BUILDERS: Dress Your Models for Success - for LESS

Quick question:  Who decorated your last model home?

Your office manager?  Your spouse.  Significant other.  A designer?  Let’s face it – few builders harbor a secret interior design bug.  Once it’s built. . .well, the average builder is at a loss as to what comes next.

Bob Stewart of Stewart Custom Homes LLC (stewartcustoms.com) agrees.  Based on Vashon Island, Bob’s been building medium to high end custom and spec homes for 25 years.  He saw the value of “decorating” his homes right away – and relied on his office manager to “design” the models. It worked.  The problem:  What to do with the furniture once the house sold?  He did the predictable.  First, he paid for almost a year to store it off-site.  Then, he eventually parceled it out:  to his own house, his employees, or to friends and family.  “Return on my investment after all of that?  Well, less than 10%,” chuckles Bob.

Like many builders, Bob’s had to downsize and he no longer has that office manager to decorate his models.  He believes in showing his homes “finished,” but doesn’t want  to keep investing in furniture and décor that he may never reuse.  His solution: a home stager.

Surprisingly, designer Pam  Saftler (pcs-design.com) agrees.  Pam has 15 years of experience, and 65% of her clients are builders.   According to Pam, if you if you have less than 20 homes for sale, it doesn’t make sense to fully merchandise a model.   She thinks home staging is the way to go.

To properly decorate a model home, builders should expect to spend between $80 and $100,000, and expect that model to last at least 12 months.  That’s a hefty price tag in this economy.

Pam says, “What stagers do is so important, and it can balance what a designer does to offset costs.  For a larger project, a designer is the way to go.  But for fewer than 20 homes, staging is the answer.”  The difference?  Staging is temporary, and designers view a model home as a permanent installation.  And – you can’t move a model once it’s done.  Stagers can literally pick up and move a stage, one house at a time, around a new cul-de-sac.  It’s a great way to sell the lot your buyers want and still keep a model intact onsite.  The cost?  Generally between 8-10% of what you’d pay a designer.  Added bonus: portability.

“What I do is customize it so it looks like someone has just left the home and you’ve walked in.  It is much more personalized to the demographic of the buyer.  We add details, window treatments, accessories and fully merchandize the home,” says Pam.  “ What staging so aptly shows is how furniture can be utilized in the home.  Potential buyers get a great flavor for how they might best use the space –the look is broader based and less customized.”

Why not sell a vacant home?  Bob Stewart says, “In a competitive market, there were a lot of buyers, but a lot of builders as well.  Staging is a way to differentiate yourself from the competition and move the product faster.  The carrying charges on a loan for a $600,000 spec home compared to a one month staging fee is huge. 

While it is an upfront cost, I view it as saving me money – in the long run you’re paying more on the loan than if you didn’t move it faster with a Stager.”