Home Staging in Portland Oregon Blog

For the last in our series of Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland OR, we'd like to show a recent example of a home staging success story.

This lovely home in one of Portland Oregon's convenient Southeast neighborhoods was listed on Thursday Aug. 20th and had an accepted offer two days later for over asking price!

The sellers and their agent had a home staging consultation with our company about a month before listing this home.  We provided them with our suggestions for easy cosmetic improvements that the homeowners could take care of themselves, which among other things included deep cleaning of all surfaces, touch up painting, light landscaping, removal of excess furniture, and how to arrange the remaining furniture to highlight the home's best features and allow for a smooth traffic flow.

Staging is all about making the home look its best. You wouldn't try to sell your car without cleaning and detailing it, would you?  The same goes for your home.  With so many other homes competing against yours, why not do everything you can to make sure yours is more appealing to your target buyer?  Professional stagers would never agree to hide any flaws -- we advise sellers to repair anything that might become an issue in a home inspection -- before listing. 

Everything here already belonged to the seller ~ it wasn't necessary for them to rent or buy anything new.  Here's some Before & After photos of this SOLD home:

In the great room above, we advised the sellers to pack up all the toys and clutter, and move the large TV away from the windows to let in more light.  Removing personal family photos and excess bulky furniture also made the space seem brighter and "move in ready."  Which version would you rather spend time in?

In the dining area above, the large fish tank was removed along with a cabinet on the far right of the photo, and general clutter picked up. Now buyers can imagine sharing a meal with family and friends!

Above we can see in the kitchen that how you "live" in your home is not how you should "show" it when it's on the market.  Clean every single surface and clear the excess clutter off the counters.  Let buyers "see" what you're selling -- your home, not your "stuff."

Following Home Staging Tips from your professional home stager will make your home stand out from others that your buyers will be viewing, both online and in person.  At just $150, a home staging consultation is a very cost-effective tool to help both the sellers and their agent ensure the home sells as quickly as possible.

This post is #6 in our Series on Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland OR.  Here are the previous posts:

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon:  Enhance your Kitchen

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland OR:  Appeal to your Target Buyer

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon:  Use Color when Staging a Child's room

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon:  Stage your Dining Room to Show its Purpose

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon:  Don't Show This but DO show That

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Sellers in the greater Portland Oregon area can find professional staging advice from Room Solutions Staging.  Our staged homes have sold in an average of 31.7 days this year!  Give us a call at 503-246-1800 for a free home staging proposal for your occupied or vacant home.

If you're selling your home in Portland Oregon you need to stage it to make it appealing to potential buyers.  Here's a home staging tip:  make your kitchen look like a great place to entertain your family & friends.  People often think of the kitchen area as the "heart of the home" and a place where family gathers to share good food & conversation.  Adding color and some food items often helps buyers imagine how it would feel to live in, and enjoy, your kitchen.

Needless to say, first your kitchen must be gleaming, sparking clean!  Don't forget the major appliances need to shine, inside & out.

Here are photos of some kitchens that we've staged in the Portland OR area to make them appealing to the target buyer using props to give the kitchen an inviting look and "feel" ...

This post is #5 in our Series on Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland OR.  Here are the previous posts:

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon:  Case Study ~ Home Listed and SOLD in 2 days for over asking price

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland OR:  Appeal to your Target Buyer

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon:  Use Color when Staging a Child's room

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon:  Stage your Dining Room to Show its Purpose

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon:  Don't Show This but DO show That

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Sellers in the greater Portland Oregon area can find professional staging advice from Room Solutions Staging.  Our staged homes have sold in an average of 31.7 days this year!  Give us a call at 503-246-1800 for a free home staging proposal for your occupied or vacant home.

If you're selling your home in Portland Oregon here's a home staging tip for you:  Staging is much more than "decorating" a home for sale .... the most effective staging makes sure that your home appeals to your Target Buyer.

Who's your target buyer, you ask?  Good question!  You can determine this by looking at your neighborhood ... who lives there? Are they mostly young families, or retirees, or young trendy urban professionals, or perhaps a mix of several?  Talk to your Realtor to get their ideas on your neighborhood demographic (another reason why you should select a Realtor who specializes in YOUR area).

When you hire a professional home stager they'll take all of these important factors into account, helping to create a "lifestyle" that's appropriate for your home, your neighborhood, and your target buyer.

Here are some examples of how our Portland OR home staging company successfully techniques to appeal to the Target Buyers of these homes ...

