Can you believe all the Home Staging Resource members who attended the 2014 RESA Convention? There were over 60 of us and boy did we have a blast! Every year I speak at the RESA Conference and learn so much that I add to our HSR Certification training. I love that online training provides me a “real time” educational avenue to provide critical information to the hundreds of HSR Members across the world!
Over the next few weeks I’m going to be sharing some of the things I learned at RESA, as well the success stories I got to hear firsthand from this incredible group of women. Make sure to stay tuned by signing up to the right for our blog. I also am spending a ton of time adding what I learned from the RESA Conference to my HSR training area, so everyone can benefit from the takeaways which is the beauty of online training.
My Training Takeaway – I’m going back through our example contracts that we provide in the training using Kimberley’s mantra and making them stronger and more steadfast.
Me and my good friend Shell Brodnax (the amazing woman who always makes the RESA convention a success)
My Training Takeaway – Add to the training “Realtor Partner Plan” and “Realtor Presentations” a page/slide on how the stager makes the agent look awesome.
My Training Takeaway – Completely redoing my social media and networking section to reflect the 2014 trends, add the tips and tricks of connecting with clients and being a “good stalker” which will make it easy for HSR members to make agent partnerships.
Me and Lori Murphy, Ululani Poepoe and Valerie Monkarsh the new HSR stagers nominated for Rising Star category
My Training Takeaway – Add more information and video in my Week Two Marketing section that helps stagers connect easily with their propects and clients, so the “fear factor” never comes into play. I also am pushing the Staging Mentor program since is an easy way to take the fear away by working at a home and with clients under a Mentors guidance.
My Training Takeaway – Expand on my six buyer demographic Internet research steps and add a “Buyer Demographic Profile” form to that section.
What a lot of home stagers don’t realize is that agents want different things in different real estate markets. For instance, in a “buyers market” which was 2007-2011 agents just want the property to sell and not sit on the market like their competitions. In today’s seller’s market, the savvy agent wants to get the best price (and sell quickly) but price is king. Why? Because the smart agent knows that if they can be the “high price” leader in their market, then people will give them their listing (instead of their competition).
I love this story told by Lori Murphy who was recently awarded a 2013 Best of Houzz award and nominated for the RESA Rising Star of the Year even though she essentially just completed her HSR training and started her business last year! At the end of the story, I give my three tips on what agents want right now…
Hi Audra,
He continued to tell me how he wants someone who will give the seller the “bad news” so that he doesn’t have to, because he wants to keep his relationship with the seller.
The stagers they’ve been using seemed to just want the seller to like them. He said, “I need someone who will explain to sellers “why” and help them understand it is important in preparing the house to sell. I’d rather postpone putting it on the market by 4 weeks, if when it is listed it’s ready . . . every thing’s done.”
As I sat there listening to him, (he went on for an hour . . . I’ll try not to), I realized something.
At first I shook my head agreeing with him and thinking to myself, “well, of course, that’s what we do” . . . and then it hit me . . . I was trained that way. But it became suddenly clear that because not every stager in Columbus, Ohio received their certification from the Home Staging Resource . . . . well, let’s just say the advantage I have became crystal clear.
Eventually it did make a little sense, and then a little more, and then came the first staging job . . . .and then it really came together! lol
Audra, I’m so glad I made the choice to sign up with HSR! And YOU . . . over the last year and a half, I have never felt that I was in this alone.
Cheers to all the talented home stager’s out there! Any more tips you would like to add to this post?
XOXO – Happy Staging!
Audra Slinkey
Hope to hear from you!
1-888-563-9271
audra@homestagingresource.com
There was a study published by the Wall Street Journal* claiming that “staging” has no effect on the home’s sale price based on the photo above…seriously?! The study had a group of people view virtually staged before-and-after photos and asked them whether they would pay more for the beige room (above) over the purple room (below). Each of the respondents said they would not pay more money for the beige virtually staged room over the purple room.
How can anyone take this study even remotely serious is a minor miracle. Here are the huge problems with this study:
I wasn’t going to even respond to this study since I didn’t want to bring attention to something so absurd but since there has been some chatter about it, let’s put this matter to rest once and for all.
Anyone with half a brain would look at that “after” photo and never in a million years call this a “staged” room!
(This home was staged by Donna Dazzo of Designed to Appeal in New York City)
Living Room After
Boy’s Room After
Girl’s Room After
By the way, I could have produced tons of other similar success stories and photos by the many amazingly talented home stagers across the country who have been maligned by this study. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that when you improve upon a product, you get a better price.
XOXO – Happy Staging!
Audra Slinkey
Hope to hear from you!
1-888-563-9271
audra@homestagingresource.com
*By the way, the study was called: “The Impact of Staging Conditions on Residential Real Estate Demand” and the Wall Street Journal article was called: “Home Staging Effect? Not Much.“
What is it that you love to do and are passionate about? Chances are if you love it, you are truly gifted at it. Do you get goosebumps when you walk into a book store and head to the interior design section? Do you anxiously wait for your design magazines to come in the mail or get “geeked up” over organizing your closet? Do you notice every design detail when you walk into a friends house and then subconsciously rearrange the space in your mind? If you answered “yes” to any of these seemingly absurd questions then you definitely have what I call the “design sickness” and the good news is there’s never been a better time to explore the possibility of creating a business doing it. There is nothing more exciting then doing what you love and getting paid for it!
The most famous real estate agent of all time, Barbara Corcoran is speaking at our Staging Convention in a couple weeks, so it’s incredibly encouraging to see how our work over the years in educating the public on staging has Barbara as a huge supporter and advocate!
Here are just a few quotes from our members I thought was worth posting to encourage others that a new year, can mean so much to you…or it can pass you by.
I am happy to say I am very busy….I have two jobs going and another that I will continue after the first of the year…..I’m loving every minute… Thank you for checking in and thank you especially for providing me with the tools to make my dream happen. I will continue to read and re-read you course and continue to learn from you and my other fellow-ette stagers…
I’m very glad I decided to get my certification and go into the home staging field. I LOVE staging homes and it doesn’t seem like work at all. I also LOVE getting great results for people and seeing their homes sell quickly!
Before deciding to invest in a Home Staging training course I’d done quite an exhausting search to find the course that would best suit my needs, budget and one that would give me the tools I needed to buid my business and my confidence. I have found all of that and more with the Home Staging Resource. I do know a quite few stagers and they have all said they wished they had trained with HSR instead. All of the materials you need are included with HSR, where they had to pay extra for just about everything that HSR provides. So glad I made the decision to go with the Home Staging Resource!
Kind regards,
Susan Thompson
Ready-Set-Stage, LLC
The nominees have been announced for the RESA Home Staging Industry Awards 2014 and I’m so proud and impressed with every one of those amazing staging and redesigners! If you haven’t checked out each of their entry pages and viewed their transformations, make sure you do that at http://homestagingindustryawards.com. Each one of these individuals works tirelessly to perfect their craft and in doing so elevate our industry.
I’m particularly proud of the fact that half of the US nominees in the Pro-USA category and the Rising Star category are HSR grads or HSR Staging Mentors!
I wanted to personally congratulate each one of them below because they each have inspired me through the years, are incredibly talented and generous to the industry and are wonderful people…you ladies rock!