MANN REPORT: August 2008

A 48 hour Staging Miracle

By Jill Vegas
Jill Vegas LLC

"What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine and curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons, as I pass,
Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass."
-  Andrew Marvell, Thoughts in a Garden

Now is the time to get properties gussied up for Autumn buyers. At Jill Vegas, we like to say that sellers have 30 seconds to make a good impression. That 30 seconds can mean the difference between a faster sale and a stagnating property.

Staging your property boosts the price and shortens the selling time. If you're selling in this ever tough market, you need staging now more than ever to compete.

This summer NBC's OpenHouse NYC featured my staging tips. The segment was called Staging Your Home for a Quick Sell. Go to our website www.jillvegas.com/press if you'd like to see how we transformed a house that needed help— it hadn’t been touched for forty years and had been lingering on the market for ages. We worked a 48 hour miracle — removing clutter, cleaning, and bringing in fresh accessories and flowers to completely transform this house.

Here's the tip sheet that we shared with OpenHouse NYC:

1. Bring the outside inside. You can accomplish this with large vases of flowers (always keep your vases clean and sparkling with fresh water. Trim wilted flowers, petals and browned leaves.) Or you can buy glass and porcelain planters, fill them with nice rocks or glass balls, and plant them with flowers or bright green grasses.
2. Let in the light. Open windows, pull back shades and curtains. If you have the gift of light from windows in your property, make the most of it.
3. Depersonalize the space. Take down pictures of family and friends that can clutter refrigerators and shelves. While they might be meaningful to you, they distract buyers from looking at the attributes of your home. Take down pieces of artwork that might be items you love, but don't accentuate the space. Remember, less is more.
4. Clear the clutter. Clutter is the No. 1 sin of home keeping, and hurts greatly when you are trying to sell your home. You'll be surprised how great your place will look if you take the time to go room by room and methodically put away or throw out anything that could constitute "clutter." Donate items you rarely use or don't need to charity. Your newly cleaned out space will make you feel light and fresh, and will help sell your property.
5. Use simple linens. Crazy patterns and flowers on linens can distract buyers, who find themselves critiquing or admiring your design taste at an open house instead of taking in your space. Go for simple whites and mushroom tones.
6. Add color accents. Start out with as clean a palate as possible--paint walls an elegant palette of earth tones, simplify your space, and then add splashes of color with bright modern paintings, flowers or bold accessories.


At Jill Vegas, we've staged nearly $200 million in real estate. We are now offering a Virtual Magic Wand Service, to magically transform your apartment or house from a seller's nightmare to a broker's dream. For appointments, call 212-627-9402 or email me at jill@jillvegas.com to book your appointment.

Jill Vegas
212-627-9402
jill@jillvegas.com
 

©2009 Jill Vegas LLC