Summary

Expert home stager, Debra Gould, shares a success story from Staging Diva Graduates Paige Holm and Aron Bailey. After their expertly done staging, a home that had been sitting vacant for five months with no interest sold in two days. 

First-time real estate investors rescued from debt by home staging

When a pair of first-time real estate investors in Pennsylvania found themselves stuck with a property that wouldn’t sell despite the enormous amount of money they’d sunk into renovations, they contacted home stagers Paige Holm and Aron Bailey to help get them out of their stressful money-losing situation.

These Staging Diva Graduates and co-owners of Win-Win Home Staging and Redesign, Paige and Aron were faced with the challenge of getting some buyers interested in this completely renovated home that had been sitting vacant for five months with absolutely no interest despite the 6 open houses that had taken place.

The first thing these professional home stagers did after their home staging consultation was shop for rental furniture and accessories because vacant rooms don’t sell homes. On a Tuesday, the pair arrived with a truckload of furnishings to prepare for the open house scheduled to take place the following weekend.

The real estate agent brought an interested buyer through the property on Thursday, two days after the home was staged, and that evening they had an agreement in place.

The next morning the sellers put in a counter offer and that afternoon there was a signed Agreement of Sale allowing the cancellation of the planned open house.

The Win-Win Home Staging and Redesign clients were thrilled with the outcome and had this to say:

“We can’t thank you enough for your guidance through the process. Not only did you help us sell the property but it was such a pleasure to work with you both, Aron and Paige. Please feel free to use us as a referral at any time.”

About the author

The creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, Debra Gould has staged millions of dollars worth of real estate, including seven of her own homes. She is the president of home staging firm SixElements.com and has trained thousands of home stagers to start and grow their own businesses. Gould created the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers to help home sellers and real estate agents locate staging services in their area.

Summary

Home staging expert, Debra Gould, reminds home stagers and home sellers that the bedroom is just as important as the kitchen and bathroom when it comes to decorating a property for a fast house sale.

Staging the bedroom no less important than kitchen or bathroom for a fast house sale

There is no shortage of articles discussing the importance of kitchens and bathrooms when it comes to decorating a property for the real estate market. Home staging, as this is also called, is all about decorating a house to sell quickly. And in a slow real estate market, articles about home staging often focus on de-cluttering and neutralizing the entire house. Too many home staging articles entirely miss the importance of decorating the  bedrooms too when you want a fast house sale, but not to the point of blandness.  

The right decorative touches can take a sad bedroom that would never stick in a buyers mind to one that is memorable enough to make the buyer imagine sleeping there long after the showing is over.

Staging Diva Graduate Jayne Steuart of Colorado-based Pearl Home Staging and Redesign LLC shows how it’s done in her transformation of this 13 x 14 foot extra bedroom.

Before Jayne transformed this bedroom the placement of the bed was awkward and made the room look quite small. And before staging, the focal point was the unattractive window.

Jayne moved the bed to go under the window to refocus and re-balance the room. At the same time she dressed both to create a relaxing and stylish haven.

“Her use of muted tones and well chosen accessories create a lush environment that make the room look larger and far more elegant,” says The Staging Diva®, Debra Gould. Gould adds, “I love how she handled the window. Now it looks much larger because the soft chenille panels and silky sheers are hung close to the ceiling. This is a great trick to make ceilings also appear higher, one of the many I share in the Staging Diva Ultimate Design Guide: Home Staging Tips, Tricks and Floor Plans.”

Some home sellers worry about the cost of staging and are reluctant to invest in a home they’re selling. This is short-sighted because selling an unappealing property costs the seller more in lost time and lower offers, than would dressing it up to appeal to buyers and attracting higher offers sooner.

Jayne Steuart staged this bedroom with furniture the home seller already had in other rooms of the house. The new bedding and window treatments that were purchased can be used in the sellers’ new home, so buying them was not wasteful. They serve the important purpose of letting the home show well on the real estate market with the added bonus that the owners will live in much better style when they move to their new home.

