PAULINE PEARSALL STAGING

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some Frequently Asked Questions, and their answers. Please contact us if your question is not addressed here!

What Is Staging?
What Are The Benefits Of Staging?
What Are The Costs Of Staging?
What Sorts Of Homes Can You Deal With?
Won't A Vacant House Appear Larger Than One That's Full Of Furnishings?
How Can You Stage A Home If The Sellers Are Still Living In It?
What About Painting?
Is It Necessary To Spend A Lot Of Money Updating My Kitchen And Bathrooms If I'M Selling The House?
Do You Rent The Furnishings That You Provide From Someone Else?
Do You Move Our Furniture When You Stage?
How Long Is Your Typical Staging Contract?
What Does It Include?
Will There Be A Lot Of 'Extra Charges'?
What About Potential Liabilities?
Do You Deal With Institutional Clients?

What Is Staging?

Staging is the residential real estate equivalent of setting up a stage or film "set" or designing a store window display. Staging is the art of preparing a home to "show" at its best, in today's competitive and very challenging real estate market. Staging improves a property's aesthetics in order to strongly appeal to the broadest range of potential buyers.

What Are The Benefits Of Staging?

Staging a house has been statistically shown to increase the sales price, while decreasing the amount of time the property remains on the market. As a result staging has more and more become the rule, not the exception, in real estate sales.

A home which has been staged is more appealing to buyers and to their agents, thus bringing in more showings and offers. A staged home will typically produce a higher appraisal as well. A staged home will look better in print. Increasingly, buyers are taking advantage of today's virtual technology, and will "look at" and eliminate many houses prior to ever viewing them in person. A buyer will see a staged home as well-cared-for and in "move-in" condition.

In addition, much experience has shown that a staged home will actually attract more realtors/brokers for showings. They know a staged home shows well, and will increase their chances for a sale.

What Are The Costs Of Staging?

Actually, the better question to ask is" "What is the cost of Not staging?" While a sensible asking price is always a factor (and something that your Realtor can advise you on), houses which have not been properly prepared to sell will often sit on the market longer, and generally bring in lower offers. This can be a very stressful, costly, and time-consuming process for sellers, as their property is passed up for others which "show" better. What routinely happens next is the sellers deciding on a price reduction, in hope that it will sell the home. Such sellers don't realize that the cost of home staging is a fraction of the cost of tje first price reduction. And did you know...that the staging fee can be used as a tax deduction?

A no-cost consultation with a representative of Pauline Pearsall, Inc. will be the basis for determining the staging fee. We will help to identify the positive features of the home, as well as areas in need for enhancement. We will design a staging plan specifically to fit the individual home. We take into consideration the home's location, size, condition, and architectural features...and your budget.

What Sorts Of Homes Can You Deal With?

Since 1995, we've seen and staged it all...from sprawling multi-million-dollar estates in Piedmont to modest urban condos and starter homes all over Oakland, from ivy covered Berkeley bungalows to brand-new suburban developments in Brentwood. No job is too big and few are too small; and every client is treated with the same concern and the same professionalism. Home staging is our profession and our passion: We're able, and equipped, to "do" traditional, modern, Mission-style or high-tech interiors, and everything in between.

Won't A Vacant House Appear Larger Than One That's Full Of Furnishings?

This is a common misconception. In fact, the right furnishings will actually help a room appear larger and more spacious. Consider these facts:

Vacant House

Staged House

Few buyers (a figure as low as 10% has been suggested) have the ability to thoroughly visualize potential furniture placement.
Vacant rooms look smaller.
Flaws are much more apparent: in a vacant house, there's nowhere to hide!
Buyers will normally spend less time viewing the house.
Vacant interiors are visually stark and automatically uninviting; the property feels empty and deserted.

Rooms are well defined. Buyers can better visualize their own belongings in the home.
Creates visual spaciousness. Buyers can envision how to maximize the square footage in the home. Very important for those "awkward" floor plans.
Accentuates the positive features in the house and downplays or camouflages the negatives.
Buyers will spend more time in each room, thus getting a better "feel "for the entire house.
Visually appealing; feels warm, comfortable, livable & inviting. Remember that for most people, buying a home is an emotional decision!

How Can You Stage A Home If The Sellers Are Still Living In It?

Pauline Pearsall, Inc. can work with a seller's existing furnishings to redesign rooms for optimum appeal, and has successfully done so hundreds of times. Proper furniture placement is key to every room's success, so existing arrangements may be rearranged to best advantage. We will pay close attention to proper balance, function, and scale. In addition, we use accessories or "props" to draw a buyer's eye towards the positive features that ought to be highlighted in the home. Often those pieces will be your own. At other times, it may be necessary to bring in additional furniture and staging props to properly showcase the home at its best. We long ago lost count of the number of times clients have told us, with a smile: "Why didn't you come in and move things around this way a long time ago, before we decided to sell the house?"

Other important aspects we pay particular attention to in occupied homes are: ensuring the house is organized, de-cluttered, organized, and de-personalized. As a seller, the way you live in your home is completely different in the way you would sell the property. We will assist you in seeing your property through a potential buyer's eye, and only displaying what's likely to help a buyer to make a decision to purchase the house; or keep a buyer from ruling it out.

To paraphrase a line from the Tv show "What Not To Wear": Your best friends won't tell you what not to display in your home...but we're not your best friends--and we will!

What About Painting?

