Home stager reviews online listings

hey there home sellers
this is one of my favorite videos
that I want to share with you
because we are going house hunting
and I’m going to share with you
some of the listings that I see online
and what I would change as a home stager so tune in
okay so
one of my favorite things to do
is to look at listings online
to see what’s available
because I just love looking at houses
there are so many different kinds out there
different sizes shapes
old ones new ones
and I just love looking at houses
especially ones with some architecture to it
just a little bit different
not your normal cookie cutter
now I know there’s all different kinds out there
starter homes ones for families
ones for maybe older people
maybe town homes condos
single set family homes all those kinds of homes
so I just love looking at them
cause I love to see what they’ve done in it
you know what
what’s inside there right
I always kind of want to take a peek in and take a look
right so if you’re a home seller
and you’re not looking at your competition
you should that’s one of the first things that I do
when I’m thinking about selling my house
and go okay
well let’s see what everybody else is doing right
are they looking shabby
or they kind of looking really good
and you’re like oh yeah
I need to up my game
kind of like keeping up with the Joneses
you know what I mean yeah
so that’s what we’re gonna do today
I’m gonna pick a town um
that’s not too huge but not that small
I’m not gonna pick like Raleigh
cause I’m from North Carolina area
um I’m gonna pick a town called Asheboro
North Carolina
because there’s a variety of different homes
ranging from $100,000 to over a million
and they just give you a great idea
of what you could find out there
and like I said as a home seller
you should be looking out
to see what your competition looks like
and to see how you compare
because you need to look through the buyer’s eyes
and check out the competition
because you wanna think okay
will a buyer stop at my pictures
or will they keep scrolling through
so let’s go over a few of those
okay so like I said
we’re gonna go through I’m going through realtor.com
and I’m gonna scroll through some of these houses
and actually kind of give you um
kind of show you the price ranges of the houses um
some of the my photo reactions as I go through them
and then give you some tidbits of what I would do
if I were if this was my client
what I would tell them to change
okay so I’m excited to do a couple of these
I’m not gonna do a whole lot of them in this video
but just a few in the different price ranges
to give you an idea okay
so let’s start off with this is
like I said Ashboro North Carolina
um there’s one home I wanted to start off with
okay so let’s see
there was one here that caught my eye
this one with the lights look at this one
you can see they did a picture of twilight
and then when you click on it
you can see oh daylight
well let’s quick look at this one
okay so this is a three bedroom
two bath house 16 square feet
so it’s not very big it’s mostly for
you know for newbies
maybe you’ve started a young family
maybe it’s a couple maybe it’s because it’s a ranch
it could be for an older couple who’s downsized
and now want to you know
find something that’s you know
less full less huge
right they want something smaller
and so this is something that they can maintain
so let’s take a look at come with the pictures here
so have you scroll through like okay yeah
the nice nice
big yard
so there’s some maintenance you’d have to take care of
it’s a nice everything is taken care of
manicured right
the grass is cut the trees are cut
it looks really nice for curb appeal
wow it’s a big lawn
holy cow yeah
so you got some space here
set away from the road right
so this is the garage okay
nothing major and then you come in
you’re like okay
this is the first picture
alright so um
okay I’m thinking
that catches my eyes this blue color here
and all of a sudden we got some Asian looking artwork
um okay
the couch is nice and neutral
there’s a fireplace over here
but
it doesn’t look like it centered over the living room
here like this is a living room um
this um
fireplace is kind of off in the corner
doesn’t kind of really show it off
um then the next picture is this entryway
which is a yellow color
but we’ve got a lot of yellow color
and then we’ve got a lot of personality in here
okay so we’ve got
this is an Asian motif um
you can tell as you’re going through the pictures
there’s a lot of things going on in here
okay so
alright so as I
so as you can see there’s a lot of things going on
a lot of colors we got a lot
this teal blue this dark blue
we got yellow there’s a lot of colors
so if I were the client if
if this was my client
I would tell them we need to tone down the colors
okay number one um
and then number two depersonalize uh
the Asian motif we’ve got a lot of things going on here
