Staged to Sell

> Video: A Staging Consultation

Call it a tale of two home sales.

In early August, Michael Wille, executive realtor with Coldwell Banker Burnet’s Minneapolis Lakes office, introduced a client’s home to the heavily congested Twin Cities market. The asking price: $789,000. Before he outfitted the Edina home’s front lawn with a “For Sale” sign, however, Wille worked with his client to stage the property and get it marketplace ready. Carpet was replaced in the master bedroom, where the client’s children had worn a trail of food-and-beverage residue over the years. Walls were patched and painted where necessary, and pull-string basement lights were updated with hard-wired wall switches.

Finally, some of the client’s older, bulky furniture was removed from the property and replaced with sleeker, more updated pieces better suited to show off the home’s interior potential. Five days later, the house sold for $1,000 more than the asking price.

“I spent more time getting the house ready to sell than actually selling it,” says Wille, who estimates that his client’s out-of-pocket staging costs were between $3,000 and $4,000. “I think by spending that money initially, she got at least $20,000, if not $30,000 in return. If she wouldn’t have spent that money, I probably would have priced the house the same, and we probably would have taken our first price reduction by now.”

While Wille was having success in Edina, though, he was struggling to attract buyers for a high-end Fridley home. Without question, Wille reports, the home needed a new roof, which would have cost his client about $8,000. The client chose not to replace the roof, Wille explains, but he did drop the asking price by $40,000. At the time, the price reduction had yet to attract an offer, and the house continued to linger on the market.

As Wille’s tales of contrasting home-selling strategies show, the buyer is in charge in today’s local real estate market. In September, there were 10.39 houses on the market for every buyer, compared to 8.32 last year and 4.67 in 2005, according to the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors. “Obviously, floor plan and layout, curb appeal, and price are still important to buyers, but the homes that distinguish themselves are the ones that have the finishes and allow buyers to see themselves in the house,” Wille says.

In addition, the sellers that successfully differentiate themselves in this exceedingly competitive market do so by serving up move-in-condition homes to increasingly picky potential buyers. “When it’s a buyer’s market like the one we have now, buyers can walk into any home they choose, provided they can afford it, and find reasons not to buy that home,” says Carol Erks, owner of Staging My Home in Arden Hills. “Buyers out there now are looking for the best value for their money. And that doesn’t necessarily mean price—it means condition of the home.”

Consequently, growing numbers of Twin Cities homeowners are staging their homes for the marketplace. “Though staging is relatively new in Minnesota, it has been a proven strategy elsewhere for many years,” says Diana Palm, owner of Lake Elmo–based Home Renew Staging.

As was the case with Wille’s Edina home, Palm says staging positively influences how quickly homes sell and the prices they command. “We typically see in staged homes about a 3 percent equity increase for sellers,” she says. “And because it increases buyer appeal, it certainly makes the property move faster.”