FAQs: What Rooms Should I Stage + How Much Will It Cost?
Welcome to the first edition of FAQs + a C!
FAQs are important - by answering questions we get all the time it gives you an idea of what we’re about. But, FAQs on their own can be kind of boring. And no one likes boring. Read on for our take on FAQs and a little treat of a C at the end!
What rooms should I stage?
This office was immediately to the left of the front door, making staging it a necessity.
No one wants to hear “it depends,” but it really does – every home is different.
However, there is a standard litmus test we put every home through to determine what room should be staged at a minimum:
1. Rooms with statistically high ROI: living, family, kitchen, dining, and primary suite. These are the rooms that the buyers will typically spend most of their time in.
2. Anything visible from the front door. This is your “first impression” space, and it’s a critical component of how your buyers will feel about the property as a whole – and the level of value they will assign to it.
3. Any room buyers will have a foreseeable objection to. A classic example is a bedroom that looks too small for anything more than a twin bed. Buyers typically can’t envision how they’d use a room that’s even slightly outside the bounds of what they expect to see, and staging shows them how great these spaces can be!
But don’t forget – staging is marketing, and it’s not just about showing buyers where to place the TV. The best marketing generates the feelings that lead to buying. This is where staging additional rooms, such as bonus spaces, kids’ rooms, and outdoor spaces, along with ensuring you’re using the right stager for your listing, can amp up your staging results.
My staging budget is $X. Can you do it for this much?
We brought carefully selected furnishings into this new construction home to demonstrate a luxury lifestyle to buyers.
Maybe, maybe not.
Budgets are a necessary component to sound business practices and just adulting in general. But if you’re choosing your stager based solely on your budget, I’d encourage you to consider your return on investment, or ROI.
Are you maximizing every dollar you’re investing in staging?
If your staging doesn’t present an upleveled view of your target buyer’s lifestyle, it won’t maximize your selling price – and, in the Greater Boston real estate market, incremental swings in price are measured in multiples of zeros.
Look, we get it: staging requires a leap of faith - faith that it will result in a positive ROI. It is our job to ensure your positive ROI by controlling what we can control: how the home presents to buyers.
Our inventory is curated to showcase luxury Boston area homes and demonstrate the lifestyle luxury buyers desire. This means we invest in large scale furniture, solid woods, luxury fabrics, high-quality art, and lush, photorealistic florals. It means we regularly invest in new items that reflect current design styles and trends. It means we invest in professional movers to protect not only our inventory but our clients’ properties, as well.
Staging is a high overhead business and when stagers don’t charge enough to be sustainable, they can’t afford to provide you with a high quality staging product. Before you hire a stager strictly based on budget, consider the ROI a higher level stager would provide you with. Even if it’s a little more expensive, your bottom line will likely thank you.
The C: August Cocktail – (Kind of) Bruce’s Bloody Mary
I just returned from spending 5 weeks with my kids at my parents’ house on the Cape and, let me tell you, it was pretty great. To be honest, it could have gone either way – it was either going to be an awesome adventure or a massive disaster (because, kids), so I’m grateful for its success and to have been able to do it.
One of the best things about being at my parents’ house is the Bloody Marys. Anyone who knows Bruce Cochrane (my dad) in his personal life knows his Bloody Marys are EPIC. Bruce’s Bloody Marys are not brunch-fare. On the contrary, they are the first cocktail of happy hour and are perfectly suited for any day ending in “Y”. Are they fancy? No. That’s just not how Bruce rolls. But they sure are delicious!
An argument could be made that they are perfect as they are – but I love me some zhuzhing, so I’ve been adding my own twist to my dad’s masterpiece and I’m pretty darn happy with it (to make his version, just leave out all the “optional” ingredients – except the vodka.)
Side Note: the secret ingredient here is Clamato juice, which is tomato juice combined with clam juice. If you’ve never had it, don’t be scared – it’s fantastic.
(KIND OF) BRUCE’S BLOODY MARY
INGREDIENTS
Old Bay Seasoning (optional)
Vodka (optional; does NOT need to be fancy vodka)
Clamato Juice (can be found in almost any grocery store in New England – I can’t speak for other parts of the country)
Lemon (cut into 1/8ths)
Lime (cut into 1/8ths)
Worcestershire Sauce
Tabasco Sauce
Blue Cheese-stuffed olives (optional)
DIRECTIONS
1. Pour Old Bay into a small saucer, run a wet paper towel around the rim of your glass, and then dip the top of the glass into the Old Bay seasoning.
2. Fill the glass with ice. Add vodka to your liking. I have no idea exactly how much we add – it has been done by count for years (I typically just count 1, 2, then stop). Also, I drank this without vodka through both of my pregnancies and it’s just as delicious.
3. Squeeze 1 wedge of lemon and 1 wedge of lime into the cup. If you’re planning to add blue cheese-stuffed olives, leave both rinds out. If not, drop the lime into the glass.
4. Add 3-4 dashes of Worcestershire sauce and 1-2 dashes of Tabasco, depending on how much spice you like. Be careful with Tabasco – a little bit goes a long way (and for the love of all things good do NOT touch your eyes!)
5. Fill the rest of the glass with Clamato juice and stir all that goodness up!
6. Add as many blue cheese olives as you want for garnish. You can never have too many blue cheese stuffed olives.
7. Enjoy!
Ready to take your staging results to the next level? Email us at heather@glenstreetstaging.com or speak to us on the phone at (508)561-2994.