okay um
I love this couch
it’s just not something that I would put right there
again we got more colors going on here
and it’s nice and bright it is
the carpets looks clean um
maybe a couple of darker spots
but it’s um yeah
so again
the wall colors um
the placement of the furniture
I do like all the light that’s in here um
although there’s a TV in the dining room and more TVs
okay so it’s not
if I had to tell this client again
um we look at paint colors and neutralizing them
taking down the computers and the TV in the dining room
um simple things that you can take care of
when it comes time for the photos
now I know some of the homeowners may thinking
but that’s my office
but I wanna show it off as a dining room
perfectly fine show it off as a dining room
um but for the pictures
take those out take those computers out
take that TV out um
yeah and I would repaint
so these are some
this one’s gonna take a little while’cause
here’s what the thing is buyers
as they look at these pictures
are looking going
I gotta spend money on repainting these walls
and it’s they’re gonna say
what’s gonna cost me x amount of dollars
like you know
$10,000 or so so
they’re gonna take that amount off of your offer price
and if you’re okay with that
because you don’t want to paint it
by all means but if you’re not
then that’s
something that you may want to consider doing yourself
and that way you can get a higher price for your home
okay um
so yeah
so there’s a lot of things that
I’m not gonna go through all these pictures
but there’s a bunch of things
that you could do for this house
okay so let’s go back to a different one
um let’s see
there was another one here that I saw
oh this one
OK there’s another one that caught my eyes
you’re going through the pictures like
this is a nice one but this one I was like oh
I like how the pictures with the
again Twilight
I don’t know if you use the same photographer
but this is something that catches your eye
take a look at the photographer
and photos they have done
do they do night shots are they a little bit different
you know is the outside showing off nicely right
so this house we take a look at the pictures in here
the front is kind of plain
there’s not much to it there’s no live plants here
and I know it’s winter but could be something there
right um
like even on the something on the porch
cause this is beautiful porch to sit on right
looks real nice let’s keep going through the photos
yeah we got some leaves that could be cleaned up
nothing major it’s a nice big door
nice big area you can sit here and okay yeah
these are empty rooms okay
so um
again there’s no furniture layouts um
but you can see that there’s fans here
it looks like the walls have been repainted
um the carpeting uh
looks like there was a stain here
so here’s what buyers are gonna do
when they come through this house
they’re gonna notice everything else that’s
you know that’s leftover right
so they’re gonna notice this stain here and figure out
well I’m gonna need new carpet
because maybe it been tried to be cleaned
and it can’t be cleaned
I need to spend money on a carpet okay
at least the walls are good
maybe they have some scratches
maybe they look a little bit dingy
maybe not they look
they look okay they don’t look too bad
um but this is a nice
big eating area uh
the kitchen looks really nice
it’s nice and open and bright
there’s lots of recess lighting in here
so everything looks updated right
so you go in here into the kitchen
they have a nice nice island here
uh this looks like Formica
doesn’t look like granite or anything like that
so it’s on the lower end right
which is fine nothing wrong with that looks
you know perfectly fine
you can definitely move in here
no problem right
um and then you go in and you see okay
the um
bedroom looks like a bedroom
um you can see some furniture was left in here
but it’s gone now so you can’t really tell um
but yeah
but everything looks nice and bright
but see the thing is
they have just the towels here
which is nice it’s a nice touch
but when the other rooms are kind of empty
you’re like
there’s nothing to give the buyer a sense of
what can I fit a king size bed or a queen size bed
you know what what is this right
um the bathroom there are fine
the mirrors are fine um
at least the counters are not cluttered right
um good sized walk in closet um
looks like another bedroom
but again okay
which you know
do I put the bed here do I put it here
what can I fit in here maybe a twin bed
maybe a queen um
so shower
that kind of a thing um
so yeah
so it’s not bad there’s just again
nothing to give you a sense of scale
what what are
you know what can fit in this room
how can I use this room um
so yeah
so it just needs a little more um help
and in this case as an occupied home stager
I reuse what the you um
what the homeowner has in the house
and unfortunately I have nothing to reuse in here
