International Institute Of Home Staging

home stager

3 Things NOT To Do When Styling Your Home To Sell

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Research into home buyer psychology tells us that we have just 30 seconds to make a first impression when selling our home.

So you need to nail the look and feel of your property if you want to sell faster and for more money!

If you want to get prepared before the property stylist comes to perfect your space, here are three things to avoid doing during the process:

Declutter

A lot of clients tell me that their homes feels comparatively empty when it goes to market. This is where the idea of cosy vs clutter comes in.

It’s often difficult to differentiate between the two when it’s your own home, however it’s essential not to get this one wrong.  The best rule is to try to avoid the “cosy” look when selling your home. Having too many accessories, personal photographs and other items in an attempt to create “cosy” will actually make the property seem cluttered and lose its appeal to the broader market.

Stick to stylish, understated and sophisticated accessories. There’s a fine line though, you don’t want your property to feel cold – but the property stylist can help you bring in warmth with great styling choices.

Living area styled by Naomi Findlay

Not being able to look past your own personal style

This is an area of great concern when you are styling a property for sale. You have to remember that your personal taste is not necessarily that of the market. When selling, you need to appeal to as many people as possible so remember – when you have your home styled for sale it is not about you (I know that hurts but it will help you when you sell, trust me).

This is why bringing a professional in can be the best thing you could do to increase your chances of selling for more.

Keep your styling neutral

Choosing furniture that is the wrong size for your space

The use of furniture that is too big or the wrong shape can drastically affect the way a potential buyer sees your home.  It’s all about scale and making the space feel light and airy. If your bedrooms are small, your choice of furniture could either emphasize the tiny space or completely transform the feeling for a potential buyer.

Your home stager can work with you to choose appropriate furniture if yours is the wrong fit.

Are you a home stager? Want to boost your career? Come to the National Home Staging Symposium! Click below!

How to Be DIY Creative

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Hey Guys,

Naomi here! I wanted to share this story with you to inspire you!

One day I was sitting in my office looking at the beautiful ‘standard flowering cherry blossom’ that has shed its last leaf and formed the buds that will soon turn into beautiful blossoms.  I found myself thinking of all the great things I could use photographs of the such a beautiful tree for.   Here are some photos I took and converted them to black and white.

Now imagine them framed and above your bed or at the end of your dining table, creating a stunning effect like in the image below.

Get out your camera or even use your phone and try it, it is a very affordable feature to add to any room!

I hope that inspires you to get creative!

All comments you leave below are read and appreciated so please let me know your thoughts.

Are you coming to the National Home Staging Symposium 2019?

How to use Home Stagers Effectively

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When you are preparing to your put property on the market, chances are you want the best price possible. Often times, this means hiring a stager to give you the best chance at getting the highest return. If your budget is tight and you have furniture space, the best option in home staging is to have your property partially staged. This means that when a home stager comes into your property to have a consultation and quote your property, they will inform you of what furniture can stay and what furniture can go. However, if you want to best use home stagers to your fullest advantage there are a few things you should do before having the consultation.

 

  1. De-clutter

De-cluttering your property is a must before it goes on sale and before you have a consultation with a home stager. Remove the stacks of DVD’s, CD’s, bookshelves stacked high with odds and ends, piles of things you have been meaning to clear out and anything that doesn’t have a spot. Not only will this help in the moving process but it will make your property seem a lot nicer and bigger instantly.

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Image via apartment34.com
  1. Remove valuables and images

The reason for this is simple, you don’t want your valuables to be damaged in the sale process. If something is special to you but it does not go with the theme of the property, removing it prior to a home stager coming in is a good idea so someone else doesn’t have to tell you to remove it. Similarly, removing images is a must! Potential buyers don’t want to feel like they are walking through someone else’s property so family photos are unnecessary.

  1. Remove toys

Even if you are living in the property during the sale process, limiting the amount of toys used to a small box that can easily be packed away in the car during open homes is a great idea. Toys are not necessary when displaying a home as a family home. Not only that but toys in the home during open houses make the property feel as if it is someone else’s and potential buyers cannot fully imagine themselves living in the space.