About the author

The creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, Debra Gould has staged millions of dollars worth of real estate, including seven of her own homes. She is the president of home staging firm SixElements.com and has trained thousands of home stagers to start and grow their own businesses. Gould created the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers to help home sellers and real estate agents locate staging services in their area.

Summary

To celebrate her 50th birthday, The Staging Diva®, Debra Gould, announces a birthday sale happening at The Staging Diva Store from October 26 until midnight on October 30 on all home staging training products.

Staging Diva Celebrates Birthday with Home Staging Training Sale

(United States) October 26, 2009 – Intrepid entrepreneur, Debra Gould, who is better known as The Staging Diva®, is turning 50 this month. Gould is embracing this new phase in her life instead of trying to hide the fact that her 40s are behind her. To celebrate reaching this milestone she’s offering big savings on all of her home staging courses and training resources for a limited time.

From now until October 30, the Staging Diva Store will offer discounts of $50, $100 and $150 depending on how much someone spends, with a minimum purchase of $189. These discounts apply throughout the promotional period so home stagers can come back and shop as often as they wish to save 25% or more, unlike using a coupon code that often expires after one purchase.

About turning 50 Gould says, “Honestly, I was upset about turning 49 last year but in the last twelve months I’ve come to terms with my age. I certainly don’t consider myself old – I feel fabulous and may only be half way done with my time on Earth and I’m proud that I’m living just the way I want to be, doing what I love.” Gould adds, “Turning 50 during breast cancer awareness month also puts things in perspective. Too many women have been taken by this terrible disease long before reaching my age and I’m thankful to be healthy and happy so I’ve chosen to celebrate instead of sulk or worry that I’m getting older.”

Home staging, which is the art of decorating a home to sell fast and for top dollar, is an ideal home business start-up option for anyone, regardless of age, wanting to profit from their decorating talent. It’s a low cost business to start because home stagers don’t need any formal education in interior design, they don’t need to lease or rent a store front and there’s no need to carry a costly inventory.

“So many people come to me saying they feel they’re too old to start something new even though they’re dreaming of being their own boss,” says Gould. She adds, “Some of these people are even younger than I am! I always tell them that when you’re in your 40s and stuck in a job you hate, you’re too old to continue doing something that makes you unhappy! One of my most memorable Staging Diva Graduates was 76 when she took her home staging courses with me and she’s having the time of her life.”

For anyone who has always wanted to learn home staging, Debra’s 50^th Birthday Sale presents an ideal opportunity. The store at stagingdiva.com offers home staging resources for home stagers at all different stages in their business including the full Home Staging Business Training Program, individual downloadable courses, ebooks, guides, checklists, home staging coaching sessions and more.

Until midnight on October 30, every purchase over $189 from the stagingdiva.com store will be discounted by $50, orders of $389 or more will be discounted $100 and orders above $589 will be discounted $150.

To learn more about Staging Diva® home staging products and details of this sale, visit www.stagingdiva.com/store today.

About Staging Diva

Debra Gould, aka The Staging Diva®, is President of Six Elements Inc, an internationally recognized home staging company. Inspired by many requests from aspiring home stagers wanting to start similar businesses, Gould created the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program in 2004. To date, Gould has trained over 4000 people worldwide to start their own home staging businesses.

Buying decorating and selling six of her own homes in four years lead to an interest in real estate staging which she turned into a career with the launch of sixelements.com in 2002. Since then she has staged hundreds of homes in addition to teaching home staging training. Gould is the author of several home staging resources including a series of popular e-books made up of a Design Guide, Color Guide and Portfolio Guide.

In addition to HGTV, Debra Gould’s media coverage includes: CNNMoney, Wall Street Journal, Woman’s Day, Reader’s Digest, This Old House, CBC National News, Global TV, City TV, CBS Radio and many more.