because there’s no furniture in here to work with
so as an occupied home stager
I work with what you have
and when we do a consultation
we’ll walk through every room in the house
and talk about what needs to
you know can stay
what can be moved around um
and what can be reused
maybe move it from one room to another
okay sometimes
there’s more furniture in one room than the other um
and that’s some of the things that we talk about
when we do a consultation
so with this house it’s empty
there’s not much to work with
uh I actually feel
as a home seller um
I would recommend bringing rental furniture in
just to show off the space and how you can use it
but here and I know that can get costly
it really can
that’s why I try and reuse and work with the homeowner
with the items that they have in the house
okay
so there’s a lot of things that you could do in here um
but for just for takeaways um
bring some furniture at least in the living room here
just to show off the space and
you know how would you arrange the furniture in here
you know a couch
the TV you know
a little foyer area um
definitely look at you know
fixing that stain um
but I have a video on how costly it can be
to get rental furniture and sometimes
that can be cost prohibitive to a home seller
I have seen um
some realtors bring in a virtual staging
where they take the picture
and they have someone put in the pictures of a sofa
and a bed and other parts and pieces too
you know to make it feel staged right
to show the buyers
this is what it could look like with furniture
and sometimes I’ll have an empty room like this
and then the next picture afterward would be
would show with the furniture
up to you whether you like that or not
it it’s okay for me
but sometimes you don’t know
I’m like well
a couch is normally x amount of inches wide
so you know
a loveseat is 66 inches
a couch can be 80 inches or longer
so um
definitely as a home buyer
I’m looking around
I’m bringing my tape measure with me to make sure that
hey my couch fits in here
my bed fits in here whatever it is right
so just some takeaways when it comes to an empty house
that can be something to think about
whether you do virtual staging
or bring in rental furniture
to help show off the space
and that
that buyers can imagine themselves living in there
with furniture in place
so they can kind of see how to lay out everything right
okay so I went through the lower house ranges right
so as we go through
you can see I didn’t put a filter on
for the prices of these homes
but this one stands out for me
I was like oh wow
look at that pool so this is yes 1.1 million right
but let’s take a look at this house
and see what impressions you get as you walk through
you like wow
that is a grand brick house
beautiful pool beautiful landscaping
I’m like oh yeah
I love this driveway this is just
just a little bit different with the cobblestones
you know nice circular drive
great in first impressions
and that’s one of the first things that you
as a home seller should be looking for
is what’s the first impression you get
of someone pulling up to your house
you know it should
the grass is cut the landscaping is beautiful
like wow
this is just wow
wow wow
so the outside is beautiful
let’s go check in on the inside okay
I love that door so pretty
love the wooden wooden door
um okay
we’re going still in the backyard
we’re at the pool we’ve got a slide there
wow we’ve got
I think yeah
is wow
okay let’s try and get to the inside
like outside outside
okay and we’re still there okay
alright so we go into the front
okay so we’ve got lots of wood in here
oh my gosh this is beautiful wood
um paneling
not paneling but the ceiling
the tray ceiling and the wooden stairs
this is really nice um
so yes obviously high end cause it’s 1.1
they’ve got this front room that looks out as an office
looks out onto the yard has a fireplace
beautiful OK yes
um then we walk into the dining room and OK
so
alright my first impression for this one is I’m like
there’s no reason to have a table setting
um if you’ve listened to many of my videos before
like I don’t recommend that
a simple runner
just like this would have been fine with some candles
um but at least the dining room is not red
OK it’s green um
which could be a little bit brighter
and
I know they probably wanted to set it off a little bit
um the green
bring the green in from the outside
bring it in um I
I would consider painting a lighter color
green could stay
but I love that they have all this light
that they didn’t cover up
this beautiful window with curtains
it’s really nice but the dining room here
I would not set the table
um this is the living room
um nice fireplace
and this gorgeous big huge um
sectional here but there’s a lot of blankets um
and there’s another big
huge piece of furniture over here too
um you kind of
there might be a little too much in here
I would probably take that out
