'Home Staging' Mania Could Signal Housing Bottom

In this commentary at Bloomberg today, Caroline Baum stirs memories of the late, great housing bubble as it was inflating and looks at the current "home staging" mania.

When CondoFlip.com debuted in 2004, you knew housing was headed for a tumble.

Here was a Web site where customers could buy and sell, sight unseen, condominiums that had yet to be built. It was confirmation of the degree to which home prices had come untethered from housing fundamentals.

If CondoFlip.com represented the peak of the home-buying frenzy, the proliferation of “home staging” businesses to gussy up houses for sale may turn out to be a sign of a bottom. That would certainly validate the message from recent reports showing home sales and single-family starts moving sideways for the last four to six months and home prices falling at a slower pace.

Note that the panic buttons shown above didn't appear until Condoflip.com was about to turn into Condoflop.com, as BusinessWeek noted a few years back.

As for home staging, where we used to live, before the "Reduced Price" signs began popping up atop the For Sales signs, you'd often see "Newly Staged" as an enticement for potential buyers to come in.

What is home staging? Caroline explains...

The term, if not the concept, was new to me.

I was dimly aware that real estate agents rearrange the deck chairs in order to make a home appealing to prospective buyers, especially in a down market. But I had no idea there was such an animal as an Accredited Staging Professional, an ASP mission statement, books and courses on the subject and, what else, a reality TV show.

My education started when a press release for a new book, “Staging to Sell: The Secret to Selling Homes in a Down Market,” by Barb Schwarz, landed in my inbox.

The pitch included rave reviews -- a “must-read” -- testimonials by brokers on the secrets of Barb’s success, and compelling data: “Even in today’s slower housing market, 95 percent of staged homes sell, on average, in 35 days or less.” There was no indication what price those staged homes fetched.

At a minimum, the success rate would seem to offer more Hope for Homeowners than all the government programs combined.

There's lots more at Bloomberg - a sign of the times, to be sure.

Comments

[Paul in Texas]

'Home Staging' sounds more like desperation than a housing bottom to me.

2009 Jul 02 08:53 AM

[2houndz]

Agree with Paul.
Most of the houses I have sold were "staged" with my own stuff, since we lived there.
When I walk into a house in this economy that has been staged and the owner is not a builder, I would assume that the owner has been forced to move on and is trying any new technique available because he is getting desparate.

2009 Jul 02 11:12 AM

[Cold Reality]

Though it was a little difficult to tell for sure, I'll assume that Tim was writing with a keen sense of irony on this one.

Staging looks like just another attempt to manipulate, to create and illusion for the purpose of manipulating buyers.

Just how stupid do they think buyers are? Oops. I forgot that real estate agents were richly rewarded for manipulating buyers with such ephemera during the run-up to the bust at mid-decade! So of course they now believe that they can count on buyer's stupidity.

Not this time, though, because at least as of the moment, they can't control the lending process. They can "stage" all they want, but they can't make a $400K silk purse out of a $50K sow's ear.

2009 Jul 02 05:03 PM

[Blues Gal]

Hey folks,
"Staging" doesn't always mean filling a house with a bunch of new stuff. It can be something as simple as getting the homeowner to declutter and clean up the place. This isn't manipulation of the buyer, it's helping the buyer (who often can't see past all the "stuff"), to see the house itself. In this market, it's a smart move for the seller to do this, and I don't believe that a buyer who prefers a clean house to a pig pen is a "stupid" buyer.
As for the book, yup, today's sellers are getting desperate, there are alot of homes out there, and they want their's to be the one that catches the buyer's eye. Tim's wry comments hold alot of truth about the situation.

2009 Jul 03 08:48 AM

[SoCalGal]

Cold Reality wrote: Staging looks like just another attempt to manipulate, to create an illusion for the purpose of manipulating buyers.

How silly. All that staging is, as Blues Gal pointed out, is presenting the product in the best light possible. Do you think that auto dealerships, by parking only shiny cars in the showroom, also "stage" their product to "manipulate" you? Are you so easily manipulated? How about the grocery store? Maybe they should just throw all the apples in a big bin along with the bananas and call it "fruit." The next time you buy a suit, don't expect them to be arranged according to size. Too "manipulative." Sheesh.

2009 Jul 03 01:43 PM

[TinyTim]

In Phoenix, where home building was the major industry, home staging has been around for years. In fact, I'm surprised there isn't a plethora of books and articles.

New home builders always decorate or stage the models. I'm sure this was the competitive model for resales.

As BG says, most of the time, staging means renting a self storage unit and depositing half the overfurnished stuff and all the crap. Decluttering and defurnishing gives a more open and clean appearance and less chance of cognitive dissonance if your taste and the potential buyers are different. Who me, packrat??

Around here, staging is an artform. I've read articles suggesting putting a rack of cookies in the oven to grab the olfactory buyer.

2009 Jul 03 01:48 PM

[Cold Reality]

Spoken like a true real estate agent.


On Jul 03 01:43 PM SoCalGal wrote:

> Cold Reality wrote: Staging looks like just another attempt to manipulate,
> to create an illusion for the purpose of manipulating buyers. <br/>
>
> How silly. All that staging is, as Blues Gal pointed out, is presenting
> the product in the best light possible. Do you think that auto dealerships,
> by parking only shiny cars in the showroom, also "stage" their product
> to "manipulate" you? Are you so easily manipulated? How about the
> grocery store? Maybe they should just throw all the apples in a
> big bin along with the bananas and call it "fruit." The next time
> you buy a suit, don't expect them to be arranged according to size.
> Too "manipulative." Sheesh.

2009 Jul 04 12:15 AM