Here’s a money saving home staging tip: hire a professional home stager for a home staging consultation and then do the recommended work yourself.

By calling Moving Mountains Design for an occupied house staging consultation, you’ll get expert advice and house selling tips at an affordable price:

1. Verbal Home Staging Consultation – We’ll walk through your home , inside and out,  and discuss the work that needs to be done to get your home in market ready condition. We can make paint color recommendations, suggest the optimal furniture layout and discuss what items need to be pre-packed or donated. You can ask any questions, show us carpet samples and paint chips you may have picked up. You take all the notes. Do the suggested work on your own schedule.
2. Comprehensive Home Staging Consultation – We walk through your home with you (including exteriors) and outline the work that needs to be done to get your home in top market ready condition, same as above.  Afterwards, I’ll email you your  custom and very specific comprehensive home staging consultation report. Your report will contain all the recommended changes and tasks that we discussed. In addition, I’ll include information about how to prepare for open houses and showings, how to stage your closets, how to stage your garden, how to stage your garage, and how to stage your kitchen cabinets. Once again you save money by doing the recommended work yourself.

Once you’ve completed all or part of the suggestions in your Home Staging Consultation, the Moving Mountains Design team will come in and complete any portion of the work you would like. Our services are completely a la carte. The more work you do yourself, the more money you will save. 

 Here’s what a recent Pasadena home staging consultation client had to say:

…The best decision we made in this whole process was hiring you. It’s no exaggeration to say that we couldn’t have gotten any of this done without you — we didn’t even know where to begin.

We also offer cost-effective interior design, decorating or redesign consultations. Many homeowners are not planning on moving in the near future, but want to redecorate or refresh their current interior decorating. Once again, you can do all the work yourself, do some of the work and hire us to complete the project or hire us to complete your project while you put your feet up and relax. We can handle everything from light redecorating to full-on kitchen and bath remodels (we only work with licensed and insured contractors and sub-contractors!)

To schedule a home staging consultation appointment, call (626)441-8975 or send me an email at Michelle@MovingMountainsDesign.com.

Moving Mountains Design – We know what makes homes sell!™

Here’s a list of my tips for making a small home feel larger. You can use these tips whether you are staging a home to sell or if you are planning to stay, but just need some help dealing with smaller rooms. These tips will work with either vacant or occupied homes:

1. Pare down your furniture in a smaller spaces to the essentials. Do you really need a chair in your bedroom, or will your room appear larger with just the bed, the nightstands and maybe a dresser?
2. Clutter makes a room feel smaller. Lots of smaller items, like your Hummel collection or your bowling trophies displayed on every horizontal surface, eat up visual space. Only display 3-5 items at a time. Store, sell or prepack the rest. You’re selling your home, not your collection of treasures. 
3. Use fewer pieces of furniture. Its better to have one larger dresser than 2 smaller ones.
4. Use appropriately sized furniture. Having a large sofa in a small family room will highlight how small the space is.
5. Pull furniture away from the wall. Create a cozy sitting area in front of the fireplace, with room to move around the back of the furniture.
6. Cooler colors recede, so painting a room a pale blue, green or gray will make it feel larger.
7. Show more hardwood. The larger the expanse of hardwood, the larger the room will look. See how the room looks without an area rug. If your hardwood floors are hidden by wall to wall carpet, remove the carpet. Your home will feel instantly larger.
8. Try using one larger area rug instead of several smaller rugs. Or if the room looks OK without it, don’t use any area rugs.
9. Use fewer patterns on upholstery and bedding. For instance, use a solid color blanket or bedspread on a bed in a small bedroom to make it feel larger. Lighter colored bedding will make the room feel larger.
10. Strategically placed mirrors make a room feel larger.
11. A well lit room feels larger. Make sure every overhead light and table lamp is lit before open houses and showings.
12. Minimize window treatments. The simpler the better. Shutters, blinds or simple drapes (no flounces, ruffles, strong patterns or complicated valences) take up less “visual space”.

These home staging tips work if you are staging to sell or just want to make the home you are living in feel larger.

If you need some help figuring out how to make your home feel larger, consider hiring us for a home staging consultation. You’ll get some easy-to-implement expert home staging and interior design tips. Prices start at $350 for a verbal consultation or $450 for a comprehensive written consultation. Its the best “bang for your buck” and it’s a great investment in preparing your home for sale, or making your home more livable if you are planning to stay.

If you’d like to schedule a home staging consultation or get an estimate for staging your home, call Moving Mountains Design, the Los Angeles home staging experts, at (626)385-8852.

On occassion, during the course of a home staging consultation, I recommend the homeowner replace some or all of their kitchen appliances as part of upgrading their home to ensure a faster sale at a higher price. The cost, while not pocket change, is usually minimal when compared to the cost of carrying the home for extra months while it sits unsold.

Los Angeles home buyers want a move in ready house.

Home buyers don’t want an allowance to make repairs, replace the carpet or buy new appliances. Excuse me for repeating myself: Home buyers want a move in ready house. Your list price will have to be considerably lower or your allowance considerably higher than the cost of actually replacing the appliances, replacing the carpet or doing repairs.

The kitchen is the heart of the home, and an updated, attractive kitchen will help sell your home.

