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Home staging has reached a new level of creativity during the pandemic. When social distancing guidelines and state shutdowns went into place, home stagers continued to offer guidance from afar.
Home stager Sarah Greco, owner of Simply Sarah Designs in Hopedale, Mass., was contacted in March by real estate pros Deborah Flanagan and Naomi Vogt, broker-owners of Custom Home Realty in Mendon, Mass., to stage a home for a family moving out of state. Greco presented a contactless staging plan to the family that didn’t require her physical presence to touch and move their belongings.
Greco walked the family through staging the property themselves over a FaceTime video call.
She had them move furnishings to open up spaces, such as hauling a white sofa in the living room to an opposite wall. She suggested pops of color by adding blues through curtains and throw pillows. She provided online shopping links for the sellers to purchase two rugs (one in the living room and one in the sunroom), which helped anchor the spaces. She also walked the family through adding staging vignettes, such as a tray of mugs on the kitchen counter to imitate a coffee station or the addition of rolled-up blue cloth napkins and plate settings to show off the kitchen island. “We went through every area of the home together, and I guided them through the process,” Greco says.
The house had been previously listed in the fall of 2019 but was not professionally staged at that time. The home was relisted in March after the sellers took Greco’s staging advice, and it sold in just two days—during a pandemic.
View the difference:
Before
After
Before
After
Read more about remote staging success stories in the latest issue of REALTOR® Magazine.
