Selling your home in today’s market means move-in ready. It also means that the home must be as visually appealing as possible. With the importance of great curb appeal, you may need to consider hiring a landscape architect, particularly if your home is located in a high end or luxury community.
In the 2011 HomeGain Survey that lists top 10 DIY improvements, landscaping was number four, with an average return of 258%.
In order to compete and succeed in today’s buyer’s real estate market, it is important to address all possible improvements that gain more than 100% return on investment. A home staging professional can help you identify exactly which improvements are most important in your own home.
If you were at the Real Estate Staging Association (RESA) Convention this year, you should have had one very powerful takeaway. Systems and technology are the key to having a successful home staging business. As home staging is effectively a subset of the real estate community, I thought some recent studies might shed light on exactly how important this is.
Inman News recently reported that high income real estate agents (earning over $100,000 per year) lead the pack on technology. According to their survey, high income agents work longer hours, close more transactions, work with higher priced listings (about a third averaged closings over $450,000), update their websites several times per week and spend more on technology. Nearly half said they spend approximately $2500/yr on technology, while one quarter said over $5000/yr.
As for social media, on average, agents making over $200,000/yr also stated that they updated their social media sites daily. Virtually all agents in both upper and mid priced ranges had facebook and twitter accounts, though the number of “friends” or “likes” increased with success level.
Data provided by ActiveRain.com. Join 215,590 Real Estate Agents on the world’s largest Real Estate Social Network.
So, what can you glean from this information? Social media, technology and time spent working can make the most difference in creating a sustainable income, or just a little extra pocket change. It’s not just Inman News either. Active Rain showed a similar set of statistics (seen in the infographic above).
So, what do you do to follow the lead of the top real estate earners? Listen to the lessons from RESA. Invest in systems that streamline your processes, like Market Ready & Darby, work your center of influence by using a contact management system like Stagers Business Builder. Plan on working more hours, including engaging in social media in a deep and meaningful way.
Content is KING, at least in today’s social media driven world. In order to create a successful business and have an online presence, you will need to understand how content marketing can created increased visibility, a wider reach and immediate expertise status.
In the infographic below, you’ll notice that, on average, blogs provide 434% more indexed pages and 97% more indexed links. Blogs provide an opportunity for more SEO, but even more importantly, blogs provide an opportunity for readers to get to know you. They allow for you to be the expert in your field. They encourage the exchange of ideas through comments and interaction and the possibility that someone will want to share that content (information) with their circle of influence.
Now, if you need help writing that next blog, here are some great ideas
Like this infographic? Get more content marketing tips from Copyblogger.
I laugh almost every time I see it. Home stagers and redesigners are notorious for putting furniture on angles. Angles take up a lot of square footage and often create odd pathways through rooms. So why do they do it? Pin It
Perhaps the one quote that illustrates the need for a strong business plan is from the book, What they don’t teach you in Business School. Mark McCormick conducted a study from the 1979 Harvard MBA Program. In that year, the students were asked,
Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?”
Only three percent of the graduates had written goals and plans; 13 percent had goals, but they were not in writing; and a whopping 84 percent had no specific goals at all.
Ten years later, the members of the class were interviewed again, and the findings, while somewhat predictable, were nonetheless astonishing.
Read the blog to find out how it turned out… Pin It
Tori Toth, of Stylish Stagers, INC, has joined with Erica Rose Siegel for a new web training series, Realtor Meets Stager. In this series, they will discuss and debunk many of today’s misconceptions about real estate and home staging.
Some of their topics include:
Stay tuned for what is sure to be an educational and entertaining web training series.
In this video by WECT TV, it is clear that home staging will make it easier to sell you home in today’s difficult real estate market. Jessica Pirone with Just Perfect! Home Staging & more is featured in this news segment, showing off the wheres, whys and hows of home staging in Wilmington, NC.
As Jessica shows, professional home staging will help make cold, worn, dated or average spaces look and feel like turn-key model homes. Home Staging allows buyers to see the features and benefits rather than the flaws, particularly in vacant or overcrowded homes.
For locate a home stager in your area, visit our ‘Find a Stager’ tab at the top of our website. For more information on Just Perfect! Home Staging & more in Wilmington, NC, visit their website.
Is Pinterest the devil or the next best marketing strategy for you business? In this blog we’ll discuss the ups and down of this manic, obsessive, copyright breaking website.
In this crazy digital “pin-it” world we live in, you need to be careful to brand your images, both for added exposure and to be certain that your work is kept your own and not suddenly someone else’s.Pin It
This hilarious video by Todd Miller, a Las Vegas Real Estate Agent, shows how not all agents actually know what they are talking about. Before hiring a real estate agent, get referrals, do some research and remember that whether you are buying or selling, your home is your biggest investment.
Wonder how social media affects your home staging business? This video shows, without any exception, that social media is taking over and modifying the business world as we know it. Everything today is “Facebooked”, “tweeted”, “linked in”, or “pinned” – as well as a million other types of activities.
SAR Advanced Design & Marketing graduate, Donna Dazzo, provides another stunning stage, this time in Battery Park City. This 3 bdrm, 3.5 bath is offered by Corcoran, at $2,099,000.
To learn more about this property, view their listing. To learn more about Donna Dazzo, visit her website, Designed to Appeal.
Pin ItIn this short 1 minute video, agent Angela Batchelor, discusses how to get more listings for your staging business by farming homes listed for 30-60 days.
This technique is in fact one of the ways that First Impressions Home Staging & Interior ReDesign, one of the largest staging companies in North America, gained the majority of it’s clientele in its first year. After the first year, this practice was rarely needed as most of the agents had become regular clients and the calendar was filled with regular clients and referrals from those agents.
Angela provides another great video on why agents should stage every home and how to have that discussion.
At the end of the video, you heard the statement, “But that’s just you.” Find out what happened next & how Angela explains the way real estate agents really feel about listings that last more than 30-60 days.
This beautiful 3 bedroom home listed by Sunset Park Realtors, in Sunset Park, California was staged by Annie Pinsker Brown and her team at Stage to Sell.Pin It