Bold and brightly colored walls are considered "risky" because they limit your pool of potential buyers. (For example: you may have one potential buyer who likes your chartreuse living-room walls, but you will probably have 50 others who won't.) "Risky" colors are those that really detract from the positive features of a home. Some colors are never popular, but even popular colors and color schemes also change over the years, sometimes dramatically: compare the trendy looks in interior-decorating magazines from 30, 20, or even 10 years ago with this month's issues, to see how true that is. You may not follow these trends too closely...but we do. When selling, as a rule, you want to use paint colors that are neutral and warm. A neutral color palette will appeal to more buyers and they will view the home as "move-in ready".

It's important to pay particular attention to the home's exterior paint color as well. You want to choose colors which blend in well with the neighborhood, and with the population you are marketing your home to.

Colors are a big part of our business: and we can help you with these hard choices.

Is It Necessary To Spend A Lot Of Money Updating My Kitchen And Bathrooms If I'M Selling The House?

Buyers do look for updated kitchens and bathrooms, and it has been known to either make or break a sale. However, there are many "facelifts" that a homeowner can do to give kitchens and bathrooms an updated look, without the high price tag of a complete remodel. Some examples are: painting cabinetry, replacing hardware, replacing countertops, and changing light fixtures.

An important thing to consider is that buyers tend to be poor judges of the cost of repairs or updates. They will always build in a large margin of error in any offer they would consider making, and immediately start deducting away from the list price of the home. Some may go ahead and give a "low ball" offer, but most feel overwhelmed with the amount of work to be done and move onto a "move-in ready" property. There are many low-cost improvements that can be made to your home that will reap Big rewards when selling!

Isn't My Home Just Fine The Way It Is?

"My home has been good enough for me; it should be good enough for a buyer." Your home may very well be beautiful, and have suited your needs perfectly. However, it may not be perfectly suitable for the needs of, or most likely to appeal to, the right potential buyer. One of our company's initial steps is to help homeowners to think of their "home" as a "house." When someone's home is put on the market, it is given a price tag and assigned an Multiple Listing Service (Mls) number. It has become a house, a product to be sold.

The goal of Pauline Pearsall, Inc., is to take that product and market it to appeal to the broadest range of potential buyers. Because of our expertise in being able to see a property through a potential buyer's eyes, we work with the homeowner to present an "image" that most buyers are looking for. Because whenever you're selling a house...image Is everything!

Do You Rent The Furnishings That You Provide From Someone Else?

We own all of our own furniture, accessories, artworks, plants, etc., and never lease anything from third parties. We constantly upgrade our inventory in order to keep up with changing styles and shifting market preferences. Our inventory is enormous enough to fill a 20,000 square foot warehouse and dozens of staged houses as well--at the same time!

We also have our own fleet of trucks and vans, our own professional movers, a large indoor nursery for nurturing our array of green plants (frequently replenished on trips to the San Francisco Flower Market), and our own plant caretakers, responsible for the health and appearance of the staged greenery in your house on an ongoing basis.

Do You Move Our Furniture When You Stage?

We can move existing furniture into some "out-of-the-way" area, such as a garage, for those clients whose homes have not been vacated, on terms to be negotiated into the contract price.

How Long Is Your Typical Staging Contract?

Our standard contract is for a 60-day minimum period, subject to extensions for 30 days or longer with the additional fee and other conditions to be mutually agreed upon.

What Does It Include?

In basic terms, the delivery, placement for the duration of the contract term (or until removal is requested by the client, whichever is first) and removal of our materials and supplies used at your property; as well as our design services.

Will There Be A Lot Of 'Extra Charges'?

Typically none; our contract is intended to be all-inclusive, covering materials, supplies, labor and transportation costs.

What About Potential Liabilities?

Our business is a California corporation in good standing and carries all necessary property, liability, and motor vehicle insurance. Our courteous and professional employees, most of whom have been with us for years, have the right to work in the United States, are licensed to drive if necessary, are fully covered by Worker's Compensation insurance, and have all required payroll-tax amounts properly deducted or contributed by the company. Your only contractual relationship will be with our company. When you work with Pauline Pearsall, Inc., you can rest a little easier on the legal front, too.

During a decade and a half in business, we have not had a single reported case of employee theft or misconduct in a house we staged...and very few (and minor) accidents, either!

Do You Deal With Institutional Clients?

Pauline Pearsall, Inc. is a well-staffed professional agency that is ready, willing, and able to work with institutional/professional real estate clients (and experienced in doing so): whether that means developers who need model homes or condos staged, investors marketing existing homes, or lending institutions needing to dispose of Reo properties "on the books." Give us a call to help boost your bottom line...we are "tops" in our field, and sensitive to your needs, which often differ from those of ordinary homeowners.



	This is a partial listing of the over 1100 homes Pauline Pearsall has staged since 2003. For a more complete listing, please click here. 160 Gravatt 1401 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley 6 Scenic, Oakland 4650 Sequoyah, Oakland 3997 Oakhill Road, Oakland 545 Colusa, Berkeley 1341 25th, Oakland 2415 Damuth 1865 Brentwood, Oakland 2724 Buena Vista Ct., Walnut Creek 1522 Dwight Way, Berkeley 4030 Reinhardt 11007 Caloden St., Oakland 5931 Manzuela, Oakland 6018 Fairlane Dr., Oakland 1258 Sunnyhills, Oakland 6655 Moore, Oakland 2310 Corona St., Berkeley 111 Estates, Oakland 14 Bowles Place, Oakland 4080 Harding Way, Oakland 1290 Ariane Court, Oakland 563 Radnor, Oakland 179 Crestview, Orinda 2828 Hillegas, Berkeley click for more...