Contact

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva
Six Elements Inc.
416-691-6615
debragould@stagingdiva.com

http://www.stagingdiva.com

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Summary

Home staging expert, Debra Gould, discusses the purpose of Staging Diva homework assignments and why she doesn’t believe in grading results and giving out home staging credentials.

Staging Diva Home Staging Training Program isn’t about getting graded

In The Staging Diva® Training Program, marks aren’t handed out, there are no papers to be graded and there is no pass or fail to determine if you are a graduate of the course. This is a different approach than most home staging training companies that require you to hand in assignments to be graded as a condition for you to complete the program or “qualify” for their “guaranteed staging jobs”.

Debra Gould, creator of The Staging Diva® Home Staging Business Training Program, has a different philosophy about home staging training for several reasons.

Staging Diva doesn’t offer imaginary credentials. Unlike most home staging training companies, Gould does not pretend to offer official home staging credentials. In fact, she’s one of the only leaders in the home staging industry who tell people upfront that there is no such thing in the completely unregulated home staging industry. She believes that handing out assignments that must be graded and making students jump through other artificial hoops just to pretend they’re suddenly certified and qualified as home stagers is pointless since there is no such thing as home staging credentials.

You’re learning how to operate a business so you already have work to do. Debra Gould created the Staging Diva® Home Staging Business Training Program with the goal of teaching others how to start and grow a successful home staging business using decorating talent they already have. She has created homework assignments that correspond to each of the 5 home staging courses but each assignment asks students to think about or do something they should be doing anyway to get their staging business up and running.

Gould states, “The reason I call them homework assignments is to nudge home stagers to do these things now rather than putting them off since it’s so easy to procrastinate when you’re working for yourself.” She adds, “Each homework assignment is designed to move students closer to achieving their goal of having a successful home staging business.”

Students are adults and presumed to be committed to their own success. Because The Staging Diva® Program is self-led learning, whether students choose to do the homework or not is completely up to them. According to Gould, “The homework assignments I give in the Staging Diva Courses are the steps needed to get a staging business off the ground. If someone is serious about growing a successful business, I know they’ll complete them. If they don’t, they will live with the consequences which are much more real than course marks.”

“What it all comes down to,” states The Staging Diva®, “is the fact that someone wouldn’t have ordered the Staging Diva Training Program if they didn’t want to learn what I have to teach. I don’t assign mandatory homework, but I do assign it for a reason. If you complete those assignments, you’ll be more successful in your home staging business.”

About the author

The creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, Debra Gould has staged millions of dollars worth of real estate, including seven of her own homes. She is the president of home staging firm SixElements.com and has trained thousands of home stagers to start and grow their own businesses. Gould created the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers to help home sellers and real estate agents locate staging services in their area.

Summary

Home staging expert, Debra Gould, shares a story from Staging Diva® Graduate, Susan Atwell, about how she helped a desperate family sell their home fast even in a slow real estate market.

New York Home Stager Rescues Ailing Homeowners

When New York home stager, Susan Atwell, was contacted by a couple in dire need of a fast sale, she didn’t waste any time springing into action.

This couple was being forced to downsize to a one level home due to a deteriorating illness and after 14 months on the market with little interest, they were growing more desperate with each passing day. The market was also deteriorating, unfortunately, and this couple just could not afford to lower their price again.

There would still be no guarantee for a fast sale even if a significant price reduction was made.

When the couple asked their real estate agent if they had any more options, the agent finally suggested home staging.

When AtWell Staged Home arrived on the scene, a very detailed, budget-conscious DIY plan was created. The plan was implemented aggressively by almost 30 volunteers from the couple’s church and all work was completed in two weeks. The only items that were purchased for this 3500 square foot, 5 bedroom house were paint and a slip cover. The home sold four days after it went back on the market.

Susan, who is a Staging Diva Graduate, says, “A family’s life changed and all it took was a plan, some paint and a slip cover. Rooms were de-cluttered, furniture was expertly moved around and some rooms were re-purposed to create an inviting and clean space for buyers to imagine themselves living in.”

