Every year, there are new and evolving home design fads that should “scare” you to death. Last year, there were moss-covered accent walls (gasp!), acrylic furniture (shriek!) and Tuscan-style kitchens (yelp!). This year, it’s the “cloffice”—a pandemic-era closet-turned-office—and many others.
With Halloween around the corner, Styled Staged & Sold presents its annual countdown of the top 10 home trends of 2022 that are haunting our nightmares:
It can’t be said strongly enough how important the visual impact is to selling houses in the Frenzy of 2022.
The action is so fast, and with major life-changing decisions being made in minutes, that it is smart for sellers to take advantage and maximize the appeal before going on the open market. You have to sell the buyers online, then again when they arrive in person, and then clinch it when they go home and look at it again online. Photos AND videos are the ideal answer!
Here are the before-and-after photos of our latest listing:
If you are thinking of selling, consider that the combining our tune-ups with my open-bidding process is the best way to ensure a top-dollar sale! Let’s discuss it! Call or text me today at 858-997-3801.
Location is everything! Enjoy this end-of-culdesac gem that is just steps from Torrey Pines High School (so close you won’t need to buy your kid a car!) and an easy stroll to Del Mar Highlands & One Paseo! Totally renovated with newer kitchen & baths, Pella Pro-line designer wood windows, new paint & carpet, new light fixtures, and new landscaping! No rentback needed at closing either – just bring your toothbrush and move right in! Wow!
I’ll be there 12-3pm this weekend for open house – stop on by!
P.S. This is my 10,000th blog post!
The consumers’ fascination with the zestimates has never been greater! With home prices detached from comps, the zestimate is the only other measuring stick for both buyers or sellers – right or wrong!
Buyers need to be sold twice – online and in-person. Staging helps with both!
La Jolla Realtor Michelle Silverman can easily tick off the various homes she’s sold for which she got more and higher offers because of effective staging.
“There was one home that hadn’t been staged and was listed at $1.149 million. It was old. It was tired looking,” she said. “I took the listing and had it staged. We got 12 offers on it and ended up selling it for just a little over $1.15 million. So, maybe it was just a little higher, but the buyer said they were only going to get $900,000 for the house.”
According to a 2020 survey of 13,000 staged homes by the Real Estate Staging Association noted that staged homes sell faster, averaging just 23 days on the market. By comparison, the typical U.S. home spent 43 days on the market last month, according to a report from Realtor.com.
The staging association survey also showed that with an average investment of 1 percent, approximately 75 percent of sellers saw a return on investment of 5% to 15% over asking price.
And this was before the market got as heated as it is now.
So, you might ask, if we’re in a seller’s market, why bother staging a home? Why not save the expense?
Silverman’s response was quick.
“Because even in a seller’s market, buyers are not visionary.”
Staging and professional photos create the best first impression of a home, which helps to pre-sell the buyer. It makes them want to get there faster to confirm they’ve found the right house for them. How much does staging add to the price? Hard to put a specific number on it, but you should have more offers faster. What drives the eventual price in this market is how the listing agent handles multiple offers.
WASHINGTON (April 6, 2021) – A new survey from the National Association of Realtors® reveals that home staging continues to be a significant part of the home buying and selling process.
The biennial report, the 2021 Profile of Home Staging, examines the elements of home staging, including the perspectives of both buyers’ and sellers’ agents, the role of television programing and the expectations of buyers.
“Staging a home helps consumers see the full potential of a given space or property,” said Jessica Lautz, NAR’s vice president of demographics and behavioral insights. “It features the home in its best light and helps would-be buyers envision its various possibilities.”
Buyers’ agents overwhelmingly agreed, as 82% said staging a home made it easier for a buyer to visualize the property as a future home.
These agents also said that visuals themselves are helpful, even more so in relation to buying a house during the coronavirus outbreak. Eighty-three percent of buyers’ agents said having photographs for their listings was more important since the beginning of the pandemic. Seventy-four percent of buyers’ agents said the same about videos, and 73% said having virtual tours available for their listings was more important in the wake of COVID-19.
“At the start of the pandemic, in-person open house tours either diminished or were halted altogether, so buyers had to rely on photos and virtual tours in search of their dream home,” said Lautz. “These features become even more important as housing inventory is limited and buyers need to plan their in-person tours strategically.”
