Selling a house , stagers Uhhh

[Breedlove]

DW will be retiring this spring and we have decided to sell our house in the city . We have a small farm / ranch in Grimes county Texas ...less $$ to keep up . We have signed contracts with a good realtor , so next they send out a stager . This person comes out and tells you what you need to do to your house for photos . We hear all the normal paint the inside hire a couple good maids and really get the place shining a few other things ...Then she see's our ceiling fans and chandeliers . Tells us the realtor does not like the brass ceiling fans or chandeliers , we need to replace them ! Wow , not big bucks but the realtor setting criteria like that . After the stager is through , I was totaling up the upgrades and it looked like 10K + ( I am wrong ) I tell the stager I will not be paying a lot to sell the house . She turns her back and walks out and mumbles something. We have been in the house 17 years bought it new , we are in one of the hottest growing areas of Houston . I see some things ( mechanical ) and some paint ....But a chandelier because it is brass . I think I am really getting old .

[Choices]

Yeah, we sold our house in Denver last year. Red hot market. DH and realtor set price about 25k more than I figured we’d get. The offer was 10 k more than we asked!
Stager— part of the package from our realtor, wanted us to remove one 5x7 rug and empty the closets! We rented a storage unit and pulled the extras out of two closets. We did not really need to do any of that!
The House was in good mechanical shape but I painted nothing! I even had 36 paintings on one long wall.
We did not have a timeline where we had to sell, so I was not willing to do too much. Total cost was a couple months of renting a storage unit.

[candrew]

Expecting a homeowner to replace otherwise perfectly functioning fixtures like chandeliers for the sole reason of their finish being brass does not seem at all reasonable. Fresh paint, cleaning, repairs are to be expected. Have you had a conversation with your realtor about this "stager", her expectations and especially the rude behavior? I would think that any realtor worth their salt would not want an individual representing them in a way that puts off a client like she did in your case.

[RunningBum]

She was probably mumbling "Why doesn't ANYONE do all the things I recommend?"

De-cluttering and De-personalizing a home makes sense. So does paint, and cleaning carpets. Changing out fixtures to meet her tastes? Forget it.

[Bir48die]

You will probably get the equivalent amount in a lower offer as the new buyer will need to spend money on the upgrades.

[GrayHare]

With the upgrades will the place sell for more? Will that be enough to cover the cost of the upgrades? Maybe, maybe not, that's at your risk. But a higher sales price is guaranteed to yield a higher commission for the realtor.

[Walt34]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RunningBum De-cluttering and De-personalizing a home makes sense. So does paint, and cleaning carpets. Changing out fixtures to meet her tastes? Forget it.

Exactly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bir48die You will probably get the equivalent amount in a lower offer as the new buyer will need to spend money on the upgrades.

Perhaps not, it depends on what the buyer wants to do with the house. Maybe they want to put in purple carpet (and I have seen that!). If that's the case the carpet probably doesn't matter much. And if I was the buyer, as long as the ceiling fans worked and were in otherwise decent shape I probably wouldn't care what they looked like.

[Breedlove]

Paint , found a dirt cheap painter with good ref. .50 sq. ft. . I supply the paint .....
Power wash , carpet cleaner . de clutter . We will have to take my picture of James Dean down, replace it with a picture of a bowl of fruit.

All guitars must be removed from the house . Of course all photos must me removed . Cannot have my American flag in the garage . Must get rid of a computer desk and get a smaller one . etc , etc . This house goes to market end of March . Got to get to work LOL

[Meadbh]

No house is perfectly suited to all potential buyers. A lot of impulsive buyers will be unable to see past superficial items that look dated or don’t match their taste. So they will walk out of a house that has, say, purple walls, or ugly light fixtures, leaving it for more discerning buyers to make a (lower) offer based on the fundamental design and structural integrity if the home. The purpose of staging is to keep those impulsive buyers engaged, hopefully leading to competing offers.

When I was selling my last house, I cleared out a ton of stuff. My realtor advised me to repaint my living areas because my colour scheme, which was based on coffee tones, was “too dark”. I understood that it might not be to everyone’s taste and agreed to repaint in the same colours, two shades lighter. I refused to paint everything in her default colour, a mawkish gray tone, which was frankly ugly, and would have clashed with the carpets and drapes. As it happened, the new owners changed everything, including replacing windows, completely gutting my lovely 17 year old kitchen and tearing down walls.

My advice would be to set a budget for staging that you feel is reasonable.

[Breedlove]

Yes , you are correct ! They gave us a Sherwin Williams paint number to repaint the interior . It is a real ugly beige/ grey . I will not use SW , I personally like Behr ...lots cheaper !

