Home Staging: The Winning Way to Sell Your House for More Money

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Type: Book
Studio: Wiley
The way you live in a home and the way you sell it are two different things. That's the premise of Staging*, a concept that teaches you to look at your home through a buyer's eyes and make adjustments to improve its appeal and value.

In any real estate market, Staged homes sell faster or sell for more money--or both. With Home Staging, you'll learn how to play up your home's strong points and improve its presentation. By rearranging furniture, trimming overgrown bushes, painting a room, and clearing out the clutter, Home Staging will help you spotlight your property for a fast, profitable sale.

Filled with organizing tips and checklists, plus before-and-Staged photographs that dramatically show how Staging can transform your home inside and out, Home Staging has all the answers you'll need when looking to increase the sale price of your home.

*Staging is a federally registered trademark of StagedHomes.com

Written by a shameless self promoter.
Barb Schwarz probably has much to offer the up and coming home stager. Her various books on the subject are relatively dense when compared to books by other authors. Sadly Schwarz's books are full of relentless reminders about things like her being the "inventor" of the home staging concept, the benefits of her very expensive training courses and her 'certification'(to have even a hint of credibilty in any professional industry, certification must be awarded independantly of the training organisation) and any past successes. It wouldn't be overstating it to say that Schwarz makes at least one referance to these credentials in every single paragraph. It makes for a frustrating read when you'd just like her to get to the point. I gave 2 stars because there is some helpful content, it's just too hard to wade through all the other junk to find it. Home sellers looking for a DIY approach to home staging will find this title completely useless. An almost total waste of money for me.

My Home Staging Book Review
I found this book to be very helpful in making my decision to stage my home. Some of the ideas are such a big help and easy to follow.

Like others said: a self promotional book...
On the negative side, if I'd realized how much of a self-promotional book this was going to be, I would have spent my money on something else. The most useless sections:

A master bedroom example of before and after Staging in Chapter Three; A bed-made and bed-unmade juxtaposition isn't helpful at all.

Making home-made shutters in Chapter Four; I doubt anyone actually used this information considering there were no diagrams and the way it was written made it seem over complicated.

Chapter Eight, Welcome to Barb's House, Staging to Live; How Barb lives a completely OCD life of Staging in her own home, and is darn proud of it.

Chapter Ten, Staging Tales from the Trenches; stories from home sellers about how great Home Staging is.

Your Personal Moving Checklist; honestly, has no one ever moved before that they don't know 90% of what's on this list?

...and my least favorite:

Barb Schwartz's Home Staging Wisdom, Words that Work; quotes from Barb. If I have to read "The way you live in your home and the way you sell your house are two different things" or "If you can smell it, you can't sell it" one more time, I'll gag.

Also, it's obvious Barb stages homes in the East. In a desert, I don't really need the advice to trim back plants that have overgrown or clean moss due to rain.

On the positive side (because there were some positives to the book) it did give me a perspective on what things I need to do to make my house ready for sale. Like another reviewer stated, most of the tips are common sense; however moving can be overwhelming, and it did lay out a plan for me.

There's probably a better book out there; unfortunately this was the first Home Staging book I've read. Peggy's Corner: Stage Your Home for Profit did get better reviews, so that might be the one to buy instead of this one.

Bottom line - the book could have been written in two chapters with MUCH better photos and examples. No amount of staging makes it worth the price it's listed at.

Edit: On reflection, I should have given this 2 of 5 stars. Can't change it now!

A trashy commercial
This book has convinced me that hiring a home stager trained by the author or her company would be a disaster. The only way this book could have 4 out of 5 stars on Amazon is if Barb Schwarz's employees and her ASP trainees are writing the good reviews.

Eighty-five percent of this book is a commercial for the author's business, 10% is common sense. The remaining 5% suggests projects, such as a headboard made of paper plates, which could only make a potential home buyer question the taste and judgement of the home owner. This book is a testament to poor taste and Barb Schwarz's ego.

Only written for the wealthy?
Books and magazines frequently choose wealthier homes to show pics of staging. Don't authors realize a lot of us live in apartments, condos, mobile homes and the like? Why purchase a book/magazine if it doesn't fit my life style?