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Image via mydomainehome.com.au
  1. Yard cleanliness

Keeping your yard in immaculate condition during the sale process is of utmost importance! Street appeal is the first thing that draws a buyer in so ensuring that the yard is looking amazing, with trimmed hedges, cut grass and clean footpaths is absolutely essential!

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Image via homestolove.co.nz

5. Be open

There is no point hiring a stager if you are going to shut down every idea they have. Home stagers are experts in design and the real estate market, which means they know what sells and what doesn’t. If you hire a stager but then rearrange everything as soon as they leave, then the whole process was a waste of your time and money. Chances are you are not an expert in the market, and the property design does not have to be to your personal taste, or even to the personal taste of the stager, it just has to be that of the market.

 

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Must-Have Home Staging Stock

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When you reach a certain point in your home staging business, acquiring stock and inventory is an essential step up. At first purchasing this stock might seem like a bit of a leap, and depending on what stock you purchase it might be. However, if you are smart about what stock you purchase and how much of it you purchase it could make all the difference to your home staging business.

When it comes to stock there is typically two types of stock, soft furnishings and hard furnishings. Soft furnishings include items such as pillows, linen, lamps and small accessories. The way I like to think about soft furnishings is that, if I needed to, I could pack them in a box and put them in my car. On the other hand, there are hard furnishings. Hard furnishings are big items such as lounges, arm chairs, dining tables, coffee tables, and so on. These are the items that can’t be packed into a box and loaded into your car.

Depending on what level of your business you are in you could be thinking about acquiring one of these two types of stock. Logically, soft furnishings should be acquired first, and then later down the track hard furnishings can be acquired. However, as everyone is at different stages in their business, it is important to be able to look down the track and consider what sort of stock you should be acquiring.

 

SOFT FURNISHINGS

When it comes to soft furnishings, these items can be purchased relatively cheaply and in bulk.

  1. Pillows: sure, pillows can be expensive, but purchasing pillows that work well in a wide range of environment is a great way to get the most out of your money, and add texture in a range of environments. Purchasing pillows in a few colours and designs is a great idea as they can be used on their own or grouped together.
  2. Faux flowers and plants: Faux flowers and plants are great as, when the right ones are purchased, they can look amazing, can be used in a range of spaces and styles, and can last a long time.
  3. Books: there doesn’t have to be a theme to this, and they can be purchased from a op shop, but books are a great way to add texture and a lived in feeling to any space. These are the most cost-effective soft furnishings and can be used in any environment, from a study, a bedroom to a lounge room or even an outdoor setting.
  4. Knick-knack accessories: by this I mean small accessories that can be used in a variety of environments, anything from vessels, small bowls, candle holders, or any other small accessories.
  5. Linen packs: this isn’t absolutely necessary, but having at least coverlets and toppers is necessary as it can transform a room from something dull to something amazing.
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Image via immyandindi.com.au

 

HARD FURNISHINGS

As for hard furnishings, these items are more expensive, and it is beneficial to go for quality over quantity.

  1. Mattresses: often times clients do not have enough beds for how a property can be staged to show off the best of the space, or they have moved and have taken their mattresses with them.
  2. Dining chairs: not all dining chairs go with tables, or look good with them, so having some neutral dining chairs that work with a range of colours is a great idea so you can use the clients dining table and your businesses chairs.
  3. Bedside tables: bedside tables have the potential to open up the bedroom and transform the space into something amazing. Having bedside tables that are unique, yet work well in a variety of environments is essential.
  4. Lounges: when used everyday, lounges can easily begin to look old, worn and unpleasant. Having lounges in stock that are a neutral colour is a great idea as they can be used in a range of spaces in a range of different styled homes.
  5. Coffee tables: Coffee tables are great ways to show off the space in a lounge room and add an element of homeliness into the space. Not everyone has a coffee table, and if they do it might be old and worn, having new, amazing coffee tables as part of your stock can transform and fill a space amazingly.
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Image via southernliving.com

 

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What Beds to Use in Home Staging

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Hey, guys. I’m back again for another installment to answer some questions that have been emailed through to me.

