Tulsa is having a great home selling season in 2010. Lots of homes have been sold and new construction is alive and kicking. Tulsa is a great city and a beautiful place to live.

I have posted a few before and after photos of a new construction that was staged by a Staging Tulsa home stager. The ‘before’ photos are last. The electricity was not on yet.

What a difference a home staging makes!

Capture the 'feel' of the master suite in your photos.

OR

Home Staging is all about a great presentation and helping home shoppers with a great connection. 

Guess what… so are the internet photos.

Let me ask you a few questions. The two photos are of the same room, which master bedroom can you ‘feel’ or envision yourself  living in? Which one offers you more connection to the room?

How do your internet photos look or how do you want them to look?

Today, the internet is where we shop for homes. Think for a moment of your listing photos as your property’s ‘store front’.  Think of a real estate search site as ‘The Mall’ and your property listing is a store within The Mall. At The Mall, shoppers walk by looking in the stores, checking out what is in the display window to see if they are interested in going inside. This is exactly what  happens with  home buyers.  Thanks to iPhones, lap tops office PCs and home PCs, we can cover many ‘stores’ in a small amount of time, almost any time we want.

There are many homes for sale… which photos will catch the eyes of the home buyer… will it be yours?

Lots of traffic is the number one goal of your listing photos. If your photos are not generating traffic then there is something that needs attention.

Great Photos are like Great Home Stagings,

they invite a home buyer to pick up the phone and call their Realtor.

There is lots of work to be done if you are selling your home on your own. The old ‘sign in in the front yard’ is only the beginning! Here are a few reminders.

#1. Show a SQUEAKY CLEAN house - this includes cabinets and closets. 

#2. Get ready to LIVE squeaky clean every day your house is on the market! Everyday, Remember to make your bed, take a small sack and go through the house and collect clutter (just takes 3 minutes), empty kitchen sink, etc. Buyers love well kept homes!

#3. Stage your home to sell. Refresh your home with new sofa pillows, new fireplace screen, new neutral comforter sets and fresh towels. New furnishings will give a house a ‘well cared for’ feeling. Is there too much furniture in the house? This will it make seem cramped and look small. Are your window treatments open? Bright and airy sells homes. 

  Are your furnishings dated? pack them away, they are presenting your house to buyers with an ‘I’m an old house’ look – this is a very negative effect. Just take them out! This will also give your home the ‘less crowded’ feel that you want.

#4. The outside of your home is as important as the inside. EVEN in the winter months. Don’t skimp, use a great mulch and use plenty of it. Keep your front entrance swept – every day. This area is the buyer’s first impression – make it a great one.

#5. Market you home well! Home Staging IS marketing.

These home staging tips for your ‘for sale by owner’ home will get you off to a great beginning…

oh, and still put the sign in the front yard ;)

Good Luck!

Posted via web from STAGING TULSA

HERE IS WHAT YOU DO:

http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=12809 —  a link to the easy directions.

If THE LINK DOES NOT WORK, here is what I did.

Go to the very bottom of your profile page, then:

HELP CENTER

ADDS AND BUSINESS SOLUTIONS

PAGES FOR BUSINESS (has a little fan flag)

Here you click on CREATING Admin & editing link

HOW CAN I CREATE A PAGE

*** Once you have your FB fan page, copy your link in the URL and paste it into your profile page information box, just below your profile pic. Invite your friends to fan you.

It’s nice to do business on your business page and your personal stuff on your profile page – which includes some yahoos! with your business successes (with pics) on your profile page!

Mike Mueller recently did a Facebook Business Page Webinar and it was great. Lots to learn, but some GREAT general tips. The next time he has one, sit in on it- it’s free.

Please stop by and see my page AND don’t forget to ‘fan’ me! It’s nice to have fans!

Staging Tulsa Facebook Business page  Thanks!

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It’s true. When we shop online for clothes, doesn’t that black velvet dress look much better on the beautiful skinny model than in the lifeless picture? The seller has marketed that dress so you will want it and buy it.

And what about car commercials? The shinny red Cadillac with the beautiful red-head driving it – there was a shot of her shinny red heel on the gas pedal (remember that one). Really, do we need to know what the gas pedal of Cadillac looks like? Now that is marketing.

A picture is worth a thousand words. It’s true.

Over 85% of home buyers shop for their homes online. Your Internet presence is your MARKETING.

Take a look at your listing photos as a buyer would and what do you see? Be honest.

Is it a ‘beautiful model’ or is it a lifeless picture?

OR

Market your home so buyers will want it and BUY it.

Marketing your home for sale? A picture IS worth a thousand words.

Ask your Realtor where you can find a home stager OR just Google ‘home staging’ and your city.

Regards,

Peggy

Be sure to check us out on facebook and ‘fan’ us!