I did some research to find some very cost effective replacement appliance upgrade packages in Los Angeles. These costs come from advertising flyers in the Los Angeles Times and the Pasadena Star News. I don’t guarantee these prices. These prices may or may not be available when you go into the store to purchase them. If you shop around, you may get an even better price. And don’t forget to apply for your rebates from your electric company and natural gas utility. Many are offering rebates of $100 or more if you replace your old appliances with Energy Star appliances.

From Pacific Sales:

Whirlpool 4 piece Stainless Steel Upgrade Kitchen Package $2,199. with stainless steel refrigerator, dishwasher, 30″ range and over-the-range microwave.

Frigidare 4 piece Stainless Steel Upgrade Kitchen Package with Counter Depth Refrigerator $2,499. This includes a stainless steel 5 burner gas range, over-the-range microwave, dishwasher and counter-depth refrigerator.

According to the Pacific Sales advertising circular, the Whirlpool prices are “Before Additional Instant In-Store Savings”

From Warehouse Discount Center:

Unbranded 4 piece white appliance package $1,199.96 with dishwasher, 30″ range and over-the-range microwave.

Frigidare 4 piece Stainless Upgrade Kitchen Package $1,999.96. Refrigerator has ice and water in the door, dishwasher, 30″ range and over-the-range microwave.

You may be able to get free delivery, free installation and free recycling of your old appliance. Check store for details.

As you can see, for less than the cost of 1 monthly mortgage payment (for most homeowners) you can replace your kitchen appliances to give your kitchen a fresh new look.

If your home sells one month more quickly than if you hadn’t upgraded the appliances, it will be well worth the cost!

There is a website out there that suggests that the people listed on the website are the best home stagers in Los Angeles. Really? I haven’t heard of many of these home stagers, and I think at least 2 are out of business or on the verge of going out of business (there are a couple on the list that are excellent professional home stagers) I was curious how these home stagers were chosen to be on the list, since I consider myself to be one of the best home stagers in Los Angeles. There is no contact information, person, group or organization, and no way to figure out what criteria were used. What I did notice was there were a lot of advertisements and links to Amazon. My guess is the owner of the site is only involved in the staging industry only in so far as he or she can earn money from pay-per-clicks and affiliate sales. You just can’t trust everything you read on the internet.

What should you look for in a home stager if you want the best?

1. Choose a home stager that is a member of the Real Estate Staging Association. Why? RESA members are governed by a Code of Ethics to ensure members maintain high standards. Better yet, choose a RESA-Pro home stager. They must meet higher standards of business practices, experience and ethics.
2. Choose a home stager that carries professional home stager business liability insurance. Protect your assets.
3. Choose a home stager with lots of home staging experience. There is no home staging training school in the world that teach you as much as what you can learn by staging lots of houses.
4. Choose a home stager that offers the best value and highest quality, not the lowest price. You get what you pay for and if you pay peanuts, you’ll get monkeys. Choose a home stager that can do an excellent job for a reasonable price – that’s good value.
5. Choose a home stager that can show you lots of before and after pictures – either on their website or in a printed portfolio. Look at the photos carefully to see if  the homes they staged look more beautiful and desirable than before.
6. Choose a house stager that can supply you with references for both real estate agents and homeowners they have staged for. I personally do not hire any service providers that cannot supply references with contact information.
7. Choose a home stager that is professional, organized and puts you at ease. Trust your gut. Working with a real estate stager should ease some of the stress in selling your home, not make it worse.

So who are the best Los Angeles home stagers?

I’d like to think Moving Mountains Design is one of the best home staging companies in Los Angeles. I’m RESA-Pro and I adhere to a strict code of ethics. I carry $4 million in aggregate liability insurance and I’ve been staging homes for 5+ years. I’ve staged hundreds of homes and I know what makes homes sell™. Although I’m not the lowest price home stager, I offer my clients exceptional value for their home staging dollar. Here’s links to my home staging portfolio and what clients have to say about my service, professionalism and expertise.

Are you a real estate agent, mortgage broker or other real estate professional who works with home sellers that are facing foreclosure or a short sale? I recently discovered a great resource that can be co-branded with your logo and contact information. The material is provided by Fannie Mae on their KnowYourOptions.com website.  There are brochures, statement inserts, flyers, letters and pocket folders available for free download.

From the website:

Fannie Mae has created a suite of helpful tools to educate homeowners on their options to avoid foreclosure. With the Storefront, you can access, customize (with your logo and contact information), and download these materials to use with your borrower outreach efforts.

When you click on one of the flyer options it looks like this:

If you already work with homeowners  facing foreclosure or considering a short sale, this is an excellent way to provide up-to-date information and tips. If you would like to increase your business by working with homeowners who are seeking a solution to their potential foreclosure or short sale, these free collateral marketing materials (which look very professional, by the way) are a great way to jump start that market.

Go to the Fannie Mae Know Your Options website and sign up (free) to access the collateral marketing materials.

As a professional Los Angeles home stager, I am constantly on the lookout for free or low cost marketing materials to share with my real estate industry partners. I want you to be successful! Contact me today to learn how home staging can help your listings sell faster and for more money!