Home Staging. Designs. Life.

Starting today, on Wednesdays are a 5-part series on Dealing with Common Seller Objections to Staging.

The series will cover:

1. "I don't believe in staging"
2. "I have young children and I cannot stage"
3. "Me and significant other both work and we have no time"
4. "I don't want to pay for it"
5. "I am too busy to keep the home staged"

"I Don't Believe in Staging"

Staging is a very easy keyword to plug into listing presentations nowadays. Many media outlets have praised the wonder of home staging and its potential to sell the listings at potentially higher price, which results higher commission and equity for agent and sellers. It is also a true guarantee that good staging will move the listings off the market sooner, whether it is a hot or cold market.

However, not every time the seller is willing to go for it. They hear about all these great things about staging, they are not completely sold. In this blog, I am going to cover 3 reasons why sellers resist staging or fundamentally do not believe in staging and several remedies that agents and fellow stagers can take to persuade sellers in investing in staging.

Here are 3 reasons why sellers don't believe in staging: 

1. Seller was burned by staging before. I once dealt with a seller who was very against staging and thinks that basically it's a bunch of bull**** and was not afraid to tell that in my face and his agent's. Through the whole conversation (actually more like he screamed profanity to me), the seller was extremely agitated and aggressive toward his frustration about being asked to stage. He took it very personally that the agent and the stager, me, were dare to question his taste of furnishing and accessories. It turned out he had staged his home for sale before. The staging not only was overpriced, the result also wasn't great.
   
   
2. Seller feels weary and emotionally drained about the selling process. I got an emergency call recently from a realtor who had used me to redesign one of his listings before. He called on Tuesday and wanting to put the home on the MLS for broker's tour on Thursday of the same week. We met Tuesday at 4:30 and although the home had great furnishing pieces that I could work with, there were still a lot of clutter and personal items everywhere. It also needed accessories. Both of the sellers worked and have very young children. I submitted the proposal and contract once I finished the day and set up assistant to come for staging the next day. On Wednesday morning I got an email to discuss the proposal. We went back and forth with the sellers over the phone and sellers were still not sold on staging. The realtor was really pushing for it since it is a very tough market now in San Francisco Bay Area and they had just submitted an offer to buy another home. He knew staging will help to sell the home, even thought the home is in a great neighborhood, good size lot, he felt there are no guarantee with the housing market nowadays. But he couldn't convince the sellers to because they were already disheartened by the whole process.
   
   
3. Seller was not properly educated what staging is, what does it entail, and how much of an investment it could be financially and emotionally. Going back to the case in #2, the sellers also had unreasonable expectations of staging. They thought that with 2 people redesigning and staging the home for whole day plus accessories rental will only cost $300-$400. (300 dollars?! I can hear my fellow stagers scream at their computers now) Moreover, the sellers were not willing to keep the home staged since they have young children. They don't see the point of it.
   

Here are a few solutions that may help to ease the seller's objections:

1. Set the intention for both you as a real estate professional and your seller: What are we doing here? TO SELL THE HOUSE! Right? Once we used the word "sell," we are entering the process of selling a product. Start by setting that as the intention of your meeting with the seller. This is the first step to help sellers to start emotionally disconnect from their home. After all, once you put it on the MLS, it becomes a product that will open its door to the public. Position yourself as their professional that will help them transition to selling process. You are there to help them, you are not there to be their paperwork monkey.
   
   
2. HAVE A PLAN AND TIMELINE -- Mega corporations like Coke and Nike spend months and tons of money to plan any product launch, and the same should go for you. Have a cohesive plan up front, be prepared to help the sellers to walk through the proper steps of marketing their homes to sell. Line up all the vendors on your calendar. You wouldn't schedule virtual tour before staging, correct? At the same time, you need to give your vendors advanced notice to prepare so they can do the best they do when they show up at your door. 1-2 days are considered short notice and you may not get your desired booking dates. So start early. It never hurts to start early and be prepared, but being unprepared will cost you money. And pad yourself for emergencies. Construction tends to run longer then the contractor tells you, so be prepared. That usually will set everybody else -- stager, virtual tour videographer, etc. back. Once you prepared your sellers, they are equipped to deal with setbacks and unpleasant surprises.
   
   
3. Educate, educate, educate! We as real estate professionals are ENGROSSED with real estate lingo, jargon and a bunch of other stuff. We talk real estate all day and all night long until our significant other just wants to reach across the dinner table and put that dinner roll in our mouths. But the sellers don't know, or they know some but lack an overall understanding what selling process can entail. It can be emotionally draining, it can be physically challenging. For us, it's something we see everyday and we become so used to it sometimes we come off as being insensitive to the sellers.
   We have to educate our sellers -- why staging can help them grow their equity and how it can potentially help them sell. Staging packages the home properly so it will appeal to the mass buyers. Here is a great example of it and I use this sometimes when I talk to sellers.
   
   
   "If I were to give you a $20 bill, which one would you take? This wrinkled and crumble one with Jay's love on it?"
   
   "Or This new and crisp $20 dollar bill?!"
   
   
   
4. "Yes, yes I hear all these, but MY SELLERS DON'T LISTEN TO ME!!! I have explained...." Well, believe it or not, I learned a lot from my students when I taught kindergarten for a year. Sometimes you have to explain it differently, shed another light on it and make analogies that your seller can understand. Say your seller loves cars, ask him "If you sell your car would you just leave all your trash in the car and left the car dirty and put a sign on it?" "No, I would detail it." "Well, the same with your house!" Or your seller may be single, ask "Before you go on the date, would you shower and put on your best outfit?" "Yes!" "Well, the same with your house!" Again, we as real estate professionals know these stuff like the back of our hands, but our sellers don't. We need to be able to help them to visualize it in order to achieve the results that they want.
   
   
5. Make a check list that sellers can follow: I have seen agents giving out lists that are 10 pages long. I can just feel the sellers' excitement when they got that list! Like any GTD (getting things done) tools, you need to break these things into smaller bites so these tasks, together, don't look intimidating and helping the sellers to look for reasons to quit. One of the things that I always give out for redesign jobs is a check list of reminders. Let the sellers know that it is NOT difficult to keep the home staged even with small children. Several of my clients have done very well even with young children and others on the way. All they need to do is follow the list. 

Got more tips to share? Feel free to comment below and add your 2 cents!

Happy selling,

Cindy

Cindy Lin is the proud owner and principal designer of Staged4more Home Staging & Redesigns, a hands-on, customer satisfaction oriented staging and redesign company that offers flexible solutions to cater to individual seller's needs. Staged4more serves all San Francisco Bay area. To see before and after photos of Cindy's work, read her blog, ask her questions, visit www.staged4more.com