Just when you thought you knew everything about staging, we’re back with another batch of tips on how to show your home to its best advantage (and help it sell FAST). What do tchotchkes and bathtubs have in common? Tune in to today’s episode to find out!
Video Transcriptbour Mami oh you’re so French correct yes you’re the do they say pickle in French I don’t know I don’t know youell yes you Bell youell Dian and Randle bro here coming to you live from the beautiful beautiful mountain town of Prescot Arizona AR it’s the most unique little town in all of Arizona we can vouch for it yes it is we’ve been here seven years we love it okay so last time we did uh staging a staging game staging game number one we’ve had so much fun we decided to do it again I got staging game number number two number on my handy D we got it let’s do it uh so first up so so just so you know how the game works I’ve got a list of things that you may consider doing before you put your home on the market and we’re going to pontificate on whether we think that’s a good idea or not okay first thing up is D personaliz personalization dep personalization 100% yes yes uh people come in they want to see their they want to they want to Envision themselves in the home so uh take down a lot of you know family pictures pictures yeah they want to Envision their family there they don’t want to get distracted by your family yes take down and put away your mom and dad’s ashes yeah that’s pretty person crazy we seen them we’ve seen them on lot of houses there they are and that wigs people out that wigs people out and then it opens the discussion did that person die here are they is are they a ghost are they still in this house yes um well they will they say will they repeat anything I say through a seance you know yeah put put Mom and dad your spouses your your cat your dog all their any ashes of any living creature hide put away take away in terms of pictures um if some are okay some are okay so here’s here’s the a rule of thumb if it would be easy for someone to put themselves in the picture and the picture is about what you’re doing for example okay you take a picture of you and your spouse in front of one of the rock formations in Sedona cool that’d be okay that’s cool because it’s like here we are we’re in Sedona sedona’s close enjoying their Liv you could be here you know that’s easy uh a picture of your dead husband in his military uniform not a good idea okay that’s you know and then the and then the folded up flag because he died in service but you know most people do not object to that because they’re very patriotic but some people it’s uncomfortable they’re like oh this person was you know maybe died in service or just Mak it it it adds a a downer you know you have death to look forward to and you know that’s only happened a couple of times and you know we we understand and we honor we honor those people but of course not when you’re staging at home not a good well you know people will see it and they’re like did that person die in the line of duty it opens up another discussion focus them on the house suddenly we’re answering questions about a dead husband instead of you know the counter or a dead wife or dead wife yeah dead wife the same way sure so yeah watch things like that they things like that doesn’t bother me but other people kind of watch religious stuff particularly if it’s kind of heavy if you have a lot of like a cross collection you know some people are not uh religious some people aren’t Christian you know it’s going to make them not connect with the house it’s not like they will complain about it but they oh there’s something about this house I don’t like you’re absolutely right that might be it it’s not that they’re opposed to it but they just they just maybe won’t connect so think about depersonalization always a good idea here’s one that should be a little more what I’m G to depersonalize you yeah that’s say yeah yeah how do we do that I’m very personal I’m unique how can I do that I am one of a kind they broke the mold I gotta look that up next up an extra laundry room oh extra laundry room oh yeah I have this in my own life and uh I’m going to correct this uh single level homes you just have one laundry room no problem it’s on the main level everybody loves it it’s all great uh however if you live in a home like we do where we live on Main level but we also have a lower level it’s kind of cool to have maybe a stackable upstairs and then another laundry room down stairs because nobody likes schlepping up and down the stairs and I can speak person uh on that and so my goal I think that’s a goal for me for 2024 is I’m going to get a stackable in my master closet yes I know right do it that’s a great answer um you have a twostory home yep and the laundry room is not on the main level definitely if you have a place to put it if you can uh the place to put extra laundry rooms is in the master closet yes that’s a new trend yep uh it’s wonderful to have it makes it very easy to throw Dirty Laundry into the the LA the the washing machine and then when you’re finish you’re already in the closet that is a big feature people like that people love it it’s a real ding if you don’t if you only have one laundry room and it’s downstairs it’s downstairs in particular because that precludes you from using the magic words tell me what the magic word is main level level living yes so for instance I cannot claim my home as having main LEL living level living I’m gonna get ding ding ding um because some people God forbid what if you need to have a hip replaced or a knee replaced you don’t want to go down those stairs you’re not going to be able to so but you still want to have one downstairs like when we have company it’s great to do all the sheets and the bed covers when company leaves I don’t want to go upstairs to do it either yeah so consider really consider doing it on both levels that’s our goal for 2024 I’ll let you know at the end of 2024 if that happened so if you have a single story home you should be hearing no you should not don’t don’t bother adding an extra laundry in your master closet if you have a single story home no two stories think about it two story if if it’s not on the the main level then yes yes uh next up replacing the tub with the shower yeah this is is a