I’ve had a few people email through their question and I’ll read it to you here.

We’re just starting up our home staging business and we really need to know about how you do your beds.

 

That’s an interesting question, isn’t it? I am going to answer that to the best of my ability and hopefully everyone will be able to take a snippet from that.

I’m assuming that this question is pertaining to what sorts of beds we use in our installs. Let’s look at our options.

The first option is, obviously, a traditional slatted timber bed that needs to be pretty much built on site. It has the side rails that has the header and the footer and the slats that the mattress would sit upon. There’s one option.

The next option is an ensemble bed and, obviously, the last option is a bit of a more temporary bed. It may be an inflatable bed, it may be a camp stretcher with an inflatable mattress on top or it may be a camp stretcher with a foam mattress on top.

These are all different sorts of options. That’s not all of them, but they are some of the different options that you have when you’re staging a property and you want to put in some beds.

What do we do? If I’m going to be dead honest about what we do here at Silk Home, which is my brick and mortar home staging business, we actually use a lot of ensemble beds.

We used to use the slatted headers and footers with the side rails, but the time it took to construct the beds on site meant that our productivity was greatly diminished.

And that meant that we needed more than one person to be on site installing every single house, even after the initial drop off of furniture was complete by the muscle, basically. That was a bit of a negative for us. It really did take some time.

The other thing we noticed is that the mechanisms that you’re adhering everything to did, over time and after multiple assembling and disassembling, wear. We steered away from that.

That pointed us to our ensemble beds.

We have, as well, used all varieties of camp stretchers and foam mattresses/camp stretches and air mattresses, but one of the big problems we found with air mattresses was that sometimes they do go down.

You often find that the time you get a call is 7:30/8:30/9:00/10:00 on a Saturday when, often, you’re busy doing other things, saying,

“I’ve just taken everyone into an open home and the mattress is deflated. I need something else here right now because the open home has pretty much been ruined by the fact that there’s a deflated mattresses and a slump-looking bed sitting in what might have been an amazing master suite before.”

One of the problems I have with inflatable beds is they certainly have their locations, but one of the things that you need to make sure you think about is they aren’t 100% reliable.

I can probably hear many people going, “What about those places where you can’t get an ensemble base into?” Absolutely right. It’s a huge, huge challenge.

There are many places, especially in the older parts of town, where the stairwells are too skinny and the lifts are too small and the landings at the top of stairs are too small to be able to work an ensemble base around.

In those cases, we actually have to use a mattress and we prop the mattress up on tubs.

There you go. There are our sneak peeks and our behind the scenes of what we do at Silk Home for beds. I hope you’ve learned something from that; I hope that there’s something that you can take and integrate into your home staging business and into all the different situations that it may be applicable.

I’ll be back next week. Make sure if you have any questions that you jump onto our Facebook page and we can help you out.

If you have really specific questions about your business, make sure you pop over to our memberships. Our Shine Membership has a closed Facebook forum where you can pretty much ask anything you want.

The members of the community and myself will be jumping in there to help. Jump on over and check them out. They’re all on the website.

 

I’ll see you guys again soon. See you.

What To Look for in a Real Estate Agent

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As a home stager, creating and maintaining a strong relationship with real estate agents is an essential part of generating referred business.

When you have a strong relationship with a real estate agent you will constantly have business flowing and you will always have a direct line of call when something goes wrong if a property.

Selecting the right real estate agent for your business can be difficult though. You may have a great relationship with one agent in the beginning but as your business grows that agent may not fit with your business anymore.

