Home Staging NJ Luxury Real Estate

Delightful, warm and elegant 4 bedroom, 3 bath home in Maplewood, NJ in previews now - to be seen by all when it comes to market officially in January, 2009.

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Juliet Johnson Staging provides home staging and online marketing services to the luxury real estate market of suburban NJ, specializing in the $1 - 3 million niche.

Delightful, warm and elegant 4 bedroom, 3 bath home in Maplewood, NJ in previews now - to be seen by all when it comes to market officially in January, 2009.

 

 

 

 

 

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Juliet Johnson Staging provides home staging and online marketing services to the luxury real estate market of suburban NJ, specializing in the $1 - 3 million niche.

 

 

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?

Both.  Whatever's to hand.  We still have wrapping paper left over from an estate we cleared 5 years ago - so I'm working through that for all of my 7 year old's huge plastic stuff!

2. Real tree or Artificial? I love real trees and have been a purist for years... until 2 years ago when our house construction was nearing completionwe waited too long to get a tree and by the time we went out to shop, we simply could not find one.  Even Home Depot had sold out.  So, for $49.99 we purchased a really good artificial tree and now light pine scented candles for the aroma!

3. When do you put up the tree? As soon as my husband's birthday is over - poor man has his day on Pearl Harbor Day so we always have to hold Christmas at bay until after that!

4. When do you take the tree down? Always on 12th night.  And every year I have to count to see when that is.  Jan 6th?

5. Do you like eggnog? Yeah... but it's sooooo fattening, and filling, and goooooood!

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Hmmm, a Cindy doll.  (British Barbie.)

7. Hardest person to buy for? My husband. If he didn't ask for it, he doesn't want it.  Oh, and my eldest daughter, who has very different taste and calls everything a GB (go back)

8. Easiest person to buy for? My middle daughter. She always wants clothes and looks amazing in whatever she throws on.

9. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes, my mother acquired it from somewhere and made the shed.  I think.  I'm not sure.  It lives in an old Tesco plastic bag and smells terrible, but I love it.  It used to sit on top of my upright piano in the middle hall.  (our house had 3 foyers.  I was the only one who played the piano, which is why it was mine)

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail. When I remember.  I just found last year's in my grandmother's desk in the living room;  they were never sent!

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?  A re-gifted Joan Rivers necklace from a British friend, who often works with me, that smelled like neck-sweat.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? The remake of Miracle of 34th street  with Betsy (Elizabeth) Perkins in it.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? October.  But I keep an eye out all year .

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Yes. I'm British.  We all do it, all the time.  I see nothing wrong with it. (WEll, except things that are worn and smell - see above)  It's a way of life in our family and we tease one another about it all relentlessly.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?Christmas Pudding with Brandy Butter ----- Christmas Cake

16. Lights on the tree? white, colors, blinking, non-blinking, all of it!

17. Favorite Christmas song? The Trans Siberian Orchestra cd - all of the tracks.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay at home? Home

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? Er... no.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Both.  Always used to be angel when I was a kid, but she has broken now, so usually we do a big star and whatever replacement angel I can tolerate for that year sits underneath.  It never feels quite right, but it's a compromise.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning?  Christmas morning .  After Breakfast.  And after the turkey's in,,, and everyone's dressed... and ... as long as I can hold everyone off.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? Music in the Malls

23. What theme or color are you using? Back to red this year.. in one area.  The DR has last year's teal, green and peacocks and the LR will be the mish-mosh riot of color it always is.

24. Favorite for Christmas dinner  Traditional English Christmas.

25. What do you want for Christmas this year? To sell my house at list price.

Ok.... who is next?

Kym Hough, Shell Brodnax, Karen Dembsky and Susie Blackmon

A really good post from Ken Montville out of Maryland about the case for staging.  It gives the realtor's viewpoint and is a good one for stagers to understand.

http://tinyurl.com/5uqgrf

Essentially, Ken's point is that if a seller expects to pass on the cost of the staging to the buyer by ADDING to the price, it's a risk that will not pay off in this market.  Overpriced houses don't get shown.

Success with presenting a home for sale is about PRICE AND CONDITION.

I've been saying this for months around here and it's lovely to be agreed with by an expert realtor. Too bad Mr. Montville's not in my target market.