This family was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief and move on with their lives without the stress of selling their home hanging over their heads and it couldn’t have happened without the help of Susan AtWell’s home staging company.

About the author

The creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, Debra Gould has staged millions of dollars worth of real estate, including seven of her own homes. She is the president of home staging firm SixElements.com and has trained thousands of home stagers to start and grow their own businesses. Gould created the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers to help home sellers and real estate agents locate staging services in their area.

Summary

Home staging expert, Debra Gould, offers several house showing survival tips for home stagers to pass along to their clients.

Stagers, make your clients’ lives easier with these house showing survival tips

Depending on your clients’ family dynamics, keeping a home perfectly staged for its duration on the market can be quite difficult. While it might be effortless for a working, childless couple to keep their condo immaculate for showings, a young family with working parents and small children is going to find the same thing quite challenging.

If you’re afraid that the home you’ve just finished staging will fall apart the minute you close the door behind you, why not leave your clients with some tips to make it easier to keep their home looking great?

The following list of home showing survival tips will help ease your clients’ stress and will go one step further towards ensuring a home you’ve staged sells as fast as possible:

• No garage sales. Advise against your clients having a garage sale while their home after the real estate sign goes up. All their unwanted items should have been removed prior to home staging, but if there was no time to complete this step, recommend all unwanted items be donated to charity and other seasonable and infrequently used items be put into storage. Nothing says “desperate home seller” like a garage sale sign next to a for sale sign at the end of the drive way. It’s best that buyers don’t know your clients are in a hurry to sell, so you should make that clear and suggest they put off the garage sale until they’re in their new home.

• Prevent clutter build-up. To avoid daily clutter on the table and counter tops, such as newspapers, magazines and other mail, tell your clients to get a basket or box to put all that stuff in. When restricted to one container, it will be easy to stash these items away for last minute showings.

• Remove valuables. If your clients gather up their small personal items and items of monetary or sentimental value to be stored offsite, it will be much easier than searching for and hiding them before each showing.

• Get rid of extra toys. If there are small children in the home, you would have made sure all excess toys were removed prior to staging but there’s more you can do. Recommend that while the house is on the market each child is only allowed one basket of favorite items that can be neatly tucked away for showings. These items should not include Lego or other small pieces that are time-consuming to clean up.

• Let the sunshine in. Ensure the home is shown in its best light by reminding your clients to open up the window coverings and turn on all the lights before every showing. You want the home to be shown in good lighting conditions so it seems bright and cheerful not dark and stuffy.

About the author

The creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, Debra Gould has staged millions of dollars worth of real estate, including seven of her own homes. She is the president of home staging firm SixElements.com and has trained thousands of home stagers to start and grow their own businesses. Gould created the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers to help home sellers and real estate agents locate staging services in their area.

Summary

The Staging Diva, Debra Gould, explains why aspiring home stagers shouldn’t choose a home staging course based on the credentials it offers.

There’s no such thing as a certified home stager

Every month there seems to be another home staging association or training organization offering the latest “get rich quick as a home stager” product or “guaranteed staging job” coming on the scene. Almost all of them  offer their own unique “credential” or “certification” for home stagers who sign up, thinking they need to have those letters after their name to be successful.

The truth is that the home staging industry is completely unregulated which means there are no real credentials or “accreditation” for home stagers.

Founder of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, Debra Gould, says, “You don’t need to take any home staging training to call yourself a home stager. You can decide right now that you want to be a home stager; you can get your business cards printed and say on them that you are a professional home stager and nobody can stop you from doing so whether you’re ‘certified’ or not.”

Gould, who has trained more than 4000 people in the business of home staging adds, “I could have made up my own certification or set of credentials and market Staging Diva Training as being the only place where you can get this pretend set of letters to put after your name. But I consciously decided in 2004 when I created the Staging Diva Home Staging Training Program that I wouldn’t take that approach because I find it misleading both to potential students, and the public at large who are looking to hire a home stager.”