um but this is large furniture
this is a large space um
but yeah this is fine
there’s nothing wrong with it
right um
we keep moving on into the kitchen um
but here I’m like drawn to these pic
pictures that are family photos uh
another big thing that I would totally recommend
is taking down all the family photos
like these two thing there’s no
again as a home buyer
walking through a house you kind of
get surrounded by pictures
of other people living there
and you don’t want that uneasy feeling as you’re like
I’m like not supposed to be here type of thing
right so family photos I would take down
they seem to be wow
in a lot more places um
this eat in kitchen great spot
but really okay
I know it’s probably a home office
if the photographers come into your house
please make sure your daily life
things like this is taken down
it it
and you may not have had the chance to
you were probably running around doing other things
but those are one of the things that
when the photographer you know
is showing up a lot of these types of things
like putting a computer on in the eating kitchen table
I would just removed it okay
so if this is my client
I would work on the family photos
and again we’re computers again
I know we love our computers
we love our laptops we love
you know having them around
but for the photos we’re just
it’s a simple thing
just to kind of pick up and put away
okay um
so yeah
so we’ve got some looks like the master in here
big massive furniture
and then we’ve got these purple walls
okay this is wow
this is really big massive furniture
oh my gosh
okay um
bathroom’s not too bad
so we’ve got a purple bedroom with a green bathroom
and the yellow bedroom wow
okay we’ve got a lot of colors going on in here
okay so
this would be another thing
I would tell the homeowners
if they were my clients I would say okay
we need to tone down a lot of these colors okay
okay so
let me show you some examples of some homes
that are staged and that did catch my eye
I love this one right here
it’s just a little different
it’s not your same cookie cutter
so let’s go into this house
and see what pictures we’ve got going on in here
okay so yes
I would probably clean up a little bit more of this
I know the high um
hydrangeas of the kind that you’re
they’re gonna look dead in the winter
that’s nothing you can do about it
those those are supposed to stay like that
but the leaves I
you know I would have kind of cleaned up
I like how this door is it is red
um it stands out so
you know that is the front door
okay um
it could be a different color too
but it probably just you know
it’s fine the way it is right
nothing wrong with that so they’ve got
uh this
guess this is the backyard
looks like we’ve got some um
chairs although I’m not sure
so let’s go inside and okay
so love love
love how they used that little
notice how the walls are white
they used the brown um
old you know older
cause I had this in a house when we were in Virginia
we had these kind of beams across the front
and they’re actually just fake beams
just for decorative things right um
and I love how they used blue in here
so they have white walls
but they used blue accents in here
and a nice big huge blue rug
um these seem to be more um
contemporary type furniture
it could be this is a virtual station
cause this looks kind of like glowing right here
so I don’t know if this is stage
you know a virtual station picture or not
but they did a good job they have a painting over here
they have a nice curtain
looks like the door to go outside
uh okay
we’ll go back outside alright uh
let’s go back inside okay
so we have a playground alright
so
it seems like we kind of put the pictures or furniture
you know in different spots on the pic
in the row of pictures here
so here looks like a like a um
porch veranda type thing in the backyard
I love how they put this wicker furniture out here
it’s nice that you can have a um
a Carolina Room as we call it in Carolina
it could be a four season room
that you may call it in the northeast
um so this is a great way to show off the space that
yes this is a place you can sit outside
and enjoy the outdoors while still being inside
um we go into the kitchen
and while yes they may be older cabinets
but they still have cleaned everything off the counters
they just put some minimal things like a bowl of fruit
perfectly fine in the kitchen
um we keep walking through these doors
there’s beautiful doors in here
it looks like some of the rooms are kind of empty
and I got more pictures outside
and we’re back outside again
okay so there’s not many pictures
is this the same house cause the door was red right
yeah I’m confused now
um so yeah
back in the kitchen back inside
okay dining room
okay this one
I believe this is a virtual staging picture
cause these this is more of a contemporary set
um the wallpaper
yeah it
it’s okay it’s not that bad
we’ve got some sheer curtains on here so yeah
