With all the craziness in the Los Angeles real estate market, I have been very busy in the past few weeks. So much so that, in order to fit in a client who needed some help selling her home, I arranged a consultation for a Sunday afternoon. When my client came to the door, she seemed quite surprised to see me. “Did we schedule a consultation for TODAY?” she asked. “Isn’t today Sunday? Why would I do something like that?” I reminded her that we had picked a Sunday because of my busy schedule and, though very flustered, she invited me in to wait while she finished up a class with a student (she teaches music to children). When she came back she began to explain why she was so discombobulated. Here was her situation…

She had, just the day before, held a garage sale to both get rid of some of her excess clutter and to help with her dire financial situation (she’s likely headed toward a short sale). She had gotten up at 5am and didn’t finish until 11pm. In total, she had made $80. She was exhausted, stressed, and – within minutes of sitting down to tell me all this – she was crying. First I asked her to take a breath. I told her that in my profession, I meet people in every type of financial situation. I told her that selling is never easy. It is always stressful and emotional, but doubly so when you are being forced to sell. She seemed to feel better just from hearing that I understood. I asked her to trust me. I told her that I had only her best interest at heart and that I could help her out this bad situation. I told her the homes I’ve Staged in the past month have been selling in multiple offers, many in their first week on the market. She seemed to relax a bit, so we began.

As she walked me through her house, I immediately realized that her biggest problem was room-usage. She had a 4-bedroom house which had 2 offices, a recording studio and an enormous music room, but only 1 actual bedroom. She also had no dining space. With all these offices and music equipment, the house felt cramped when it was actually pretty big.

I immediately got down to work…First we had to take the computer out of the living room, move the table (which was being used as a desk) over and set it up as a dining table. We had to remove the oversized coffee table in favor of a smaller one (she had something usable in one of the bedrooms). We had to remove one chair, and we had to move the large TV cabinet out of this small room.

On to the bedrooms – we simply didn’t have enough of them! But there was an office that she barely used anymore. I asked her to remove all the office furniture in the room, including the desk, chair and some temporary shelving that had been screwed into the walls. I told her to set up the futon from the garage as a bed, and to use one of her extra tables as a nightstand. Then she only needed to open up the curtains to let the light in, remove the old dirty rug, and suddenly she would have another bedroom. She loved this idea and seemed to get excited as we moved on to the next room.

This room was technically a bedroom (and a large one at that), but it was currently being used as a recording studio. It was an unfortunate situation, but it could not be helped as this woman was not in a financial position to shut down her business while her home was on the market. By removing some more shelving, storing a portable keyboard in the garage when it wasn’t in use and moving a small sofa out of the room, buyers would be able to visualize where their bed could go and could easily envision the space as a functional bedroom. She was really getting excited now!

We moved on to the next room. She had all the pieces in place. The furniture just had to be rearranged slightly to fit the space better, and then we were on to the biggest issue – the master bedroom. The master had been turned into a music room for her students, with a huge grand piano taking up the back half of it. The closet doors had been removed and she had any number of beautiful and exotic musical instruments filling the space meant for clothes. There were about 5 or 6 odd chairs sitting around, making it look sort of like a waiting room. There was also an awkward door that lead directly into another bedroom, which made it not feel as private as a master bedroom should. But this room was BIG! It could fit a grand piano – mind you – without feeling cramped!

Now would be a good time to mention that this woman had an interior designer friend who had already come over to help her figure out how to best showcase her property for sale. Though I love and admire interior designers, they are in the design business, not in the Real Estate business like I am. They know what looks good, but they don’t get into the heads of home buyers to figure out what a property needs in order to make it SELL.

This woman’s well-meaning interior designer friend had suggested that she move her grand piano into the room she was now using as her bedroom and move her bed into what was supposed to be the master bedroom. Now without having seen this house, you might think that would be a good solution. BUT…there were a couple of problems with this idea:

1) Due to back problems, this woman slept in a twin sized bed with special mattresses that helped her condition. Putting a twin bed (or even a full-size futon which she had in another room) into a bedroom that was large enough for a grand piano would have looked ridiculous and never would’ve sold buyers on the space…and

2) The room she was using for her bedroom was IN NO WAY large enough to fit a grand piano! Though it was a very nice-sized space for a bedroom, with that monstrous piano in it, it would’ve felt too small for even a twin bed. It would have been literally wall-to-wall piano.

But I had an idea… Since her formal living/dining room was small, since she didn’t have a bed large enough to fit the master bedroom, since she needed her piano to remain in the house while it was on the market, AND since – with our adjustments – buyers would see they already had 3 other bedrooms in the house, we were going to transform that master bedroom into a spacious and buyer-friendly family room!

