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The driveway is a bit overgrown, the hallway and living room look like 50 years ago.
In short: the house looks shabby and a bit musty.
If you want to sell such properties, you will have to look a little longer for a buyer.
And the price that the broker calls is of course not paid when one is finally found.
Something like this is possible even in the overheated real estate market - perhaps not in Munich or Hamburg, where a buyer can quickly be found even for run-down houses.
But elsewhere.
Petra Rose has no understanding for this.
“Nobody will try to sell their car unwashed,” says the trained master carpenter, who has been a so-called home stager for around ten years.
Home stagers pimp homes before they sell.
They give the real estate the "curb appeal", as it is called in the USA, the home of home staging - in other words, a good impression even from the sidewalk.
Home ownership prices continue to rise
Home ownership prices continue to rise.
Especially in the big cities of Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt am Main, Stuttgart and Düsseldorf.
But also in the country.
One reason for the booming demand is the low interest rates.
Source: WELT / Nicole Fuchs-Wiecha
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Rose worked in the United States for four years.
There she noticed that houses and apartments were being presented for sale as if peeled from an egg - with stylish furniture and perfect lighting.
The idea behind it: The property should achieve the best effect.
With this in mind, the broker should quickly encourage the customer to buy.
And those who feel comfortable in the apartment are also happy to pay more.
“That works better with a tasteful, modern interior than with a few bare rooms with bare lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling,” says Rose.
When she returned to Germany, there was hardly any home staging here.
But the German Society for Home Staging and Redesign (DGHR) has existed since 2010.
Rose is one of the founding members of the professional association.
Today it has around 200 members.
Home staging is strongly represented in North Rhine-Westphalia and in metropolitan areas such as Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Berlin.
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"We put a house or an apartment on the stage," says Rose.
For this it is important that the old furniture is removed.
There is also no space for personal mementos, photos, hunting trophies or cluttered bookshelves, because buyers are interested in the property and not in the seller's life story.
The house should not only look tidy, it should show the customer the potential.
In addition to the good impression, he also wants to know whether a double bed fits in the bedroom and the kitchen base units under the window.
It is part of this that walls are whitewashed and floors are re-laid from time to time, says Rose.
And then a home stager decorates sparingly.
“Every room has to be carefully thought out.
But it is not important to completely furnish the living room.
A nice carpet, a chic sofa with a side table, nice lamps, maybe a tasteful picture on the wall - that can be enough. ”The lighting is very important.
Home stagers are not allowed to deceive
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Rose's business in Weiler near Bad Kreuznach has a warehouse in which she keeps furnishings for several apartments - this is also important because the furnishings remain in the property until they are sold.
Even an older bathroom can often be transformed into a modern one with simple means.
This also includes kitchens - but none for cooking.
“Many colleagues had foldable modules built.
With simple fronts and worktops.
It comes very close to a real kitchen and looks convincing. ”Furniture fakes are of course allowed, but home stagers shouldn't be fooled, because damage to the house shouldn't be hidden, says Rose.
“When I come into a house with damp walls, it has to be renovated first.
Otherwise I won't take the job. "
Miviso does not refurbish the apartment itself, just a photo
Source: Miviso
Home Stagern is about highlighting the chocolate side of every property, says Petra Rose.
This basically works for every property.
As a rule, this also ensures that real estate is sold faster - and more expensive.
“On average, we can achieve 10 to 15 percent above the offer price.
And it is not uncommon for sales to be perfect from the very first appointment. "
The DGHR wanted to know more precisely and recorded and evaluated the work of its association members from 2014 to 2018.
According to this, the offer price is exceeded in 34.5 percent of the orders and exactly reached in 38.6 percent.
9.2 percent fell short of the offer price, and the remainder did not know the result.
But it doesn't have to be home staging if the required prices are not reached, says Rose.
It also depends on how well a broker knows the market.
According to association statistics, a good 14 percent of all “staged” houses are sold when they are viewed for the first time.
57 percent are gone within four weeks and 85 percent after three months.
According to Rose, even greater evidence of the benefits of their industry is the time in which the properties were offered unsuccessfully before a home staging expert was called in: 27 of the managed properties were six to twelve months, another 27 percent even longer than a year on offer, so practically not for sale.
Brokers are Rose's most common clients.
However, private providers are increasingly commissioning home stagers as well.
Depending on the effort, he needs three to five days for an order.
According to Rose, one to three percent of the sales price should be assumed for the service.
But it is also possible for less than 150 euros.
Then the house or apartment will not be refurbished, just a photo.
But that is very convincing.
A well-lit designer apartment or a salon furnished in an English country house style is digitally processed from a spoiled interior.
“Or whatever else the customer wants.
We can offer everything, ”says Michael Danklmaier, one of the three founders of the Miviso company from Innsbruck.
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However, customers prefer the preselection offered by his company: Fresh, Galant, Alpin, Scandinavian, Black & White, Harmony or Luxury are the names of the styles that can be selected on the Internet.
"Furniture, colors, accessories - everything is coordinated with one another in order to create spaces that immediately convince buyers," says Danklmaier.
Most clients are brokers
It takes around five minutes for a new customer to put together their dream facility.
“It will be delivered in three working days.” A photo costs 145 euros.
With several recordings it will be cheaper.
A package consisting of living room, bedroom and bathroom costs around 400 euros.
Most of the customers are brokers here too.
"For them it is a competitive advantage if they can advertise the property with fancy pictures," says Danklmaier.
The reactions to the apartment viewing are positive.
Miviso shows with his photos what is possible, said Danklmaier.
However, it is better to point out that the photos are “furnishing suggestions”.
For landlords, digital processing of an occupied apartment that is to be rented or sold offers additional advantages.
Because according to the German Tenants' Association, landlords have no right to take any photos in the rooms as long as the previous tenant is still living there.
It could encroach on its privacy if, intentionally or unintentionally, something of the tenants' way of life, its furnishings or other intimate details are shown.
Therefore, it is better for the owner to virtually modernize older photos of the apartment and furnish them in a chic way.
Is the digital the competition of the real home staging?
“We thought that at first.
We feared that they would take business away from us, ”says Rose.
“Today we see it much more as a supplement.
Home staging is different.
In an apartment you can smell, see, sit down.
And you are not disappointed when you have seen great photos - and then there is nothing. "
This article was first published on October 12, 2019.
This text is from WELT AM SONNTAG. We will be happy to deliver them to your home on a regular basis.
Source: WELT AM SONNTAG