Marketing based on fake credentials is dishonest because there is no such thing in this industry. You could actually go ahead and make up your own set of initials to put after your name since this is an unregulated field.

There’s no governing body that regulates the home staging industry. It’s not the same as if you go to a university and take an interior design program. You need a degree to call yourself an interior designer because it is a regulated industry unlike home staging or decorating.

“You’ll notice that I’m not so-called accredited,” states Gould. She adds, “I decided to become a home stager because I had talent. I started earning money staging houses for clients in January of 2003 and called myself a professional home stager because I decided I was. I built my home staging business around what I knew about business and what I’d learned buying, staging and selling 6 of my own homes. Even in my very first year of business, Reader’s Digest, Woman’s Day Magazine and HGTV didn’t question my expertise or what my home staging credentials were! By year two, I was getting calls from CNN and the Wall Street Journal for interviews, again without anyone asking me to prove that I was a home staging professional.”

What the media and Gould’s clients care about is that she portrays herself in a credible and professional way; she shares information in a professional way, has a very good portfolio of her own before-and-after pictures and has testimonials from her clients.

What wins clients’ confidence is projecting a professional image and knowing what you’re talking about, not having made-up initials after your name.

There are good home staging training programs out there, but pick one based on what they’ll actually teach you, not because you’re excited about a “certification” or initials to put after your name.

Having the right “credentials” after your name will not make you a successful home stager. What will make you successful is knowing how to build and market a home staging business and what you do to establish your credibility as a home stager.

About the author

The creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, Debra Gould has staged millions of dollars worth of real estate, including seven of her own homes. She is the president of home staging firm SixElements.com and has trained thousands of home stagers to start and grow their own businesses. Gould created the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers to help home sellers and real estate agents locate staging services in their area.

Summary

Home staging expert, Debra Gould, aka Staging Diva®, announces a new resource to help home stagers promote themselves by educating real estate agents and homeowners about the benefits of home staging.

Hot Resource for Home Stagers Makes Marketing Effortless

(United States) September 17, 2009 – Internationally recognized home staging expert, Debra Gould, also known as The Staging Diva®, has developed a new collection of home staging articles to help stagers promote their businesses.

Staging Diva® Chronicles Volume 2: 12 Home Staging Articles You Can Use for Your Own Promotion is the latest collection of informative home staging articles released by Gould intended for home stagers to use for their own learning and/or marketing. Each article in the collection is ready to be used in any home stager’s newsletter, blog or website.

Debra Gould has authored each article in the Staging Diva® Chronicles Volumes 1 and 2. Gould is a respected voice for the home staging industry. She started her home staging business, Six Elements Inc., in 2002 and launched the Staging Diva® Home Staging Business Training Program three years later. Since then, Gould has staged hundreds of homes, trained more than 4000 people around the world to build their own successful home staging businesses, and has frequently been featured in the media as a home staging expert.

“Many home stagers know how beneficial it is to have a newsletter or blog, but it’s challenging for many of these stagers to generate enough content,” says Gould. She adds, “Home stagers who purchase either volume of Staging Diva® Chronicles will have a new article to put in their newsletter each month of the year, fresh material for blog posts or even some great keyword rich content for their websites.”

Most of the articles in Staging Diva® Chronicles Volume 2 are meant to inform and educate homeowners and real estate agents about the benefits of hiring a professional home stager. These home staging articles make marketing effortless for home stagers as the only step required after purchasing is copying and pasting the text.

Some of the topics covered in Volume 2 include how home staging helps sellers outshine their competition, photography tips to spruce up real estate listings, reasons why sellers need home staging in a slow market, how home staging helps buyers see the potential in a property, home showing survival tips and how home stagers help real estate agents stop wasting “free time.”

Home stagers who purchase Staging Diva® Chronicles Volume 2 before September 30, 2009 can get Volume 1 for only $19 more. For more information, or to order a copy, visit http://www.stagingdiva.com

About Staging Diva

The creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, Debra Gould has staged millions of dollars worth of real estate, including seven of her own homes. She is the president of home staging firm SixElements.com and has trained over 4000 home stagers to start and grow their own businesses.