Image via silkhome.com.au

When choosing a real estate agent to maintain a strong relationship with, always look for someone who is:

  • An established real estate agent. Agents who are not new to selling properties are more likely to develop a relationship with a home stager as they are always looking to expand their connections
  • You want to be able to trust your real estate! As a home stager you want to know if the agent has any relationships with other home stagers and if they are referring their clients to you or to other home stagers
  • A people person. A real estate agent won’t get very far if they aren’t a people person. They must be approachable, friendly and great at negotiating
  • As a home stager it makes sense that you would want to have strong relationships with multiple real estate agents but a real estate agent doesn’t need a relationship with more than one home stager.
  • At the same level as you. There is no point forming a relationship with a real estate agent whose clients would not be able to afford your service. Make sure your agent has the same client demographic as you do to ensure maximum results

Once you have established a relationship with a real estate agent it is important to maintain that relationship. This can be achieved through a variety of ways such as:

  • Referring business. If a client gets their property staged but they aren’t sure what agent to go with yet, encourage them to go with the agent you are affiliated with
  • Buying ‘Thank You’ gifts. If your affiliate has a big win, sells a great property or smashes a record, giving them a small gift is a great way to maintain a relationship and show the agent that you are about their successes
  • Providing statistics. At a milestone during the year, be it yearly, half-yearly or quarterly, providing your affiliate with statistics about how your business is benefiting real estate is a great idea and a push to ensure that the agent will want to keep working with you

Having a strong relationship with a real estate agent is a great way ensure that you are constantly getting business and referring business. Having grounded relationships and affiliations with real estate agents is the best relationship that a home stager can have as it means that you are the first point of call to help that agent with a property.

How to Find Your First Customer

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You’ve decided to branch out and start your own home staging business but where are you going to find your first customer? It can be hard to get that first catch even if you’re great at what you do! No one wants to be the guinea pig for your business. Luckily, there are ways to legitimize your home staging skills so you can start building your clientele list.

  1. Complete a course in home staging

The industry in Australia is currently unregulated and so there are no specific requirements in becoming a home stager. However, there are courses available like the IIHS course in Advanced Home Staging that are specifically developed for people wanting to start their career. A home stager must have a good grasp of core design principles, solid property knowledge, renovation and maintenance knowledge and be an extremely good communicator. If you are looking for a course make sure all these aspects are covered.

  1. Create a portfolio

Once you’ve got your qualifications it’s time to develop an authentic portfolio that showcases your styling and also your ability to maximise ROI. You might need to offer some favours to friends and family that are selling to get this portfolio started. Never use internet images that are not your own, it makes your business look fake!

  1. Build relationships

Staged a friend of a friend’s property for free? Know someone in the property industry? Use these contacts to build relationships rand make sure you always over deliver. This reputation will see your business get out there with a constant and steady flow of good clients that want to work with you.

Alongside this it is also important to remember some big dos and don’ts when being a home stager.

  1. Get social

Creating a social media account for your business, even in the early stages, is one of the best ways to spread the word about your services. Work on getting your logo and branding looking professional, upload examples of your work and even your own home to showcase your skills. Then start reaching out to businesses in your area or in your industry to start networking and driving traffic to your page!

  1. Believe in yourself!

While you may have a vision for your business, it can often be forgotten when you’re struggling to hook your first customer. So make sure you have a great support networks or even an objective business coach who can help keep you on track and make sure you have the best possible chance of kicking your goals!

Do you want to start building your network and learn how to connect with real estate agents to make getting your first customer so much easier? Click on the picture below for your FREE blueprint!

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2017 National Home Staging Symposium Review

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When nearly 200 home stagers just starting out, emerging businesses and thriving substantial home staging businesses get together it is amazing what can happen. This years event was bigger than ever and high high high on energy and the passion of the people in the room.

Some massive take homes from everyone about your mindset to business and your mindset towards money and you body. Huge amounts of content for everyone to take home from an amazing array of speakers on marketing, selling, promoting and much more in your home staging business.

The skills and talents of the guest speakers was mind blowing and their willingness to openly share their talents with our industry community was humbling.

The book signing was a hoot and a super treat for VIP attendees getting my book in their hands before anyone else world wide.

Thanks to all our amazing sponsors and partners that make putting on an event of this calibre possible.

