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Tag Archives: staging

Carol Saves the Day at Villa Park

You may remember our Villa Park casita, where Anita and I lived last year, and which had the most disaster-fraught renovation in history. We rebuilt this little house completely, saving only the shell of the outside (the city required we keep the dimensions and roofline). We even installed a new, real, foundation to replace the three slabs with no rebar and no plumbing it previously had.

We had a hard time renting it out last year, because we were unable to stage it once we moved to the Bobcat Lair, and people being unhappy that it shared the yard with the house in front. But, when we did get a fence and all that, we got some really great renters who were settling in nicely. One of them even got an award at the local elementary school.

Unfortunately, the other renter got a great job promotion that required moving to scenic Bentonville, Arkansas (there are other companies besides Wal-Mart there). We certainly didn’t want to force them to stay, so Carol jumped on getting it rented again.

Why it worked this time

We were motivated, because if we couldn’t get it rented, the renters would have to pay until we did, but if we rented it quickly, their initial deposit would cover that. Carol got to work and made this nice Facebook ad:

You get a screenshot, because I can’t make it play here.

Click the link to see it live, I hope.

https://www.facebook.com/BigAustinHome/videos/1800913923318570/

We all shared it everywhere we possibly could. People lined up to see the space (literally, four families went to see it in 15-minute intervals), and it was rented in just a few days to some other fine folks with no kids and no pets! Hooray!

It worked because the tenants had decorated the casita nicely, which showed how well it “lived.” The current tenants cleaned it up (they were motivated) to perfection, so people just loved the place.

That’s a real lesson to remember: staging truly helps sell or rent houses. I now really wish I’d done a better job the first time.

We sure appreciate Carol’s hard work to get the casita rented so fast! Lee and I won’t even notice a drop in our cash flow. Win!

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Who Needs Staging? Probably You

The perfect accessories make this bathroom in Oakridge inviting.

If you are a human being of a “certain age,” and if you have looked at houses for sale in the past few years, you may have noticed a change. Back in the olden days of yore (like the twentieth century), people did one of two things when they put their homes on the market:

  1. They cleaned them really well and got rid of random junk. Then they mowed the yard.
  2. They moved out, then cleaned the house up. If they had a room painted by a teenager, they painted it white.

After that, an agent showed people houses, or people called your agent to see the house, and it got sold. You then moved into a new house, which you fixed up to your own taste.

Not Today

Today, if you want to sell a house at retail (not the ones WE are looking for), people feel compelled to do so much more. They put most of their things in storage, especially anything that makes it look like an actual family lives there, they replace anything in the house that is over 5 years old, because it might bring the dreaded word “dated” to the lips of potential buyers, and of course they paint every surface a neutral color, and if possible, remove anything resembling carpet in the house. You then put strategically placed objects around the house to make it appealing. That’s called staging.

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Oakridge Progress Report

The new landscaping makes the house seem so clean and modern.

It’s flu season. And the flu hit the crew working on the Oakridge house, which slowed things down a bit. We’re glad Ray is doing better now!

We’ve been waiting for the flooring to be installed, after a couple of issues arose on that topic. Because this flooring was not in the original bid, which included carpeting in the bedrooms, the cost changed. We had to do a change order to get the kind of high-quality vinyl that Carol envisioned running throughout the house, including hallways and bedrooms. It’s important to document changes to your plans, because it’s lots easier to keep track of how the costs ended up at their final total that way, and the contractor team knows exactly what they are expected to do.

That’s all worked out, now, and we should have some flooring pictures for you soon. That’s the big final touch!

Outside

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Sources of Inspiration

A very nice house

Curb Appeal!

Hi, it’s Sue Ann. Today Carol and I drove around some of the nicer parts of Austin looking at some houses for sale. Some of them were beautifully renovated and professionally staged, while some were obviously “as is” (but fascinating)!

We really loved the color scheme and beautiful holiday decorations on this house. The black trim really stood out nicely. This is a scheme we could use!

I paid a lot of attention to colorful doors. There is a lot of turquoise and teal out there right now, with an “acid” green and red coming in right behind. My favorite was a medium gray house with a buttery yellow door. The happy door really livened up the trendy gray exterior! And if a buyer doesn’t like yellow, a door is inexpensive to change.

Looking at renovations, it became very clear that small things make a difference. There were two similar houses, both of which had been at least partially modernized. One had all-new front door, entry light fixture and doorbell hardware. The other had not changed what had been put up at least twenty years ago. The first impressions were much different! Inside, little things like peeling paint and original cabinetry that hadn’t even had knobs changed made a house look sad.

Here are a few cool ideas we saw:

  • Keep an old tub and tile and simply have them resurfaced. One house had an amazing old tub that they kept this way!
  • Another house had the original cabinet doors, but painted so beautifully, and with lovely handles…it was nice to see them there.
  • One house was very small, but had a studio with a little bathroom, hidden on the other side of its carport. Perfect if you work from home! You have psychological space between home and office.
  • Interior color schemes were mostly quite predictable–we actually DID see white subway tile, black grout, and black floor tile in a shower. But we also saw BLACK subway tile and those cool old-fashioned hexagonal tiles in a bathroom–a nice mix of old and new.
  • One house actually had green walls, but they were a very pale, modern shade of green that came across quite neutral. So, I guess it CAN be done!

Before you remodel or stage your own home to sell, take a little tour around YOUR town and see what others are doing to drive their own sales. It’s quite an eye-opening experience.

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