[Bamaman]

My realtor has a painter and a carpenter on his payroll. And he pays them out of his commission that is 1% less than other realtors. He was a great assistance motivating me to complete painting the bedrooms and recarpeting the bedrooms.

The icing on the cake was a completely retiled bathtoom. I bought the ceramic file on sale for 58 cents per square feet and total supplies cost was $135. Doing ceramic tile is one of my hobbies done from time tomtime.

That was the second house I sold for list price to the third person that looked at it.

[Midpack]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GrayHare With the upgrades will the place sell for more? Will that be enough to cover the cost of the upgrades? Maybe, maybe not, that's at your risk. But a higher sales price is guaranteed to yield a higher commission for the realtor.

Selling the house period is the primary motivation for the realtor (commission), not a higher price/commission. e.g. If the commission on a $250K house is $15K and it doesn't show well or sell, the commission on the same house at $260K ($10K in upgrades from the OP) would be $15.6K. An additional $600 isn't what motivates the realtor, it's selling the house at any price.

I well understand why sellers don't want to put money in the house, and that's up to the seller. But if the goal is truly to sell the house - unless you're in a red hot market, you may have to bring the house up to sell OR wait (much) longer than you want to sell. The realtor ought to be able to show you some of the houses your competing against in your market/location/price range - that ought to help make it clear if you should/not put money in to sell.

[MichaelB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RunningBum De-cluttering and De-personalizing a home makes sense. So does paint, and cleaning carpets. Changing out fixtures to meet her tastes? Forget it.

This is pretty much what I did to sell DMs house. Clean, paint, carpets. The realtor staged the whole thing digitally - furniture, fixtures, colors, everything. When I asked if that was misleading potential buyers, she looked at me as if I were from a different planet, shook her head in that "younger generational" sort of way, smiled and explained that it was common and most younger buyers knew it was that way. The house sold quickly and well, and I learned something new.

[Midpack]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MichaelB This is pretty much what I did to sell DMs house. Clean, paint, carpets. The realtor staged the whole thing digitally - furniture, fixtures, colors, everything. When I asked if that was misleading potential buyers, she looked at me as if I were from a different planet, shook her head in that "younger generational" sort of way, smiled and explained that it was common and most younger buyers knew it was that way. The house sold quickly and well, and I learned something new.

My sister used to sell real estate, and she said most buyers don't have much imagination. If they can't see the house as it could be with furniture and upgrades, they move on to the next house. And these days with dual income households, most people want turnkey houses more than ever.

[MichaelB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midpack My sister used to sell real estate, and she said most buyers don't have much imagination. If they can't see the house as it could be with furniture and upgrades, they move on to the next house.

That's one of the things my realtor said. I was initially skeptical but now agree she (and your sister) understood this and I didn't.

[Meadbh]

The realtor wants to sell houses at the highest possible price per unit time. it is more cost effective for the realtor to sell your house quickly for less than list price and move on to other properties, than to continue working to sell it for a few extra weeks for a fraction of the price difference. In other words, time is money.

[Big_Hitter]

my realtor stages her own listings, for free

as far as paint and what not the new buyers will probably want to paint it a different color anyway, why bother

[gayl]

Am I reading this wrong? 10k upgrades to sell for 10-11k more? If so, same bottom line to you

[Amethyst]

We sold two "investment" (har har) properties in the past 3 years. Each time, the real estate agents disrespected anything brass.

In addition, we renovated all our bathrooms in our own home. Even the contractors sneered at the idea of replacing brass with brass.

And...we talked to a real estate agent about what we'd need to do to our house to sell it. Immediately, the beautiful brass chandeliers came in for opprobrium.

The reason given was always, "Nobody buys brass any more, it's all brushed nickel now." Yet, I see brass fixtures for sale, so somebody must be buying them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Breedlove DW will be retiring this spring and we have decided to sell our house in the city . We have a small farm / ranch in Grimes county Texas ...less $$ to keep up . We have signed contracts with a good realtor , so next they send out a stager . This person comes out and tells you what you need to do to your house for photos . We hear all the normal paint the inside hire a couple good maids and really get the place shining a few other things ...Then she see's our ceiling fans and chandeliers . Tells us the realtor does not like the brass ceiling fans or chandeliers , we need to replace them ! Wow , not big bucks but the realtor setting criteria like that . After the stager is through , I was totaling up the upgrades and it looked like 10K + ( I am wrong ) I tell the stager I will not be paying a lot to sell the house . She turns her back and walks out and mumbles something. We have been in the house 17 years bought it new , we are in one of the hottest growing areas of Houston . I see some things ( mechanical ) and some paint ....But a chandelier because it is brass . I think I am really getting old .

[Big_Hitter]

paint it taupe too