This home was on the market for 6 months as a vacant home without a sale.  The Listing Broker suggested to the Seller that Staging this home could make a difference ... and it did!  We staged it to appeal to this home's target buyer, someone who'd love being within walking distance of the area's fun trendy restaurants ~ and it sold just 5 days after staging:

The next example of staging to appeal to the Target Buyer was a fun project.  The home is in a very hip urban neighborhood that appeals to young professionals.  Knowing this was our demographic made it easy to make the home appealing.  The client loved the outcome and quick sale!

The next 2 photos are of a home that's LEED Platinum certified, in other words "as Green as it gets." To appeal to this home's Target Buyer we used green materials in the accessories (bamboo balls, bamboo table runner, wicker chargers & napkin rings, organic cotton napkins) on the dining table; and driftwood as a table accessory with live "lucky bamboo" behind it:

In our last example, this vintage condo in Portland OR was one of 7 in the building.  We asked the seller & her listing agent who else lived there ~ and then staged it to appeal to a single woman over 40.  The result was a sale in 14 days (to a single woman in her mid-40's):

This post is Part 4 in a series of Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon ... here's other posts in the series:

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon:  Use Color when Staging a Child's room

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon:  Stage your Dining Room to Show its Purpose

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon:  Don't Show This but DO show That

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon:  Enhance your Kitchen

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon:  Case Study ~ Home Listed & SOLD in 2 days for over asking price

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Room Solutions Staging offers expert home staging advice to sellers & their Realtors in the Portland Oregon metro area. To make sure that your property appeals to your target buyer, call us for a free home staging proposal @ 503-246-1800.  Room Solutions ~ Staging that Sells Portland Homes.

More Home Staging Tips for Sellers .... about Curb Appeal.  Make sure that the first impression that potential buyers have (when viewing the online listing photos of your home, or in person when they drive up) is a GREAT one.  Thanks to my colleague Cynthia Bartch for some great reminders on Curb Appeal.

If you're selling your home in the Portland Oregon metro area, here are some home staging tips to help reduce market time!

Presenting the rooms in your home in their best possible condition is critically important so that buyers are attracted to your home's best features and architectural details.

Here are some Before & After photos of actual homes our company has staged;  all of these homes were occupied by the sellers while the home was on the market ~ and we worked with the sellers' own furnishings to keep expenses at a minimum.  With our expert home staging advice & services, our clients' Portland-area homes have sold in an average 31 days this year (compared to the Portland average Days on Market of 147!)

Remember, for a quick sale don't show THIS ...                        But DO show THAT ...

In the living room above, the first thing buyers would see are too many family photos on the fireplace mantle, and the two animal heads -- much too distracting when your home is for sale.  In the "after" photo, buyers now see an inviting place to enjoy family and friends.  We also removed the brass fireplace surround to update the look of this room.

In the example above, the kitchen has too many personal photos on the refrigerator and the wall;  by setting up the homeowner's console table in this area with a dining-related theme, buyers can now imagine how they'd use this space.

In the above photo, the first thing buyers would see in the living room is a large pool table dominating the space.  We advised the sellers that buyers expect a formal living room in a 3-story home like this one, and we made a comfortable conversation area here.  Now buyers walk in and notice the lovely view from this room instead of wondering if their furniture might fit.

In the living room above, there were too many toys visible when you entered this home, and the furniture wasn't balanced.  We repositioned the furniture and rehung the sellers' lovely art collection ... now the home feels peaceful and much more spacious.

This post is Part 3 in a series of Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon ... here's other posts in the series:

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland OR:  Enhance your Kitchen

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland OR:  Case Study ~ Home Listed & SOLD in 2 days for over asking price

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland OR:  Appeal to your Target Buyer

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon:  Use Color when Staging a Child's room

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon:  Stage your Dining Room to Show its Purpose

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Room Solutions Staging offers expert home staging advice to sellers & their Realtors in the Portland Oregon metro area.  For a Free home staging proposal call us @ 503-246-1800.  Room Solutions ~ Staging that Sells Portland Homes.

Have you seen this happen in your city? 

Someone sees those HGTV shows on home staging & design and "knows" they'd be great at staging homes for sale!  Excited and full of optimism, they eagerly take a course on home staging (where they may be told that making money is easy and that very little investment is required).  They figure out a name for their business, obtain liability & inventory insurance, start buying inventory (sometimes just accessories at first until they get a feel for what they might need) and figure out storage options.

