We want everyone to get to know our Chamber Members better! Today’s Member Feature is Home Transformations Staging & ReDesign. Here is a Q&A with Owner Amy Nelson:
- Please provide a short description of your business and what you do.
You know that feeling you get when you see a house or a room that you just LOVE?!! Well, I use creative design principles, statistics, and buyer demographics to create just those rooms in a house for sale! Staging is an investment in your house that adds value and attracts more buyers, resulting in a faster sale for the maximum price possible. (According to recent statistics by the National Association of Realtors, almost half of seller’s agents believe that staging increased the value of the home up to 20%, even in this hot market!)
I work with both occupied and vacant houses, using the homeowner’s items or mine, to highlight each home’s selling features. For occupied homes, we start with a Hands-On Consultation, where we’ll go through each room, create a Seller’s Action Plan, and start transforming each space so it’s ready for photos. You won’t believe the difference it will make!
I also stage homes that will be vacant when selling. Vacant homes can be harder to sell because little flaws stand out, and rooms look smaller than they actually are. Most importantly, buyers don’t make emotional connections to empty rooms, and emotions are what sell houses. But fortunately, 83% of buyers find it easier to visualize the property as their future home when it is staged, and this helps them envision the lifestyle they want to have in that home. Staging a vacant house is one of the best investments you can make in that house!
- What is the story behind your business?
Some of my favorite things to do as a child was draw house floor plans on graph paper with furniture cut-outs, tour model homes in Arizona with my grandma, and drive my friends crazy restyling our cardboard Barbie houses with new carpet scraps and furniture placements!
I started HTS&R because I would look at houses for sale All. The. Time. With almost every one, I would redesign every room in my head, making it more appealing to buyers. How to easily add value was very obvious to me, but not to everyone! So I saw a need, I had the passion, talent, and almost-empty-nest-time for it, and figured my background as a life-long educator would help.
My training course took 6 months, and I’ve been learning not just staging, redesign, and business basics, but also new technology, logo design, marketing strategies, statistics, contracts and invoices etc… I love learning new things, and staging for me is a perfect combination of creativity for a purpose, logical charts and planning, education, getting to know new people, and making houses beautiful.
- Give us a Fun Fact about your business!
I get asked all the time: “Where do the items you use to stage a house come from?” The answer is that, for vacant houses, it comes from my own inventory. I own most of it and store it all in a (usually!) systematic manner. Between the “before” and “after” photos come hours and hours of design planning and packing! I want to stay as a small company, so I am limiting my inventory to 5-6 houses worth of furniture, accessories and art.
The other thing that people don’t usually know is that I also “stage” homes that will be occupied during the sale (that’s most of them!). I work with what the seller has to make it appeal to buyers. That’s why I say every house needs to have a staging consultation before selling! You won’t believe the difference it makes!
- Tell us about a memorable client experience.
One memorable staging job we had was last winter. We had finished loading up for the job, and as I walked across my driveway to leave, I slipped on black ice, fell hard and wacked my right arm and wrist. I hurt all over, but was able to complete the staging (with basically one arm). Despite my mobility issues, the homeowners fell in love with the new look of their house — they called a few days later and asked if they could buy everything from me, and decided not to move! (My arm was not broken, but my wrist still hurts!)
- How can the community support you now and going forward?
- The community can support me by spreading the word to people you know who are selling or want to redesign their house or business.
- Follow me on Facebook and Instagram, and like, comment and share my posts. (Tip: The more interaction any business gets, the more it will be shown in followers’ feeds.)
- Check out my website – go to the “About Staging” page to learn more about the statistics for staging, and the “Gallery” for some photos of my work!
- I am always open to working with Realtors anywhere in Mercer or Butler Counties who want to make all their listings stand out to buyers, so spread the word to Realtor friends as well!
- Anything else?
Well, did you know that almost 50% of paint sales are to people that made color mistakes and are trying to fix them??!! As a Certified Color Consultant, I use both the art and science of color to determine the best paint colors for your home by taking color measurements of your fixed items, while taking into consideration your color preferences as well.
Lastly, I have enjoyed getting to know and work with so many homeowners and Realtors over the last two years, and look forward to getting to know more! I am truly honored that people entrust me with their largest asset, their house, so that together we can maximize its potential for the sale. It can sometimes be hard to trust the process when you are trying to tackle the emotions of selling and moving, but doing so will make a huge difference in the way your house, occupied or vacant, photographs and shows.
I’ll leave you with a quote: If you found a financial planner who could give you a return on investment (ROI) of 5%, 10%, or sometimes as much as 20%, “wouldn’t you think they were a genius? Well, that’s what a good stager can do.” (Sid Pinkerton, a NYC stager, from Investopedia.)
My service area includes: Grove City, Hermitage, Butler, Cranberry Township, Mercer, New Wilmington, Slippery Rock, and the surrounding tri-county area.
www.HomeTransformationsStaging.com
FB and IG: @hometransformationsstaging