Realtors Survey; Homes that sold after 4 weeks on the market sold for 6% less than those sold in the first 4 weeks
Maritz Survey –> 63% of buyers will pay more for a move-in-ready house
2) Home staging helps your listing stand out from competitive listings
Staged houses and condos show to their full potential. When sellers combine home staging with professional photography, the result is high impact photos that can be used very effectively to showcase the property and draw more showings. Here are results from some recent studies:
2008 National Association of Realtors Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers –> 87% of all home buyers and 94% aged 25 – 44 use the internet to search for a property
National Association of Realtors –> 98% of buyers said photos were among the most useful features of real estate websites
Redfin Study –> on-line listings with professional photos received 61% more views
In addition, leading home staging companies know the experts to call when there’s a need for painters, professional cleaners, landscapers, junk haulers, storage facilities or moving companies, for example.
While the house down the block is still in disarray, your staged listing looks outstanding on MLS and will be drawing more showings.
3) Home staging provides real estate agents with a more comprehensive and differentiated marketing program
Real estate agents face immense competition when trying to secure a new listing. Leading realtors in Toronto and across the GTA continually optimize their marketing programs to increase its effectiveness, and ultimate success for their clients. Home staging is one element that more and more agents recognize helps them realize better return on investment for their marketing spend, because the home shows to its full potential, and as a result the marketing material that they prepare and utilize is all that more impactful.
The days of basic template feature sheets and agent-taken photos being used for the MLS listing are long gone, and replaced with professional home staging, professional photography, and a variety of on-line promotional methods, including a heavy emphasis on social media channels such as FaceBook, Twitter and YouTube.
Numerous realtors provide a staging consultation as part of their listing package.
4) Stagers are adept at helping sellers deal with sensitive issues that can be an obstacle to a successful sale
Generally speaking, realtors do not want to start off a relationship with a new client by reciting a laundry list of what needs to be done by the client to improve the home’s presentation and ready the property for the first open house.
Agents would prefer to help their clients by bringing in a professional stager to advise on what edits should be done to prepare the property, and when appropriate, stage the property, whether this be blending the clients existing furnishings with the stager’s inventory, or placing rental furnishings (as is typically the case for vacant properties).
Stagers are adept at very tactfully helping sellers understand what modifications need to be made, why they are required, and the benefits they will deliver. This helps both the seller and the agent achieve a win-win outcome.
5) Home stagers allows the agent to focus on selling the property
When agents can focus on developing and executing their property marketing plan and finding buyers for their listings, instead of worrying about the condition of the seller’s home, they can put all their efforts into doing the job they excel at, and deliver superior results for their client.
Partnering with a home stager allows a real estate agent to do just this, since they can lean on the stager to ensure that the property’s presentation will be dealt with effectively.
StagingWorks partners with Toronto real estate agents and realtors all across the GTA. Contact us today to find out more about we can help make your sale more effective.