Redesigned real estate
Staging companies redecorate houses to increase sale-values
It’s no secret that the furnishings inside a house can make it more attractive to potential buyers. Now, local entrepreneurs hope to use that redecorating technique to build a business around fetching higher prices for house sellers.
Called "staging," the sales technique popularized on the West Coast about a decade ago. Now it’s slowly gaining a foothold in Central Massachusetts, where a cooling real estate market has encouraged sellers to find any way they can to get top dollar for their houses. Unlike interior decorators, staging companies work with a client’s existing furnishings to find the best way to arrange them to show off a house.
"A home owner or realtor has to present the house as a blank canvas, so that potential buyers can see themselves actually living in it," says Adriana Flores, co-founder of Boston Redesign in Holliston, a real estate staging firm. Flores and her business partner, Jan Gardner, founded the firm this past summer
Staging combines art and advertising to help homeowners looking to sell, Flores says. The firm also offers similar services, such as party arrangement and home reorganization. But Gardner says that local realtors have been slow to accept staging service companies.
Linda Turgeon, founder of Inspiring Solutions in Sutton, also knows the influence stagers have in selling homes. "We help them so that they don’t have to take that first price reduction," she says. Like Gardner and Flores, she believes that lack of awareness in the real estate industry is the primary reason for realtor’s disinterest in staging.
A former visual merchandiser and floral designer, Turgeon started her business about a year ago hoping to help homeowners, primarily in Metrowest. "I work with homeowners who are going to prepare their house to be sold before it even goes on the market," she says.
As an Accredited Staging Professional (ASP), Turgeon relies primarily on word of mouth advertising to keep her business growing, but attributes some of her success to professional staging groups. "A lot of groups I’ve joined have increased my business," she says. Staging groups such as Interior Redesign Industry Specialists (IRIS) allow members to network with other stagers while advertising their business online.
Laurie Heffernon, owner of Done in a Day Decorating in Marlboro has also had difficulty partnering up with local realtors and agrees that lack of education is the problem.
With an economics background, Heffernon bases her business on adding value to homes, where many of her clients would be unlikely to do so themselves. "It’s hard to convince some people that it will be worth every penny for the redesign," she says. Like most other stagers Heffernon offers a variety of services, ranging in price from $50 per hour to $300 per room, approximately three to five hours. Heffernon also provides services such as home décor shopping and move-in services.
In addition to working with homeowners, Heffernon has done work for some commercial clients looking to upgrade their office space, including her work for president and CEO of the Marlborough Regional Chamber of Commerce, Susanne Morreale-Leeber. "She made my office easier to work in because it’s more organized, everything is at my fingertips, and it just looks better," Morreale-Leeber says.
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