Cary Real Estate & Home Staging

The Your Place Section of the Chicago Tribune highlights unique strategies for selling homes in this season’s buyer’s market. The Cary home featured in this article was staged by Mary McDonald.

HOME-COURT ADVANTAGE: Excerpts from Tribune Article of April 7, 2006
Winning strategies for attracting buyers in today’s softer market
by Mary Ellen Podmolik
Special to the Tribune

The Cary home that Maria Victoria Zitelli shares with her family is spacious, at 3,600 square feet, and has amenities like a gourmet kitchen with an island and breakfast bar, soaring ceilings and 2 1/2 bathrooms.

But when it came time to list the 4-year-old home for sale a few weeks ago, Zitelli, a former real estate agent, looked beyond her comfortable home to face the reality that after five stellar years, the residential housing market is slowing.

So first Zitelli’s listing agent, Mary McDonald, took her to comparable homes to check out the competition, and then priced hers slightly lower than a direct competitor with more upgrades. She then repainted the upstairs, trading white for putty and neutral shades of green and yellow. She put away accessories and brought in plants and orchids. Mary McDonald then came in and rearranged the furniture before any photos were taken. And every morning before she left the house, she made sure it was immaculate and all the lights were left on.

“It looks great,” Zitelli said. “You have to give it some oomph. Because I’m a Realtor, I know the first two weeks are critical.”With mortgage rates edging up to their highest level in three-plus years and total housing inventory at its highest level since 1998, some homeowners are nervous as they put their properties up for sale.

“The people I’m working with are almost kind of frantic, [asking], ‘Are things moving? Are interest rates too high? Are people going to buy,’” said an agent in Orland Park. “They are anxious and apprehensive.”But rather than fret, real estate agents say there are a number of steps sellers can take to increase the chances that their home will sell, not sit.

Price it realistically. Real estate agents say it is here that sellers make their first, and perhaps biggest, blunder. The days of lofty price appreciation and buyers lining up outside the front door to outbid each other are waning to a close.

A listing agent will provide sale prices of similar homes for the past six months to a year, but it’s important to compare conditions then to now. For instance, six months ago, was that similar home the only one of its kind available and now there are several like yours?

Check out the competition to see how similar properties are priced and how well they show. Also, keep in mind that if a home is priced at the higher end of a group of similar homes, buyers walk through the front door expecting more.

“If you don’t have 10 showings in the first two weeks in a fairly active market, the house is priced too high,” said Mary McDonald, an agent at Re/Max Unlimited Northwest in Cary.If you are determined to test a slightly higher price, test it for two weeks and then re-evaluate it. Don’t wait more than a month to drop the price, agents say.

Use the Internet to your advantage. Keep in mind how people look for homes in a computer-savvy age; they like round numbers and photos. Pricing a home at, say, $484,000, automatically excludes the listing from searches for homes listed for $450,000 to $475,000. And potential buyers doing searches for $475,000 to $500,000 are going to expect that $484,000 home to have the features of one priced higher.

Allow a real estate agent to take photos or put together a virtual tour of the home too. The more photos, the better, agents say. Make sure there are interior pictures of the kitchen, family room, living room, master bedroom and master bathroom; potential buyers may think there’s something amiss if some of those rooms aren’t shown.

Consider incentives. Agents say the market isn’t at a point where sellers need to tap into their profit margin too much. However, think about offering a home warranty if the appliances are dated. And if it’s a property such as a condo that will appeal to first-time buyers who have no equity elsewhere, an offer by the seller to pick up some of the buyer’s closing costs may set that condo apart from similar units.

Showcase the home’s interior. That means more than cleaning out closets and removing refrigerator magnets. Some listing agents stage their client’s homes for free; other brings in professional stagers. The goal is the same, to update the home and give it a warm and inviting personality, just not that of the seller.

“The hardest thing for people to get past is it’s no longer the place you raised your children and you have these great memories,” say stagers. “It’s a product like something sitting on a Target shelf.

“If wallpaper is dark or the pattern is too busy, rip it down. If walls are white or boldly colored, repaint them. Think neutral colors like warm beiges, greens and creams. A worn couch no longer makes a room look tired if it has a new slipcover. A new area rug can cover old tile. A shiny new bathroom faucet gives a dated sink new life.

“If things are outdated, you can give it an updated feel with staging,” McDonald said. “They’ve decided when they walk in the door if they even like the house. They’ll make up excuses and say we can fix that. They’ll see a rattan rug over [bad] tile and say it’s dated but we can replace that.

“Don’t forget the outside. It’s tough when spring is just beginning to sprout in the Midwest, but little fixes go a long way. Keep a pot of colorful pansies right inside your front door and place them outside before a showing. Buy a new doormat. Rake leaves left over from fall.

The time standing there while the Realtor gets the door open, that’s the first impression people get of a home.

Be flexible. Don’t expect to sell your home just by having an open house. “Ten percent of the people that come through the property are potential buyers. The rest are lookers,” said Ed Schwind, of Schwind Realty and Development Inc., Chicago.

Agents say the more open you are to having strangers in your home and the more you’re willing to put up with inconvenience, the better your chances of selling it quickly. That means don’t put restrictions on the listing, such as requiring 24-hour notice before a showing. It eliminates out-of-town buyers who are looking at many properties.

Also, don’t require the listing agent to attend each showing. It may make a seller feel more comfortable with having strangers in the home, but it to can lead to lost showings.

Copyright (c) 2006, Chicago Tribune. Reprinted by permission.

Click here for information on Staging Your Home.

Real Estate Broker® and Professional Home Stager, Mary McDonald offers 3 tips to successfully staging the inside of the home you plan to sell. If a home is staged prior to listing it can minimize selling time and maximize profits.

De-clutter: This is one of the most important things you can do. Room by room, remove small items from all surfaces and replace with or leave one or two items. Small items create too much “eye noise” especially in photos taken to market the home. Remember that your home won’t be the only one a buyer sees. The more cluttered or “noisy” it is, the less memorable.

Be Flexible: Even though you have enjoyed the family room lazy-boy chair positioned in front of a TV, be willing to do without that level of comfort while you are selling. A TV is rarely an attractive focal point. Furniture should be positioned to draw attention to a beautiful view or an attractive architechtural feature of the home. A staged home should feel welcoming and clutter free. Your emotional energy should be directed toward your new home.

Start with the main living areas of the home. Remember that a prospective buyer decides if they like the home within seconds of entering the front door. Kitchens, Foyers, Living Rooms and Family Rooms followed by Master Bedroom Suites are important rooms not to neglect while staging. De-personalize by removing family photos as much as possible so that buyers are free to imagine themselves living there.

Remember that Staging is not decorating. Staging is a marketing tool used to present homes to potential buyers. Staging is mandatory while decorating is optional.

Question:I live in Cary and a neighbor has had her home for sale for months.  Her agent hired a stager.  When the house was completed however, it did look neater but not more inviting. What is the key to connecting with a qualified stager?

Answer: Staging has become such a buzzword and there seem to be loads of stagers and agents who claim that they will provide this service.  A qualified Stager will know that staging is much more than organizing and de-cluttering. These stagers know that decorating is an important part of what we do. So ask your potential stager, what is their background and training? Stagers need to truly understand the decorating fundamentals that create great spaces every time. Things like how high to hang the art, how to arrange the furniture to enhance the selling points and make the space seem larger and how to create an overall feeling of comfort in the house. The job of the stager is to help the potential buyer fall in love. “Decorating to Sell” will do exactly that!