Next they order business cards, have an attorney review their home staging contract, register with their city & county, and start thinking about how they'll market their home staging business.  There are so many small details to take care of! 

Soon they'll need to set up a website, learn about search engine optimization so that consumers can find them online, and join one of the professional home staging organizations to network with their home staging colleagues, working to educate the local market about the benefits of home staging.  It seems like an uphill battle at times since many people - both Realtors and Homeowners -- don't yet fully realize the value that home staging has in reducing market time & bringing better offers.

Things seem to be going well!  The first year is a learning experience ... but once they get their first paid job they find that it leads to another .... and to the next one.   Soon, local Realtors recognize their company name & logo and more phone calls come in for home staging proposals for vacant properties and/or occupied homes.

They're hoping that all of their hard work will pay off before long!

Now they're wondering ... should they hire some help?  Moving furniture from storage facilities in & out of a home isn't that much fun -- it's hard physical work!  Should they hire general labor -- and where can you find someone reliable?  Also they soon find that staging all day and often past dinner time isn't much fun either.  So they need to consider hiring someone with design sense to help with the staging.  But is there enough profit in the business yet to hire anyone?  Better look into whether hiring employees or independent contractors is better for your particular situation.  Time to consult with that attorney again -- and also a good CPA to advise on the nuances of accounting for a home staging business.

Sometimes home stagers grow their business too quickly and don't plan for the long term; they may buy a lot of furniture "just in case" more model home jobs come along ... then they'll need a larger warehouse space for when that inventory is picked up again.  Now is about the time they think they'd be better off if they buy a delivery truck -- and of course have it painted with their company name & logo (add insurance costs & maintenance for the truck into your business expenses).

By now with things going well it's easy to think this home staging business is going great!  However they may be shocked to hear from their CPA that expenses still equal (or even exceed) income ... oops!  Trying to trim costs is a real challenge.  What's the best way to balance the need to keep buying inventory for particular staging projects and hiring more help -- and still keep expenses in check? And how can one properly plan for the "slower months" when the real estate market is traditionally much quieter?

Even though they've been recognized as a talented home stager ....  eventually they find that they cannot make money in the home staging business.  In the end, we see another "home staging inventory liquidation sale" advertised on Craigslist.  Here in Portland, there are more than a dozen home staging companies who met this fate in the past year or two ~ and some of them were once large and thriving.  This doesn't even include the number of stagers who have taken part-time jobs to help make ends meet.

What went wrong?  What can we (as an industry) do differently to make sure it doesn't happen to more "newbie"  stagers? How do we help educate them to see the "real world" of establishing and managing a home staging business?

Related Post

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Room Solutions Staging in Portland Oregon is an established professional home staging company offering a variety of  home staging services to Homeowners and Realtors in the greater Portland OR area.  For a complimentary home staging proposal call 503-246-1800.  Room Solutions ~ Staging that Sells Portland Homes.

Are you selling a home and want to make sure it appeals to potential buyers?  Consider using a professional home stager to help you prepare your home to make it irresistible.  We offer easy cost-effective home staging tips in the form of a home staging consultation proven to reduce market time as well as "hands on" staging to make sure your home shows beautifully to buyers.

If your Portland Oregon home is for sale here's a Staging Tip:  Show each room's intended purpose.  Otherwise buyers may get confused and not understand what each space is used for.  Your goal is for buyers to fall in love with the space, so the way each room is presented will have a big impact on how they feel about the home ~ especially in the dining room, where buyers like to imagine entertaining their family and friends.

Here are some Before & After photos of Dining rooms that we've staged in the Portland OR metro area; all of these homes were Occupied by the sellers while on the market. Using our own creativity & the homeowner's own things from other rooms (sometimes enhancied with a few of our staging props) we showed potential buyers how they could use the space:

If buyers had seen the dining room (above) in this West Linn Oregon home shown as a conversation area, they'd wonder how they could invite guests over for dinner.  By taking a dining set from the sellers' storage, we were able to stage a dining room any buyer would love to entertain in.

In the photo above, there was an empty dining room so we scouted out a spare table up in the attic ~ but since it wasn't large enough we found a piece of plywood in the garage & placed it on top of the table (adding a tablecloth concealed everything underneath).  This home staging was filmed by KATU Channel 2 News in Portland, who reported that this charming home sold shortly after!

The dining room shown above was being used as a "catch all" storage space so the seller asked us to make it more appealing.  By placing a dining set in this room and setting the table, buyers could imagine enjoying this spacious room.