Staging also increased the sum buyers were willing to spend for a property, according to the report. Twenty-three percent of buyers’ agents said that home staging raised the dollar value offered between 1% and 5%, compared to similar homes on the market that hadn’t been staged.
Coincidently, the response from sellers’ agents was nearly identical, as 23% reported a 1% to 5% price increase on offers for staged homes.
Eighteen percent of sellers’ agents said home staging increased the dollar value of a residence between 6% and 10%. None of the agents for sellers reported that home staging had a negative impact on the property’s dollar value.
Moreover, 31% said that home staging greatly decreased the amount of time a home spent on the market.
Exactly which parts of a home to stage vary, although living rooms (90%) and kitchens (80%) proved to be the most common, followed closely by master bedrooms (78%) and dining rooms (69%). As many workers were forced to work from home due to the pandemic, 39% staged a home office or office space.
Television programing played a noticeable role in how buyers viewed a potential property, according to Realtors®. Agents surveyed said that typically 10% of buyers believed homes should look the way they appear on TV shows. Sixty-three percent said buyers requested their home look like homes staged on television. Sixty-eight percent of Realtors® reported that buyers were disappointed by how homes appeared compared to those seen on TV shows.
In some cases, agents found that TV shows could influence a buyer’s perspective about a home. Seventy-one percent of respondents said that TV shows that depict the buying process impacted their business by setting unrealistic or increased expectations. Sixty-one percent said that TV programs set higher expectations of how homes should look, while 27% said that TV shows result in more educated home buyers and sellers.
“The magic of television can make a home transformation look like it happened in a quick 60-minute timeframe, which is an unrealistic standard,” said NAR President Charlie Oppler, a Realtor® from Franklin Lakes, N.J., and broker/owner of Prominent Properties Sotheby’s International Realty. “I would advise buyers and sellers alike that before house hunting or before listing, they connect with a trusted Realtor® to get a reasonable sense of what’s out there and an idea of what to expect.”
Eight-one percent of those surveyed said buyers had ideas about where they wanted to live and what they wanted in an ideal home (76%) before they began the buying process.
Forty-five percent of surveyed Realtors® said they have seen no change in the share of buyers who planned to flip a home in the last five years, while 42% said they had.
Also, 59% said they have seen an increase in the buyers who planned to remodel a home in the last five years, while 34% said they have seen no change. Agents surveyed said that typically 25% of buyers who plan to remodel will do so within the first three months of owning their home.
Watch your TV placement when staging a home. Real estate professionals faced with the issue are divided over where in the living room a TV should go—or even whether it belongs there at all.
Hayley Westoff, a Compass real estate professional, told Apartment Therapy that if the TV setup feels wrong, buyers could be turned off by the space. After all, buyers want to visualize themselves living inside a home, and watching TV is a big part of many people’s lives.
On the other hand, Allison Chiaramonte, a Warburg Realty agent in New York, doesn’t see the presence of a TV as a critical matter when staging a space. A TV shouldn’t be the focus, she says.
“While some think keeping a television in the living room at an open house is crucial, others say it takes away from the taste of the home,” Antonia DeBianchi writes on Apartment Therapy. “It’s a problem that sellers don’t seem to talk about, and its solution isn’t the clearest, either.”
When a room is awkwardly laid out, it could add to the challenges. For example, above a fireplace is a common spot for TVs, but if a mantle is too high or the fireplace is on the diagonal, its placement could feel unrealistic or awkward.
“Rearranging the furniture, and putting either a TV or mirror where the TV would go … really helps the buyer visualize what that setup would look like,” Westoff told Apartment Therapy.
Also, if the TV is outdated, many real estate pros suggest removing it. “If you have a really old, thick, crazy TV, it definitely makes people wonder why it’s not upgraded and wonder what else in the house might not be upgraded,” Chiaramonte told Apartment Therapy.
The best compromise: Have the TV blend in. If it’s mounted in a cabinet, close the cabinet if you can. If sellers have a giant TV, try to tone it down by tuning it to soundless images showing nature or peaceful scenery so it shows more as art.
I cold called a storage facility in OK - older lady had 3 properties, full occupancy, and a great business.
She said "son I sold it all to some city slicker who paid me far more than its worth. I bought a condo in Santa Barbara and Im spending the rest of my days watching the… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1637846196621553664
