Staging & Renovation: An Oakville Realtor's Personal Experience

Finished front exterior

Finished front exterior

During this past year I needed to sell a family property. The home had been in the family for over 40 years. It had very few upgrades, but had been well maintained. The neighbourhood is in transition, from small post war homes to large $1,000,000 plus homes.

Here are the steps I took when deciding on what to do with our property:

1. I brought on another realtor to work with me. Like all home owners, I wanted to make sure I wasn't making emotional decisions. The other reason for bringing in another realtor is for personal protection. If a realtor sells there own home, then the realtor's errors and omission insurance is voided.

2. Working with the other realtor we analyzed the market and found that the property as it sat, would only appeal to a builder as a tear down. That the neighbourhood real estate did support the sale of small homes that had been fully renovated. As land value the property would sell for $550,000. Renovated homes of similar size had sold recently from $610,000 to $675,000.

3. I hired an experienced local stager, who understood what the neighbourhood buyer's expectations. It was a fairly inexpensive to determine what might need to be done from design, demolition, renovation, and finally staging. She provided me with a report for $200.00. I took this to my realtor, to determine if she felt the recommendations were valid. Almost all the recommendations were thought to be necessary.

Recommendations:

Recommendations:

Interior

• Gut and renovate main 4 pc bathroom
• Gut and renovate 2 pc bathroom
• Gut and renovate kitchen
• Paint interior
• Replace all pulls for built-in closets
• Replace all light fixtures
• Strip all ceiling of popcorn stucco
• Refinish hardwood floors
• Stage living/dining room, master bedroom, bathrooms and kitchen

Exterior

Finished kitchen

Finished kitchen

• Paint exterior
• Repair garage door and paint garage
• Replace tiles on front porch with brick and create white picket railing
• Remove all over grown shrubs and replace with new flowers
• Build a small picket fence at front yard to define property
• Replace all light fixtures

4. A well recommended builder quoted the demolition and renovations, and the stager provided a quote for design and staging. The quote came in at $45,000, with completion in 2 months.

Front Exterior, professionally landscaped

Front Exterior, professionally landscaped

5. Went back to the realtor to discuss quote, and likely return. I decided that the return on the investment which I budgeted at $55,000 and 3 months was worth the potential return. I hired both the stager and builder, who had to work together.

6. During the process, I was constantly needing to keep track of expenditures. Did we go with marble floors, or ceramic, solid surface counter tops or laminate. With each of these decisions, I worked with the realtor, stager, and builder.

The Result

The home was finished in 2.5 months at a cost of $50,000. It was staged in 1 day, the property was photographed and then listed on MLS for $639,000. A public open house was held on the next day, which was Sunday. An agents open house was held on Tuesday, and another public

Finished Living/Dining Room

Finished Living/Dining Room

open house was held on the following Sunday. A total of 200 people went through the house, along with 50 realtors. Offers were held until the Monday following the second open house. I received 4 offers: one below list, one at list and twoabove list. The house sold at $656,000 and closed in three weeks. This positive result speaks for itself, which is why I always recommend taking these steps prior to listing any property.