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Home Stagers Help Dreaming & Imagination Come to Life

This Rental Property has been Transformed and is Now Ready to Sell!

Everything in this cute cottage style home was cleaned, painted AND repaired. Just this step alone, will give home sellers a great launch into the real estate market with an edge on their competition. BUT, some smart sellers will take selling to the next step which is: HOME STAGING.

Home staging brings to the table an entirely different dimension in the ‘selling’ process. Once a home has been staged, dreaming & imagination come to life… it is called suggestive selling or marketing.

Smart home sellers realize that the sale of their property begins on the Internet. Either on the PC at lunch break or iPhone while waiting at the doctor’s office, this is the NEW WAY TO SHOP FOR HOMES TODAY.

An empty house offers nothing to the buyer except the ability to see ALL of the home’s flaws. A staged home allows buyers vision and imagination. Your great staged INTERNET PHOTOS will bring buyers to your property and once inside, buyers begin to dream.

(And remember: the first 30 days your home is on the market, is the very best time to get it sold!)

Posted via web from STAGING TULSA

Other than the fact that I didn’t have a very good camera at the time, these photos show why it can be much better for the sale of your home, to bring in a professional home stager. Let me explain.

In this picture, the home owner had staged her house herself. Before she had scheduled with us, this home owner had gone through the house and packed up items she felt were not necessary in showing her home. Her fellow Realtors THEN toured the home and thought it was beautiful, AND it was. BUT, it was still too taste specific (personal taste).

Okay, now think about this: How can someone depersonalize their own home when they are the ones who decorated it in the first place? It is a personalized home and trying to take oneself out of the home is virtually impossible. True, you can bring friends over, but are they going to know what needs to stay, what needs to go and where it all needs to be placed for a sellable presentation?

Home Staging is not decorating… it is MARKETING. Knowing and understanding this concept is the beginning of selling your home quicker and for more profit.

Take a look at the photo again. Do you find yourself looking at the things in the home (lower pic) or can you see how much easier it is to see the HOUSE (above pic) and not the decorating.The room look much larger too.

PLUS, this may not be a style you like at all and getting past it may be difficult. This personal style is BRANDING this home with its style. Here is why.

90% of home buyers cannot visualize their things in your home. They will use what is or is not in the home for help in trying to ‘see’ in their minds eye, what their furnishings will look like and how they will or will not fit things into the house. 10% are left with the ability to visualize.

Be sure to ask your self: how does my house and yard look and how do the internet photos look?

And don’t forget, home staging is MARKETING.

Hope to talk to you soon.

~ Peggy

Tulsa Home Stagers

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Doggie doors are one on the greatest inventions of ALL time. My cats use their “window door” all of the time. It was so nice to finally get them trained… now I am free. But, what if I don’t have a dog or cat – this means I will need to replace the door after I move in. Home owners today generally don’t have the time or energy to make changes to their newly purchased home right at or soon after they move in.. Most likely, they have been busy updating THEIR OWN home for sale and now don’t want to buy a house that will need more of the same… at least not right away. Most everything you will do to your house in preparation to sale, will bring you great returns… including a sale!

If you can, replace doggie doors before you list especially if it is on the inside of the home. These are the doors that are easier to replace. In this photo, the homeowner had this hollow core door replaced and it took this room from looking like a room next to the garage (this door went into the laundry room) to looking “dressed” to be simply a nice sellable room.

 Put your self behind the home buyer’s eyes.

 Think about what they may want, not what you have liked while you lived in and loved this home.

          No more doggie door! 

This room looks fresh with no sign of pets.

The home owners also took out the cabinet over the counter to give this potential office area a look of sophistication.                                                                                          

This is what HOME STAGING is all about.

Most everything you do to your house in preparation to sale, will bring you great returns… including a sale!

Peggy Givens, Tulsa’s Home Stager

Posted via web from STAGING TULSA

  What’s the first thing you think of when you see a nice dining room?

  Is it maybe  “wow, I could have some really great diner parties in this dining room!”? That is what I think.

When buying a home, we look for the things that will fill the bill for our dreams… what we want to do in our future lives, what we aspire to.  

Many homes on the market today are  blank canvases waiting for an artist to come along and paint a story on them.

Creating a ‘vision’ that a buyer just cannot get out of their head.

 Without something beautiful to look at, it is just a wooden frame with white canvas stretched over it.

  Does this blank canvas give you something to dream with?

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It just doesn’t get any better than this (well, maybe purple… or tangerine)!

Before: The pink house… EVERYTHING was pink with the exceptions of the roof and deck (red stain, gray roof). Even the chimney was pink… even the flowers are pink!!

The interior was much the same. pink, pink and pink. The exceptions were the kitchen and the deep cherry red living-room.

After: Our recommended colors look great on this ranch. The house now compliments the other neighborhood homes, adding value to their property as well as to this sellers.

This home sold in 34 days.

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