This years event sold out!!! Dates Next year have been locked and loaded and we are heading back to Sydney in July! If you want to be the first to know when tickets will be launched for the 2018 event, click below

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Our Favourite Rugs!

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1. Kenza Rug – Freedom

Kenza Rug Freedom
www.freedom.com.au

2. Madras Rug – Freedom

www.freedom.com.au

3. Nomad Grey Rectangle Rug – wholesale supplier

4. Gold Black and White Rectangle Rug – wholesale supplier

5. Gold Navy Rectangle Rug – wholesale supplier

6. Atrium Pilu Natural Rug – wholesale supplier

7. Eco Herringbone Marble Rectangle Rug

8. Stockholm Rug – Ikea

www.ikea.com

9. Colca Wool Rug – West Elm

www.westelm.com.au

10. Atrium Wish Gold Round Rug – wholesale supplier

favourite rugs

5 Ways to Connect with Real Estate Agents

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Stylists versus real estate agents—it’s not a boxing match but a partnership, so why the adversarial relationship?

Many of the students here at the International Institute of Home Staging are unsure and even a little scared about connecting with real estate agents. This can be for a number of reasons, primarily because they can be intimidating, but also because agents have a lot of power when it comes to engaging a home stager or property stylist. If the agent is hard to catch or simply not interested in pre-sale styling, it can be an uphill battle for stylists to get a foothold in the property industry.

There are a couple of simple reasons why an agent may reject your services: either you’re not approaching the agent in the right way, or you’ve not done the research to find the agents in the right places. Having just one agent on board can change your business in a very small time frame.

Here are five ways you can successfully connect with agents.

  1. Be proactive and responsive

Do your homework and select agents that you believe will be open to having their portfolio of properties styled. If you’re particular about who you work with, try to get to know how they interact with colleagues, contractors and clients before you make your approach. Take the initiative when it comes to the stager-agent relationship and always be open to the agent’s needs when they do decide they want styling, including integrating their feedback into your work.

  1. Be the ultimate communicator

Polish your communication skills and you’ll be able to identify and match the communication style of the agent you are dealing with. Some agents are direct and you may need to be clear and straightforward in your dealings with them; for others who communicate in a less direct manner you may need to coax out what they really want from your correspondence or conversations with them. People like it when they are being heard and understood—be that person.

  1. Show them the benefits

Agents may not know the value of a stager, so make sure when you approach them to be clear on what you do, how you do it and what’s in it for them and their clients, the property sellers. If you have a portfolio of past work, a visual example may be the best way to demonstrate the value you bring. Support your pitch with data regarding return on investment (ROI).

  1. Stave off concerns

Whether through false assumptions or bad experiences, some agents have misconceptions about the staging process and what it entails. Combine your communication skills with your value proposition to explain the staging process, to demonstrate that it won’t slow down the timelines greatly and to emphasise that it will yield a better result.

  1. Be professional

Professionalism goes a long way to create a good impression. Dazzle them with your confidence, styling skills and property knowledge. Always be polite and gracious, even when handling a rejection or feedback; the real estate industry is a close-knit community and word will get around about how you are to work with, so make sure the right message is sent.

Have you tried other successful ways of working with agents? Leave a comment and let us know your tips!

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Staging Designs | Home Stager of the Month

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At IIHS we love having the opportunity to showcase the work of our Shine members as one of our many membership perks! This month, our Home Stager of the Month is the lovely Dimitra Oldham from Staging Designs.

Dimitra has been in the industry for almost a whole 9 years and has been running Staging Designs in Sydney since 2013!

What made you get into the industry?

After a long career in the Corporate Sector in senior management, we moved the family to the US where my husband took up a new role. I was at home with my little one who was a year old and my daughter was at pre-school.

I always had a passion for property and had worked in a buyers agency in Australia helping clients find their ideal property, so I knew how important it was to have a well presented home for sale. I came across Home Staging and after doing some research I completed the Home Staging course.