Buyers will find the nook above much more inviting with a simply staged bistro table to add ambiance to the kitchen area; a great spot for a cup of coffee & conversation while enjoying the view out to the deck.  The result? This home sold in just 14 days!

This post is Part 2 in a series of Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon ...here's other posts in the series:

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland OR:  Appeal to your Target Buyer

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon:  Use Color when Staging a Child's room

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland OR:  Enhance your Kitchen

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon:  Don't Show This but DO show That

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon: Case Study ~ Home Listed & SOLD in 2 days for over asking price

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For more home staging tips consider a home staging consultation with one of Portland's fastest-growing home staging companies.  Room Solutions Staging offers a variety of professional home staging services to Portland-area homeowners, Realtors, Banks & Investors. For a complimentary home staging proposal just call 503-246-1800.  Room Solutions ~ Staging that Sells Portland Homes.

This stunning Renaissance home in Sherwood Oregon is gorgeous and SOLD not long after the sellers asked for a home staging consultation with our company.

Features include soaring ceilings, cherry HW floors & cabinets, slab granite and spacious rooms for entertaining and enjoying family time.  You'll find a convenient butler's pantry between the kitchen and dining room, and a beautifully landscaped back yard complete with a firepot and water feature.

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The sellers of this home asked Room Solutions Staging to provide a home staging consultation prior to listing this home.  Our staging techniques are proven to sell homes in the Portland OR metro area quickly!  For more information on our professional home staging and redesign services, call 503-246-1800.  Room Solutions ~ Staging that Sells Portland Homes.

Are you selling a home in Portland Oregon and want to make sure it appeals to potential buyers?  Consider using a professional home stager to help you prepare your home to make it irresistible.  We offer easy cost-effective home staging tips in the form of a home staging consultation proven to reduce market time or "hands on" staging to make sure your home shows beautifully for buyers.

Here's a home staging tip that we often share with our clients .... Color is one way to make a big impact for a small investment!  Using color helps buyers make an emotional connection to a home.  Color can influence a buyer's mood and bring back good memories as well.

In these Before & After photos you'll see how a bland, plain-vanilla space was transformed into rooms that appeal to both parents and kids ... the color makes it come alive and says "your child will love living in a room like this."

In the room above, using primary colors added life to a white, sterile space that the builder wanted to show as a child's room.

In the photo above, the listing broker asked us to stage this room as a child's bedroom since the target buyer was a family with young children (this home had only 2 bedrooms) and the home had been on the market vacant for nearly a year.  Color helped the room come alive -- resulting in a quick sale after staging!

In the example above, we used the sheets in the comforter set to make an impromptu headboard as well as valances for the windows -- to add more color to this room.  This home sold in just one month!

The room above was shown as a spare room with no imagination -- but adding color and a few props resulted in a room that buyers could relate to!

In this photo we used some colorful props to take advantage of a niche in a dormer bedroom;  this home sold in just 14 days!

This post is Part 1 in a series of Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland OR ... here are the other posts in the series:

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland OR:  Appeal to your Target Buyer

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland OR:  Enhance your Kitchen

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon:  Stage your Dining Room to Show its Purpose

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon:  Don't Show This but DO show That

Home Staging Tips for Sellers in Portland Oregon:  Case Study ~ Home Listed & SOLD in 2 days for over asking price

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For more home staging tips consider a home staging consultation with one of Portland's fastest-growing home staging companies.  Room Solutions Staging offers a variety of professional home staging services to Portland-area homeowners, Realtors, Banks & Investors. For a complimentary home staging proposal just call 503-246-1800.  Room Solutions ~ Staging that Sells Portland Homes.

If you're a fulltime stager like me, chances are you eat, sleep, and live home staging!  It's the career I've chosen after several other fullfilling ones, and one that I really love and appreciate.

The thing is ... sometimes I dream about home staging, and often it's about homes that I haven't even seen yet.  I wonder, could these dreams be a premonition of jobs to come?

Sometimes when I wake up, I'm wondering ... did I stage that house yesterday, or did I just dream that I did? 

DOES THIS EVER HAPPEN TO YOU?   Do we need to seek professional help or start a support group?  :-))

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If your home is on the market, Room Solutions Staging can make your dreams come true.  Just give us a call @ 503-246-1800 for a complimentary no-obligation home staging proposal.  Room Solutions ~ Staging that Sells Portland Homes.