Debra has gained international recognition through features in major media in the US and Canada including: This Old House, HGTV, CNN Money, CBC National News, CBS Radio, Global TV, City TV, The Wall Street Journal, Women’s Day, Reader’s Digest and more.

Contact

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva
Six Elements Inc.
416-691-6615
Email
http://www.stagingdiva.com

###

Summary

Expert home stager, Debra Gould, explains how home staging is only one piece in the puzzle of a successful real estate sale and gives advice to home stagers worried about their responsibility if a house they’ve staged does not sell.

Home staging only one piece in the puzzle of a real estate sale

While home stagers play an important role in the real estate world by ensuring a house is decorated to appeal to potential buyers, they are still only one piece of a very large puzzle.

Some home stagers, especially new ones, worry their clients will blame them if the house they staged doesn’t sell. This is really more of a problem for the real estate agent than the home stager and that’s who the home seller will be looking to for answers.

Home stagers decorate the house to sell, but there are several factors that the real estate agent is in control of including:

• pricing the property correctly
• running ads
• developing effective feature sheets
• showcasing the property on MLS and other sites
• hosting open houses
• booking showings
• marketing it to other real estate agents

If done poorly, these crucial components may stand in the way of a sale, no matter how well the property is staged.

Home stagers “package” a product for the real estate agent to sell, but after that, it’s up to them, and the home seller who must agree to the right selling price and keep the house in showing ready condition.

Home staging expert, Debra Gould advises that home stagers stay away from making any specific guarantees to a home seller about how many days the house will take to sell or at what price. “That would be irresponsible because of the many factors involved in how quickly a house will sell.”

Home stagers can do an amazing staging job, but have no idea what shape the house will remain in during showings. Or, the listing agent might be ineffective in the way they’re trying to market the property. The sellers might be stuck on getting a certain price and impossible to negotiate with. There might be six offers but they’re all rejected for a variety of reasons.

Debra Gould, founder of the Staging Diva® Home Staging Business Training Program says, “I once staged a 4 bedroom home, but I couldn’t change the fact that it was located on a busy corner or that it was a 1970s house on a street where everything else had been torn down and replaced with modern homes. Staged or not, the inherent drawbacks of the location and age of the house, relative to its neighbors, needed to be factored into the asking price to create an appealing package for potential buyers.”

She adds, “Unfortunately, the homeowner thought because all the other houses on her street were selling for millions of dollars, hers should be priced $100,000 over what it was worth. It didn’t sell because no amount of home staging could fix the fundamental problems with this overpriced home.”

About the author

The creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, Debra Gould has staged millions of dollars worth of real estate, including seven of her own homes. She is the president of home staging firm SixElements.com and has trained thousands of home stagers to start and grow their own businesses.

Pittsburgh Tribune Review – August 28, 2009
“Setting the Stage: Telling a Home’s Story Helps It Sell”
by Bob Karlovits

Excerpt from Pittsburgh Tribune Review:

. . . Debra Gould, a Toronto, Canada-based stager, author and staging instructor, says staging can be known as “house fluffing” or “home merchandising,” but basically it’s the effort to make a house irresistible.

“The better job you do, the better chance you create that someone will just fall in love with the house,” says Gould, the author of several guides to staging whose ideas are on three Web sites: debragould.com, stagingdiva.com and sixelements.com.

. . . Gould admits there is an element of theatricality in the term “staging.” It hints at setting the stage in a home and suggesting action and events that could happen there.

“A well-staged home will not look staged,” she insists. “Take the dining room table that is set for a dinner. That isn’t realistic. You suggest things. You take a lamp, a chair, a book and hint it would be a good place to read. But I don’t add the tea set on a folding table.”

It is important to make statements mildly enough that you “don’t tell people how to live,” but suggest what could happen in a space, Gould says. . . .

> Read the full story at Pittsburgh Tribune Review