Fluffing for Dollars

Home staging has become big business because it adds big bucks to the sale price.

By Michael Harris (Published: March 2006)

THE APPROACH TO RIEN SHARMA'S SOUTH GRANVILLE HOME leads one to anticipate a Steinway baby grand, leather-bound Victorian novels and mossy pots brimming with orchids. The building is a Tudor-style heritage deal. In the entranceway a fountain laughs over designer tiles.

Upon inspection, the place is a mess. The orchids, silk ones, bust out of cardboard boxes. Sharma navigates his way in slippers through a confusion of items on the floor and smiles apologetically. “If anyone saw how we really live, we’d never get a project.”

But Sharma isn’t worrying much about attracting new clients these days. His is the booming industry of home staging (a.k.a. fluffing, dressing or enhancing)—wherein professional designers are employed to turn lived-in and vacant homes into show suites, upping the ante for prospective sellers and wooing buyers into imagining what Sharma calls “the lifestyle they never had.”

In fact, business is so good for Sharma’s Revamp Homestaging, they just moved their half-million-dollar inventory into a new warehouse (thus the chaos on the home front). In the past year, Revamp has staged over 100 homes. “We brought staging into the market, really.”
Stationed in West Vancouver, John Carter of Dekora claims to be the frontrunner, too. (Both companies set up shop in 2003.) His company now employs the services of 15 designers, stagers, electricians, landscapers and painters, and grossed over a million dollars last year alone.

“When we first started,” says Carter, vice-president of sales and marketing for Dekora, “we would present ourselves in real estate offices, and four or five agents out of 50 would know what home staging was. Now almost all of them know about it. Some realtors use us on every project of theirs—it’s just a value-added service.”

It’s a service that inspires some homeowners to think of open houses as much more than a pot of coffee and a firm handshake. When Royal LePage commissioned Maritz Research to look into staging, they found that 75 percent of Canadians are willing to spend up to $5,000 to fluff their home for the market.

When Barb Justason wanted to sell her West End condo, she knew she had to do it fast. With a seven-year-old son and a one-year-old daughter tramping about (plus a husband running his business out of the spare bedroom), she realized her home was overcrowded and had that tornado-fallout look. Enter the home stager.

“They liked our sofa, which made us proud.” Dekora’s staff brought in original paintings, loads of new furniture and rugs, a headboard for the bed and fine linens. They also demanded that a storage locker’s-worth of clutter be removed.

But after the designers had left and the kids were safely stowed at a hotel with Dad, Justason took it upon herself to destage some elements. She was afraid people could tell it was staged; this, she figured, would “make us look like we were trying too hard. There were a lot of fake orchids. They brought in a Bodum.”

At the end of the day—and it did take only one day to sell Justason’s “dressed” condo—her $2,600 investment in home staging (fees range from a few hundred dollars to $25,000, depending on the state and size of the property) allowed her to sell without paying a realtor’s fee. The staged home sold itself. What’s more, a recent report in the National Post indicates that staging can up prices by almost 20 percent (Vancouver stagers place that figure closer to five or 10).

Real estate agent David Reimers says that while certain designers claim to have invented home staging, the reality is that the young industry represents the professionalization of something that has always taken place in less organized ways. “Real estate agents do the same thing on a lesser scale all the time.” So do ordinary folk who just happen to pick up after themselves. While professional stagers offer the ease of one-stop shopping—for a single fee your lawn is manicured, the walls are painted a calming but en vogue shade of taupe, and a dear little tea set is positioned just-so on your Pottery Barn ottoman—the basic tenets of stagers fall within the realm of common sense.

Revamp: 604-738-2675, Revampconcepts.com
Dekora: 604-876-4355, Dekora.com


WHO SAYS YOU NEED A PROFESSIONAL STYLIST?

You’ve been on a first date before. This is no different. First impressions are everything:
floss your teeth, cover odours and don’t bring up religion or politics. For the staging-savvy home seller, here are six easy steps that’ll have ’em begging for your number.

Neat Bushes, etc.
Slow, neck-craning drive-bys occur long before prospective buyers even fondle the knob on your front door. If the yard is festooned with rusty tricycles and half-fermented droppings from your fruit tree, you’ve just committed the equivalent of garlic breath.

Ex-Nay on the Esus-Jay
Religious icons and intimate artifacts (anything from tampon boxes to diplomas) make prospective buyers feel edgy. Even that piece of artwork Timmy made from dry pasta and a glue gun is just rat food to the unbiased observer. And speaking of kids…

Get Rid of Children and Other Animals
Remember how your coworkers didn’t care that your child was born? Prospective homebuyers care even less. In fact, family portraits are a major no-no. How can someone imagine their own life in a house when yours won’t butt out?

Fresh Flowers
Like on a first date, the key to home staging is fooling prospective takers into believing you offer them a lifestyle they don’t deserve. Tulips do the trick. “The people who live here are fabulous,” your buyer will think. “I, too, could be fabulous if I bought this house.”

Easy on the Curry
You brush your teeth if you want a smooch, don’t you? So why would you fill your house with pungent aromas when trying to sell?

Fixer Up
Damaged goods don’t get second dates. Tighten dripping faucets and glue down the carpet.

Read more in the Real Estate Trends 2006 series:


The Open House Circuit: Open houses are an efficient way for realtors to show a property—and to get buyers' competitive juices flowing. By Steve Burgess

Where to Buy Now: Which neighbourhoods are on thr ise, and what, exactly does the future hold for this fast-evolving market? By Matt O'Grady and Chad Hershler

A Roof of One's Own: Are there any bargains left in Vancouver? Yes. We'll tell you where to find them and why the price is right. By Stanley Brunst, Tyee Bridge and Steve Burgess