Design Your Dreams™ Interior Decorating and Home Staging, Oklahoma City

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Frequently Asked Questions


What Is "Use What You've Got" Decorating?
Use What You've Got Decorating is about rearranging and repurposing using what a client already has in their home. It is about enhancing and beautifying a space, creating better function, balance, and cohesion without spending a lot of (or any) money to buy new items.

What is "Healthcare" Decorating?
Healthcare decorating is the process of not only creating a visually appealing and comfortable space, but also a non-threatening and calming environment for patients. It takes training and knowledge of the medical environment and a special understanding of the process of patient care.

What Is Home Staging?
It is the careful, thorough, and deliberate process of using specialized techniques to prepare your home for the sales or rental market by making it universally appealing to all buyers. Moreover, it is the proven method of increasing the perceived value of your home, giving sellers, on average, 6-8% OVER their asking price.

How Do I Know if My Home Needs to be Staged?
Do you live in it? Then it needs to be staged. In fact, it's a safe bet to say that 99% of homes could benefit from some level of carefully manipulated staging. Lived-in homes have been personalized to the family's taste and newly-built, empty homes are cold and uninviting. Staging warms up a house and helps buyers visualize themselves in the space. It can also actually manipulate a buyer's perception; small rooms can be made to look larger and awkward spaces can be made to look perfectly functional. A professional Stager can do all sorts of magic to draw one's attention away from a home's imperfections and toward the features a seller wants to hi-light.
DID YOU KNOW?

Staged homes spend an average of 78% less time on the market than non-staged homes. (Source: HomeGain and Real Estate Staging Association)

Vacant homes sell for an average of 15% less money. (Source: HomeGain)
Why Should I Hire a Professional Stager? Can't I Stage My Own Home?
You could stage your home by yourself but it is not recommended. Professionals have no emotional ties to your belongings and can look at your home with an objective, unbiased eye. Furthermore, our training allows us to see things that most homeowners would not notice. You likely will be doing the bulk of the work, per the professional Stager's recommendations, but it is not advisable to forego seeking the advice and assistance of the professional Stager. (And they will often roll up their sleeves and do, or hire people to do, much or all of the work for you, if you so desire!)

How Long Does the Staging Process Take?
This depends on the size of the home and the amount of work to be done. Your professional Stager can better answer that question after seeing the home and finding out what your goal is, e.g. do you just want to sell fast, or do you want to get the most money out of the sale?

What Happens During a Staging Consultation and How Much Will the Consultation Cost?
A Home Staging consultation is merely a viewing and a gathering of information by the professional Stager. You and your Stager will talk a bit at first. She will probably ask you what your selling goals and moving timeframe are. You may discuss the staging budget. She will likely ask you how much you know about the Home Staging process and provide you with information and statistics about Home Staging. And then your Stager will want to take a thorough look at the entire property (inside and outside), make notes and take photographs. She will probably want to do this alone. Doing so will help her focus better on what needs to be done without the distraction of conversation. She will then give you her conclusions and either offer an estimate or request a day or two to calculate the time with what needs to be done before a quote is given. A staging consultation can take from 1 to 3 hours and the cost varies by home size, travel time and distance, and the length of the consultation. Sometimes, free consultations are offered if a Letter of Agreement (hiring contract) is signed on the spot.

What Happens to the Photos of My Home After it is Staged? Are They Given to My Realtor?
The photos become property of DYDI and may be posted on this Web site as examples of DYDI's work, but no personal information about or photos of any client are ever made public or sold. The photos can most definitely be shared with your listing agent, and are authorized for publication on the realtor's Web site, or any site on which you choose to advertise your home.

How Much Does the Actual Home Staging Cost and Is it Really Worth the Expense?
The total cost for professional Home Staging can vary from home to home and depends on the size and number of rooms to be staged. It is absolutely worth the expense. In fact, even if you don't hire DYDI to do it, it cannot be stressed enough how important staging is, so hire someone. Never, never, never list your home for sale or rent without staging it.

When your home is placed on the market, it becomes a product, the most expensive product you will likely ever sell, and the most expensive product that a buyer will ever buy. That product needs to be universally appealing. It also needs to stand out from other properties the buyers have seen, especially in a slow market when the competition is high.

And it is important to know that staging is more than cleaning and making repairs. It is a careful and precise process involving a professional Stager's artistic talent, formal training, marketing knowledge, and knowledge of consumer psychology. It has decades of proven efficacy and lucrative returns. While it might feel a bit painful to the wallet at the outset, sellers repeatedly report after their homes sell that it was "the best money they've ever spent."

NOTE:
When Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Los Altos, California, looked at nearly 2,800 properties in eight U.S. cities in 2004, they found that the staged homes, on average, sold in half the time that the non-staged homes did. The sellers with staged homes ended up with 6.3% more than their asking price, on average, while sellers with non-staged homes sold for only 1.6% more than the asking price.

The RESA Report:
Home Staging statistics based on the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and Real Estate Staging Association studies - Click Here to Download RESA Report