Dallas stagers get your real estate ready for its close-up
Before and after: A perfectly nice living room, right, gets a dramatic makeover, above, from stager Karen Eubank to make a house ready to sell.
By Jef Tingley
As the saying goes, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” And for anyone who has ever sold a home, truer words have never been spoken. The looky-loo judges of your clutter may not come back a second time to see the great bones of your home.
That’s where the experts come into play: stagers. Professionals like Karen Eubank and Stuart Lee straddle the line between seller and agent to review a space with an objective eye and make it as appealing as possible to the would-be buyer — especially in a digital age of online house shopping.
Eubank, owner of Eubank Staging and Design, began her career working as a photography stylist for clients such as Neiman Marcus, Kohler and Hunter Douglas. Almost a decade ago, a Realtor friend asked her to work her magic on an in-need home … and her career as a stager took off.
“No one knew the term ‘staging’ in Dallas at that time,” she recalls. “Realtors knew that people needed to get rid of clutter and clean up, but there was not a job in Dallas called ‘staging’ back then. So I took some of my team into the house and we created a ‘look’ that would appeal to the target demographic purchasing in that particular neighborhood.
The house sold to the first person that looked at it. I realized I was onto something!”
For Lee, a designer with Dallas Home Stars, becoming a stager came about after hiring someone to help sell his own home. “The designer called me back soon after and said that I seemed really into the process and would I like to join her to help her out with other homes — and that she would train me,“ he says. “I was a quick study, and we worked together for a while on all sorts of properties. One day she called me and said her husband was going to be relocated and would I like to take over her clients.”
Both Eubank and Lee attribute the popularity of outlets like HGTV in giving greater visibility to their careers, but contend that many sellers still don’t grasp the complexity and labor involved in making a space ready to sell.
Eubank begins the process with a “Walk and Talk,” a one- to two-hour verbal consultation of changes she would recommend. “I find this is the way I work most often and what most clients want. Once the seller has the report, they have the option to do the work themselves or hire the stager to do the work,” she says. “Most sellers will do the work, then call the stager back in for an hour to put the final touches on the house and get it picture perfect for the professional photographer who will shoot the MLS [Multiple Listing Service] photos.” Great photos of the space are key to catching the eye of buyers.
Lee offers a similar evaluation and assessment. “I always reassure [the seller] that whatever I’m telling them is not personal. Often I really like some of their pieces that I have to remove, but there just isn’t always room for all of their wonderful pieces if we are going to enhance views, sightlines and traffic patterns,” he says. “To ensure the process is extremely cost-effective, my clients take notes on the consultation, and I spend as much time as needed talking through the interior and exterior. I tell them I will be entirely honest like a good doctor. This way when I have to ask them to replace a particularly ugly gold fan, for example, I can refer to it as real estate death and they get it immediately.”
For those in the market for a stager for an occupied or unoccupied home, Eubank suggests word-of-mouth referrals or organizations such as Real Estate Staging Association (RESA), the national and trade association for stagers.
“If you’re comparing stagers, compare apples to apples,” she says. “Look at their portfolios, find out how long they have been staging, get references, talk to them and find a good match. There are a lot of excellent staging professionals in Dallas.”
And who knows — with some cleaning and rearranging your gussied up space might just meet the new owners of its dreams.
Karen Eubank, Real Estate Staging & Design. 214-912-9263. EubankStaging.com.
Stuart Lee, Dallas Home Stars. 214-796-1091.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice Defining Homes magazine, March 1, 2013.
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11 Top Tips for Staging
Karen Eubank offers some general ideas about how to get your home ready to move.
Store your stuff! Put about a third of your belongings (in general people have too much stuff) and all items of a personal nature, especially photos and collectibles, in storage.
Neutralize. “I don’t mean paint it all beige — I just had a house sell immediately with a lime green kitchen but it was perfect for the target demographic. However if you have gold walls and cheetah trim, that’s just not going to appeal to a broad range of buyers!”
Remove anything hiding an architectural detail (no televisions in front of windows!).
Clean, clean, clean. Windows, front door and bathrooms — all should be spotless.
Hide Fido. Find a place for your pets when your house is being shown. A lot of people have allergies or a deep fear of certain pets. You don’t want your pet barking or growling in a cage in the laundry room and you sure don’t want it escaping!
Repair everything! Buyers don’t want to fix anything.
Curb appeal. Make sure your house looks great from the curb or no one will bother to look at the interior!
Lighting. No one likes a dark house. Keep the blinds and curtains open and put table lamps on timers.
Odor. No one wants to smell any odor other than clean. It’s not just pet smells but over scenting with aroma Plug-In’s can drive people right out of the house.
Know your competition. Look at other homes for sale online. Attend open houses in your neighborhood. If you are expecting the same price point as the seller that has hardwoods and granite countertops, and you don’t have them, you’ll have to lower your expectations or consider an upgrade.
Most importantly, listen to your real estate agent. They do this all day, every day. They know what they are doing. They know pricing. It’s not what you think your house is worth that is going to sell it. It’s what it is actually worth and your real estate agent knows that! It’s been said before but I’ll say it again. Location, price, condition. You cannot change the location. You want to price correctly. You can change the condition. It’s the one factor a seller has complete control over.
So call a stager!
—J.T.