good one especially I would especially in Prescot because uh we don’t have a lot of young families they don’t need a tub um and so I would get rid of those little you know those load of the ground tubs they’re useless anyway it’s not like a good soaking tub pull that sucker out and make it a nice spacious walk-in shower everybody loves it huge selling feature in especially in the you know Hall bathroom um we’re finding more and more people even in the master want a shower they do not want a tub yeah so I in particular in the hall bathrooms I would really consider that because they’re kind of useless those little tubs yeah yeah one caveat might be uh if you’re removing the tub from your master bathro uh and you don’t have a tub in any other bathroom you might hesitate on doing that that’s only because someone buys your home and they have grandchildren yeah it’s good to have a tub for little kids maybe I’ve heard that from buyers problem not mine well that’s your seller I mean I mean that’s your buyer so you’re trying to sell to them I don’t know if if that means removing the removing tubs completely from your home you might want to rethink that but maybe I don’t know yeah but definitely most people are looking for showers and tubs are kind of dying if you’re GNA have a tub if it’s shallow do a Soaker people do like soakers yes if you’re going to keep the the the tub do a nice Soaker tub not those little bitty yeah people who do hot tubs now so so tub is important okay next up Landscape oh hands down without a doubt uh we bought our house it was not landscaped nicely as soon as I landscaped it beautifully everybody thought we were putting it on the market I’m like no I’m not stop saying that we’re staying put we’re not selling um it I cannot tell you the thousands of dollars of uh money you’ll get extra for doing that Landscaping yeah the backyard yeah you might be able a lot of new homes don’t have Landscaping in the backyard you might be able to get away with that if you’re your backyard’s not landscape just make make sure it’s functional yes but in terms of the front yard in particular if you have things that are overgrown get rid of them oh it’s a beautiful old tree but it’s overgrown kill it y okay just kill it uh we had a client they bought the house is beautiful such great curb appeal uh you know but you would never have they had enormous bushes that were over 20 years old covered the whole house so they bought the house they had the vision to see past that they have slowly but surely pulled out every one of these enormous bushes and now everybody’s like I had no idea what a beautiful home this is didn’t even know you had a front porch had the home sat on the market for a long long time probably sold yep $80,000 lower than it should have something like that it guess yeah it’s it’s uh we’re talking about because curb appeal is everything hug and when people say curb appeal you think oh that’s people driving by and seeing your home it’s more than that when you put your home on MLS the the it’s called the hero picture the main picture of your home that everyone is going to see first is going to be the front of the home it has to be it can’t be anything else it’s got to be the front of your home yep so if you’re not able to take a pict sure your front of the front of your home that attracts interest not going to work that’s the first thing it’s it’s like taking a good shot on your on your dating website you know what I mean gotta look good yes gotta look good all right we might play this again I to come up so I like this game I have to come up with some more of these all right this is our last one last one for game number two removing chachkies oh yeah I I mean I’m guilty of this myself um a lot of people over the years mom and dad died you inherit their yard Ro collection they God forbid your precious moments collection yes those red glasses from the red depressing glass uh your you know and too much of chatskis just shuts people down yes uh we went to see a beautiful home recently love the home it was so chalk block full of chatskis not one square inch was open we could not get our buyers P we couldn’t the buyers were like my God there’s so beautiful home because we we we showed it before these the the the current owners bought it so we were very familiar with the home we knew was a magnificent home we could not get by it was stuffed with so it was stuffed with house plants it was stuffed with I can’t even uh Crocs uh old statues from the 50s I mean every every square inch I think Chach chachki is like a polish term and it means remove okay anything you can call chachki is kind of Kit I guess that’s yish K it’s something cheap just it’s GNA cheapap in the home so anything that you can call a chachki is probably something you you’re GNA want to remove anything that you could call a collection yes remove it yep because people get transfixed buyers get transfixed with your collections and again and they want to talk about the collections yeah I’ve done it myself I’ve gone in and like suddenly I’m just staring at the wall looking at a collection of this or collection of that uh uh sports memorabilia any of that stuff it’s going to detract from the house remove it remove it that’s it other than that we have no opinion we have no opinion I mean but listen folks you should know we are just as guilty of all these things oh yeah yeah yeah as other people so I get it uh you know there’s a lot of sentimental attachment to things and your home and I get it but basically it look needs to look like nobody lives here yeah we don’t live here we’ve never Hotel think Hotel unfortunately you just kind of have to start shifting and adjusting things so absolutely people get that feeling that’s our tips a lot those are our tips for today cheers that was a lot we covered a lot there okay do you want more tips if you’re not exhausted from tips already go to pickle 411.com that’s our information site whether you’re a buyer seller or somewhere in between there’s something there waiting for you that will Amaze Astound inform educate entertain and persuade I don’t know what else I could do to you yeah and it’s all free it’s all free it won’t bankrupt you and we’re happy to share happy to share yes okay my friends I hope to hear from you soon and have a lovely day bye bye