It's a good read - come back and tell me your thoughts.  And further refutes the "price is king" notion Craig Schiller has notably battled here on AR.

Now, of course, we stagers, don't get to participate in pricing discussions... so...what's a professional to do?

December 1 and most of are looking towards the end of the year, aren't we? 

Bloggers seem, already, to be looking ahead to next year and have starting to talk about business plans. 

Not me.  I'm reluctant to look terribly far ahead:

#1 I don't like doing business plans - I stick to them with the same success as a diet or an exercise plan!  

#2 - New Jersey's real estate market is predicted to be a blood bath in the first quarter of 09, with the bottom coming in 2nd and not much recovery until 010.  This from a prognosticator so well respected his prophesies become self-fulfilling.  (i.e. If the realty community all think that's what will happen, then it will.)

Yet, one post in the Biz Plan vein struck a chord this morning.  From Kris Berg of San Diego, writing for Inman News - Making real estate 'guacamole'.  Kris writes that in order to have a strong building (a business plan) one needs a solid foundation (a mission statement).  And it is in her discussion of Missions, that I find something we should all consider as we look for revenue streams next year.  (Anyone who wants a really good overview of Staging Revenue Streams should start wtih Kym Hough's EXPO presentation, which is available for a small, extremely worth-it fee: click here)

Mission.

What is your mission as a stager?  (What is your mission statement?)

• to sell the home  (how then do you define success?)
  
• to get the house ready for sale (same, how d'you know it's ready - dont' you know it's sell-able only when it's sold?)
  
• to help the homeowner optimize the opportunity of selling their house (what do words like optimize really mean anyways?)
  
• to delight the homeowner with great service and quantifiable results (Which results - # of showings)
  
• to partner with realtors and homeowners in the sucessful marketing of a home (defining success how....again)
• Lots of others....

See how tricky this is?

Kris explains as follows:-

<<Wal-Mart could have said that their mission is to sell a lot of stuff, but their mission statement reads, "To give ordinary folk the chance to buy the same things as rich people."

Most of us are familiar with Walt Disney's mission statement, "To make people happy," but it just as easily could have read, "To sell a whole bunch of tickets to our theme parks and to cross-market our brand like nobody's business through movie ticket and retail sales plus a bunch of other stuff to be named later, in order to capitalize on the tendency for parents to give their children anything they want -- 'anything they want' being the entire Disney video library, 48,000 plush toys bearing the likenesses of princesses or rodents, and coordinated fitted sheets."

At Microsoft, "Our mission and values are to help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential." Sure it is.  What Microsoft doesn't say is that their objective is for me to purchase a new computer plus upgrade to a new operating system and the latest Office release every time my hard drive crashes (Tuesdays). The point is: You can't inspire the workers to make a great product or offer a superior service by seeing only the raw materials.>>

One of her concluding paragraphs is about her own mission as a broker-owner-realtor:-

"Our mission should be to ultimately delight our customers and see them realize their greatest success in the real estate transaction. This can't be just the agents' mission. It needs to be the industry's mission, because the industry's message sets the tone for the entire organization"

So, my friends, how should this be for us?  We're only involved in one section of the transaction... so to have "the sale" as our goal is not something we have any control over...and even if we had access to price, there are other variables that can only be the purvue (perview) of the realtor or we might as well BE realtors.

How do we define our mission so that we have a success story to tell in our own marketing?

The best staging I did this year was in early September.  The home has yet to be seen by any buyer.  The staging was greatly admired at the Brokers' Open House, but the house has not been shown once.  Not once.  Why?  It's priced too high, and in this market, overpriced homes aren't even shown, let alone bid on.  It's also out of step with current high-end tastes by a only a year but they've missed the shift and at that end of the price band that matters.  So, how do I report that story as a success?  In my opinion, I can't.  instead I talk about the homes that sell opening weekend, in 21 days, in shorter time frames because my mission is still defined as preparing a home for sale.  When it's sold is its logical successful outcome.

I have been slowly changing my mission to one of marketing... hence my emphasis on social media, social networking, web 2.0 techniques which I now teach (in 3 bands - to realtors, stagers and homeowners)...yet like all marketers... yours/my success is defined by impact on the bottom line, no?  Which brings me back to the home being sold.

What does your mission statement say?  Does it allow you to define success so that you have a compelling story to tell in your own marketing efforts?