Home Staging Becoming Increasingly Popular in Slower Iowa Market

Though the slowing housing market is bad news for prospective home sellers, real estate agents and the construction industry, it’s actually resulting in increased business for a handful of people in Greater Des Moines.

With the housing slump beginning to become evident in Iowa, businesses specializing in “staging” homes are reporting more demand for their services.

Home staging is “dressing up” or marketing a home to help it make a good impression on potential buyers. It often involves rearranging furniture and artwork, removing distracting personal items and incorporating a few new pieces into the decor.

“The way I live and the way I show my house are different,” said Sharon Hatten, owner of Roomscapes, a home staging firm. “Things that you have in the house for your own comfort, you might have to re-evaluate when it’s time to sell.”

According to a 2006 survey from StagedHomes.com, homes listed for sale without staging spent an average of four and a half months on the market, while homes staged before listing spent less than one and a half months on the market. Costs for staging vary widely depending on where you live. On the West Coast, professional stagers charge upwards of $200 per hour, but in Greater Des Moines, the rate tends to be $50-65 an hour.

“Staging is worth the upfront cost if it gets you an offer sooner,” said Jennifer Gruber, an agent with Iowa Realty’s Jordan Creek office, which hires a local company called Artistic Attitude to stage home listings.

With a growing inventory of homes on the market, staging has never been more popular. According to the Des Moines Area Association of Realtors, there were 6,980 active listings on the market in October, up from 5,937 a year ago. There were 825 homes sold in October, 80 fewer than a year earlier.

“With so many properties on the market, if the buyer coming through doesn’t have a good immediate reaction to your home in the first minute, they’ll move on because they have plenty more homes to look at,” Gruber said.

As Iowa home sales flatten, this endeavor is seen as more important than ever before. Hatten said awareness about staging homes has been growing over the past couple of years in Greater Des Moines.

Five years ago, she spent most of her time educating real estate agents and home owners about the process. Now, she gets many inquiries about staging, which has grown to about 75 percent of her business.

Trying to get inside the mind of a potential mortgage loan applicant who’d be walking through the house, the stagers begin assessing a home before they even walk inside. Approaching the house from across the street, they take note of things such as the quality of the landscaping, outdoor clutter and the condition of the paint.

Inside, they go through the home using a “buyer’s eyes,” looking for problems such as loose caulk in the bathrooms, curling wallpaper, chipped paint, cluttered closets, an abundance of family photographs, etc.

The goal is to suggest improvements, remove clutter, make rooms appear larger with proper furniture placement and de-personalize the home so that potential buyers can picture themselves living there.

“You would be surprised at how some people don’t see beyond the things you have in your home. Sometimes people will remember that collection of beer steins you had in the family room, but not the great fireplace they saw there,” Hatten said.

People are quick to make judgments on a home based on how it’s decorated. When Gruber takes prospective buyers through houses, they often have a stronger reaction to colors and furnishings than overall size.

“I’m amazed when I go through homes with buyers. Sometimes I stop and ask them if it’s really the house they like or the furniture, because the house may be smaller than what they told me they were looking for.”
Homes on the market in Des Moines typically sell within 6-8 weeks, but now, according to market statistics from October, the average home is spending 11 weeks on the market. With those market conditions, and uncertain home mortgage costs, staging can make all the difference in snaring a buyer.