and the stair treads and things like that
okay so
this one looks like it’s been kind of virtually staged
which is not bad um
but as a home buyer walking through
you may be expecting to see the stuff in there
and then find it empty
alright so
let’s move on to another one
in the 1 million dollar range here
of a house that is staged
hold on where did it go
I love this sunset view wow
this is beautiful whoever took this picture
I mean that photographer yeah
that’ll catch my eye let’s go see what this house has
right so they’ve got a beautiful lake out there
oh my gosh alright
let’s see what we’ve got here
that is a beautiful sunset
they
and the pool can you imagine sitting in that pool
watching the sunset coming in like that
oh my gosh yeah
um you can see how big the property is
wow the landscaping is great so right
so we walk inside they have more farmhouse type looking
kind of contemporary to um modern
um so we’ve got some of that going on here
I really like the light fixtures
those are nice the
the walls are a nice they’ve got some interest to them
they’ve got the gray but they also have white
so it’s a very neutral kind of um
color scheme going here okay
so we’ve got um a nice dining room area
um the picture is kind of
kind of high up there
but that’s because the wainscoting is just up so high
so you really may not put something like
that small up there but um
this living room wow
look at that fireplace that is your focal point
and that’s one of the things I talk about in my home
staging basics course that I do offer online
we talk about focal points for the room
and this is a wow factor okay
it doesn’t matter whether it’s a million dollar house
or a hundred thousand dollar house
there needs to be a focal point for each room
and that could be the fireplace
it can be the you know
the bed in the bedroom
it could be something in the playroom
but this is um
the wow factor this is
look at this the windows on the side
the furniture is nice it’s kind of gray
I maybe added a little bit of color
maybe some green’cause it is kind of gray on gray
like I would use like
the blue from the pool and add some
you know blue throw pillows
but wow
this is that’s nice kitchen
lots of areas um
lots of places to sit right
they’ve got updated um
lights and everything so yeah
this one so this one is what it would be a staged um
home that you can use to help you um
stage your own home given ideas
um and yes
it doesn’t have to be a two million dollar house
but as you can see there are certain ones
no matter what price range
each of those houses needed
just a little bit of help for staging it
so that you can see that your competition
is gonna be a little bit um
different
okay so those are just a couple examples
I love looking at houses all different sizes shapes
um as you can see
I just love walking in and just kind of going
oh wow
look at this little cute little nook
you know you
could this be perfect for this kind of a family
or this kind of a couple um
and some of them the houses uh
they weren’t bad they were just a couple that
if they’ve been sitting on the market that’s
and for a while
there’s probably some things that they could do
like I mentioned whether it’s paint color
or maybe it’s the furniture arrangement
um but
I did show you some examples of houses
that were staged so you can see ooh
that’s the competition
and that’s what you need to look at as a home seller
okay you need to make sure
that your house is up to par with everybody else
and if you are looking to stage your house
I do have an online course
called the Home Staging Basics course
where I go through all the things
that I just talked about in all different
for all the rooms in the house
we talk about accessories clutter
wall colors furniture arrangement
and every each and every single room
I talk about that and have checklists
that help guide you as you go through
because you don’t want your house to stand out
in the wrong way
you wanna make a great first impression
so that buyers come to your open house
come to your showings
you know that people come to your house
and actually wanna go in there and go oh
this is moving ready
let’s make an offer not oh
we need to paint the walls or um yeah
I can’t imagine myself living in here because X
y and Z
you know so
that’s why
I wanted to show you a couple of these houses
give you my thoughts on if this was my client
what I would do to change it
to help you sell your house
um and these are some of the things that maybe
if you’re a home seller
if you haven’t checked out my video on the top 5
15 things that turn off home buyers
take a look at that
I’ll leave that link in the show notes
so I hope you guys have gotten some great inspiration
to look at your own home if you’re selling it soon
give you some ideas
but I hope this is something you can learn from
and get your house sold faster
okay I will talk to you guys later
have a great week bye