At first I set about helping friends and then worked with a local stager. Whilst I was in the US, Home staging was starting to hit the shores of Sydney. So naturally when we decided to come back to Australia it was a no-brainer to build my business here.
Staging was in its early days back then so it was a slow start, but I kept persisting with it. During this time I was also helping investors renovate their properties to increase their returns, so that kept me quite busy too.

Of course now staging has really changed the way property is sold today which fortunately is keeping us extremely busy!

What is your favourite part of working in home staging?

I absolutely love helping clients transform their property and really fall in love with it again. It is great when the client sees the completed home for the first time and they realise the potential their home had. Most clients say ‘I should have had you in sooner so we could enjoy it a little’. But at the end of the day ensuring that our clients get the benefit of the full potential value from their home is the best part.

I also love that no two days or properties are the same. Each property is different and presents its own possibilities and challenges. Seeing the look on the clients faces when we have completed our recommendations..is priceless… and the satisfaction I get that moment, never gets old! That’s what keeps me doing this everyday!

What advice would you give someone wanting to enter the industry?

Watching the home renovation shows people get the impression that it’s easy and fun. And yes whilst I do absolutely love what I do and have fun it is also a lot of hard work. To build a successful Styling business you need more than just a creative eye. It’s about building relationships, solving complex problems, being flexible and adaptive, learning to run a business, requires some real estate understanding and can also be quite a physical job.

The best advice I can give is find someone you can work with so you can get first hand knowledge of what’s involved. If its what you want to do then educate yourself in Home Staging as this is very different to just Interiors training.

To get in touch with Dimitra, head over to Staging Designs at www.stagingdesigns.com.au.

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IIHS Success Story: Jaculin Dodson

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Here at IIHS, we strive to make a difference in the lives of our students that goes beyond the course content. It could be through giving you the tools you need to succeed, or the confidence you need to make positive changes in your lives. Each year, we are so proud of the growth and determination we see in our students and we’re over the moon to share some amazing success stories of some of the best home stagers and stylists from the IIHS community!

So without further ado, we would like to introduce…

Jaculin Dodson – Peony Property Staging

Home staging graduate of the IIHS

How has your business grown since studying with IIHS?

“I’ve always had a passion for interiors and for property. While on maternity break with my children, I knew that I didn’t want to get back into the corporate world and I wanted something that would give me the freedom to be around for my growing family and that also fuelled my passion.

I came across the International Institute of Home Staging, as being a Newcastle based girl, had followed the growth of Naomi’s Silk Home business with much interest.

I took my leap of faith and bought my ticket to attend the first Home Staging Symposium in 2015. My business was a dream at this time and after attending the Symposium in Sydney, I was inspired and fired up to make this a reality”.

Home stager success
Image from Peony Property Staging

What has been one of the best parts of becoming a member of the IIHS community?

“I signed up as a Shine/Professional Member at the Symposium and also enrolled in Course 1, The Art of Home Staging and to be honest, I haven’t looked back. I completed my studies in the Art of Home Staging and then enrolled in Advanced Home Staging and Business Development.

My business growth has been incredible since I studied and I took on Home Staging as a full time job. I have moved from being home based, to storage sheds and a desk in a collective office, to recently taking on my own warehouse and office in Newcastle where I now operate all facets of my business. I’ve taken on staff and the plan is to bring my husband into the business next year!

I will not ever look back and I’m so glad that I took that leap and went along to the IIHS Symposium and studied with IIHS”.

Home stager success
Image from Peony Property Staging

What are the goals you have for your business and how did studying with IIHS help you achieve these?

“I am wanting to continue to grow and increase my capacity to service more agents and clients in the local area.

I am a believer in investing in myself and in my business and aside from the IIHS Course, I have also attended a number of other events organised by IIHS including travelling to Bali for Business & Balance Retreat!”

Home stager success
Image from Peony Property Staging

We are so proud of you Jacci!

You can find out more about Peony Property Staging here: http://www.peonystaging.com.au/

If you would like to follow in Jacci’s footsteps and take a step closer to getting your dream job, you can enroll in our last home staging course of the year here.

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