Remember that small sofa that had to come out of the recording studio? And remember all those extra chairs that were in the piano room? We had everything we needed to make this space work. Suddenly the closet without its missing doors became the perfect spot for the oversized TV cabinet that was currently taking up space in the tiny living room. The loveseat and two of her extra chairs would go in front of the new TV closet, with an extra ottoman as a coffee table and a small rug she had lying around to tie the seating area together. The piano would remain in the back half of the room, showing buyers that in addition to there being plenty of room to hang out and watch TV in this room, there was also a really large space in back for a game or homework table, a kids’ play area, or even (gasp) a grand piano!

As our consultation came to an end, I noticed that the seller had a big smile on her face. I asked her if she felt a little better now that she had a plan. She said that she did and that she was so relieved. Whereas she had started our session in tears, by the end she felt confident that she knew what it would take to get her house sold and had the tools she needed to do it.

So here are some things I was reminded of today:

1) Staging is not just about design. I’m in the Real Estate business, not the design business.

2) Sometimes Home Staging = Real Estate Therapy. Some sellers need more than just a “to-do list” in order to prepare their home for sale. Some need reassurance, some even need a hug. All of them need a solid plan to relieve the pressure and stress.

3) Just because things don’t start off the way you planned, they may end up better than you could’ve imagined. Even if you show up to a job with a client in crisis, you just may leave with a confident and motivated seller who has the tools s/he needs to get the job done.

And THAT is why I love my job!

It’s a great tool for Realtors to use with sellers who may be on the fence about listing a home during the holiday season.

10 Reasons to List Your Home Over the Holidays

1. People who look for a home over the holidays tend to be more serious about buying.

2. Serious buyers have fewer houses to choose from during the holidays which, in turn, means less competition and more money for you.

3. Starting in January, the amount of listings will dramatically increase. With more properties on the market, there will be less demand for your particular home.

4. Houses show better when decorated for the holidays! Buyers are more emotional during the holidays, so they are more likely to pay your price.

5. Often, buyers have more time to look for a home during the holidays than during a regular work week, especially during winter vacations.

6. Many people want to buy before the end of the year due to tax reasons.

7. Traditionally, January is the month for corporate transferees to begin new jobs. Since these transferees cannot wait until spring to buy, you must be on the market now to capture that market.

8. You can be on the market and still have the option to restrict showings during the holidays for your special family occasions.

9. You can sell now for more money and set up a delayed closing or extended occupancy until early next year.

10. By selling now, you may have the opportunity to be a non-contingent buyer during the spring, when many more houses are on the market for less money. This will allow you to sell high and buy low!

This contest really struck a chord with me because when I became a working mom five years ago, I was amazed at how difficult it was to run both a family and a business. It is often a thankless job and the hours are quite long! Of course as any mom knows, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Being a mom-preneur has given me a newfound respect for my own mother who worked from the time I was a baby, but always made sure I felt 100% loved, taken care of and special. Many moms don’t have the option to stay at home full time for financial reasons, and many choose not to for their own sanity (and that of their kids!). But regardless of their reasons, ALL working moms deserve recognition and respect for having two full-time jobs. That’s why I entered this competition and that is why I am so humbled and honored to have been chosen as one of the winners!

Thousands of moms entered and, like me, found that reaching out for votes to customers, vendors, friends, family and social networks was not only kind of fun, but it also gave us a new and unexpected way to generate positive buzz around our business. So many of you took time out of your busy days to vote for me once, twice, and in some cases every single day. Some of my followers on Twitter even re-Tweeted my requests for votes so that people I didn’t even know were out there voting for me! It was an amazing experience and one that I won’t soon forget.

I encourage any mom who owns her own business to enter this competition next year. As I have proven to myself, you never know what can happen!

Click here to read the full press release, and thank you again for making this dream a reality!

This week I was at the weekly team meeting at the Keller Williams office in Marina del Rey pitching a free Home Staging for Success course I’m going to be giving there next week. One of the agents, Reggie Potts, came up to talk to the group about a new company he’s launching called REO Secure. REO Secure will do everything from installing smoke detectors to rekeying the locks, boarding up the windows and strapping the water heater. The company is based in Culver City, but they serve the whole LA area.

If you know an agent, bank or asset manager that has REO listings, please forward this important information along to them. And if you’re ready to call REO Secure, their number is 310-251-1773.

The groups say that they have sometimes received support from neighbors and that beleaguered police departments have not aggressively gone after squatters. “We’re seeing sheriffs’ departments who are reluctant to move fast on foreclosures or evictions,” said Bill Faith, director of the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, which is not engaged in squatting. “They’re up to their eyeballs in this stuff. Everyone’s overwhelmed.”

The issue is a controversial one. Advocates see these vacant properties as an opportunity to ease the growing homeless problem in a declining economy. Though some of these groups operate secretly, others are out in the open, trying to secure legal means to move their clients into these abandoned properties.

Anita Beaty, executive director of the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, said her group had been looking into asking banks to give it abandoned buildings to renovate and occupy legally. Ms. Honkala, who was a squatter in the 1980s, said the biggest difference now was that the neighbors were often more supportive. “People who used to say, ‘That’s breaking the law,’ now that they’re living on a block with three or four empty houses, they’re very interested in helping out, bringing over mattresses or food for the families,” she said.

The organized homeless groups are also having to compete with more traditional individual squatters.

“We had a move-in that we were going to do one day at noon,” he said. “At 10 o’clock in the morning, I went over to the house just to make sure everything was O.K., and squatters took over our squat. Then we went to another place nearby, and squatters were in that place also.”

Mr. Rameau said his group differed from ad hoc squatters by operating openly, screening potential residents for mental illness and drug addiction, and requiring that they earn “sweat equity” by cleaning or doing repairs around the house and that they keep up with the utility bills.

I have to say this issue has me torn. I’ll admit I am a fairly left-wing liberal who appreciates the effort on the part of these advocacy groups to try to find a workable, though temporary, solution to a growing problem that no one else seems to be addressing. I feel for these people who, for reasons that may be beyond their control, have found themselves and their families homeless and unemployed in a dire economic climate. At the same time I work in the real estate industry and feel for the agents who represent these properties. I feel the banks are not doing enough to properly secure and maintain these foreclosed homes. They often leave them in a dilapidated state and just “hope for the best” in terms of a sale. Rather than investing a small amount in paint, carpet, Home Staging (and some sort of security system) in order to sell these properties quickly, they let them linger on the market and become targets for squatting.

What are your thoughts?

With most consultations, I spend a couple of hours at the property, email out my detailed, room-by-room Staging report and don’t usually hear anything more about it. (The whole point of a consultation is providing a low cost, do-it-yourself option for those who may not be able to afford full Staging services.) Sometimes I get a followup question here and there, and every once in awhile I check out the MLS photos of the homes just to make sure the sellers are following my advice, but that’s generally the extent of it.

But sometimes the results are so remarkable that they warrant an e-mail like the one I received yesterday from my client, telling me that a Westchester home we recently did a consultation for had been listed at $674,000, it had 6 offers in 6 days, and was now in escrow at $695,000!

Excuse me, but aren’t we in a recession here?! And yet these are similar to the results we were seeing at the height of the L.A. real estate frenzy.

Now when you look at the photo below, please note that I did not Stage this property, nor did I take the photo. I merely gave the seller a detailed list of what she could do, using just what she already had in the home, to Stage it herself! That rug was folded up at the bottom of her linen closet. The vase was in another room. The elements were all there, but they just hadn’t been properly put together. But this motivated seller followed my directions and got herself many of the benefits of a Staged home at a fraction of the cost!

Now I’d call that a win/win!

A couple of months ago, I posted a blog asking for your support as I entered the competition.

Most of you know me as a professional Home Stager in Los Angeles, but you may not know that I am also a mom of two wonderful kids ages 3 & 6. I started my Home Staging business in 2004, when my eldest was just a toddler, as a way to be home with him while also doing something I loved. Though having a home-based business does allow for some flexibility with my schedule, as any working mom knows, it is also a tough road to haul. Now that my Staging business has grown, I often find myself working much longer hours than I did when I worked for someone else. And I struggle with balancing work and family life just like all the other working parents in this country. So I was very excited to learn that now there’s a way for entrepreneurial moms to be recognized for their hard work!

StartupNation, in partnership with Ladies Who Launch, has created a Leading Moms in Business competition, and I would love your vote.

Please click on the StartUp Nation logo below and it will bring you to my profile page. Below the photo, click “Vote for Me.” You can vote every day if you are so inclined, but even just a single vote would be much appreciated!

The contest ends on March 30th so we’re in the home stretch now and every vote counts!

The article uses the example of an older couple who wanted to downsize and move into an over-55 community, but had no bites on their home when they listed it in August of last year. Toll Brothers noticed this was part of a trend, with several of their potential buyers not signing contracts for fear of not being able to sell their existing homes. So Toll Brothers decided to do something about it!

They offered the following incentive:

“Sign a contract on a new home, and the builder would provide you with a home stager and pick up 75 percent of the cost. (Going forward, clients who participate in this program, called Center Stage, will pay the cost of the staging, and Toll Brothers will reimburse them for 50 percent of the cost with a credit at closing.)”

Did it work? In the case of the older couple, their home sold in just TWO DAYS after it had been Staged! And now they are preparing to move into their new Toll Brothers home!

There’s lots more interesting info in this article, so check it out!