REPOST: Home Staging Effect? Not Much.

How effective is home staging? A recent study finds it really doesn’t have that much impact on a home’s sale price. Additional details of the study's findings are featured in The Wall Street Journal article below.

How much does a tacky purple wall color affect a home's sale price? Not much, according to new research on home staging.

Option 1: Some study participants saw a home rendering with ugly purple walls and mismatched furniture. (Image source: wsj.com)

While good staging does influence a home buyer's overall impression of a house, staging alone doesn't result in buyers willing to pay more for the house, says Michael Seiler, professor of real estate and finance at the College of William and Mary, who researched how home buyers responded to six house tours that varied in paint color and furniture quality.

His findings show that buyers are willing to pay roughly $204,000 in each of the house examples, regardless of the quality of furnishings or paint color. However, the research subjects believed that other buyers would adjust their pricing based on how the house is staged.

"We were able to parse out what you consciously believe and subconsciously believe," Mr. Seiler says. "Beforehand, everyone thinks poor staging is going to be a problem. But when we actually did the experiment, we found it doesn't matter."

Option 2: Other participants saw a rendering of a room with neutral paint color and matching furniture. (Image source: wsj.com)

Mr. Seiler and co-authors Mark Lane of Old Dominion University and Vicky Seiler of Johns Hopkins University led 820 home-buyers through one of six virtual house tours in March 2012. Using professional-grade rendering software created by an architecture firm in Virginia Beach, Va., each house featured either a "neutral" beige wall color or an "unattractive" purple paint color, and "good" furniture, "ugly" furniture or no furniture. The neutral and attractive options were chosen to appeal to the greatest number of people, Mr. Seiler says. The home buyers then reported what they would be willing to pay, as well as their overall impression of the house.

Still, Mr. Seiler warns: "All we could test is how much the home would sell for. What we don't know is whether a well-staged home will sell faster. It may sell quicker."

The study, "The Impact of Staging Conditions on Residential Real Estate Demand," has been accepted by the Journal of Housing Research for publication sometime next year, he said.

Image source: wsj.com

It may be hard to persuade real-estate professionals of the findings.

Doug Eichman, a real-estate agent with Core in New York City, spent more than $30,000 to stage a Midtown East penthouse co-op listed for $6.995 million. His stager, Cheryl Eisen, president of New York City-based Interior Marketing Group Inc., says staging works when buyers feel emotionally connected to the house.

"The bare-bones reason for staging initially is to show buyers how they can function in a space," Ms. Eisen says. "When you go over the top, you make them have an emotional reaction to the space. If they fall in love with the space, they will be willing to pay for it."

Darci Willis, a real-estate agent with Century 21 Scheetz in Carmel, Ind., says that when potential buyers are on the fence, a well-staged home may be a deciding factor.

"Even though people logically know that they can change the paint color, it can be distracting and off-putting. Buyers are thinking emotionally at that point," she says.

Realtor Marian Khosravizadeh is connected with Woodland Hills Real Estate Services. She specializes on serving clients who are looking for real estate opportunities in Los Angeles County and its surrounding communities. Learn more about the ins and outs of buying and selling homes here.

REPOST: Home buying: Go with cold, clear logic (and rent)

Financial advisor Patrick Bet-David migrated from Iran in 1990. Despite having the money to buy a new home, he still rents his house in Los Angeles. He likes the flexibility of not being tied to a house and the benefits of a rising market. The Denver Post tells his story.

Image Source: denverpost.com

Anyone looking for a strong shot of unvarnished reality need look no further than Patrick Bet-David. This California-based financial services adviser is to romantic notions — like home ownership and dating — what sunshine is to fog.

His outlook may be just what America needs.

"I was sold an American dream," said Bet-David, who immigrated with his family from Iran in 1990. "What I saw as an immigrant was a place we could have freedom of religion, and run a business in a free market, with free enterprise."

And today, at 34, Bet-David owns the PHP Agency, a financial services firm he founded four years ago that has 30 employees and 200 full-time independent contractors nationwide. Bet-David does very well.

He also rents his home.

"My employees come over and wonder, 'Why does our CEO rent his house?' " he says.

Because he's following his own financial rules, that's why. One of those rules: Just because you have the money doesn't mean you should buy a house.

His wife of nearly five years knew early in their courtship that owning a home was not going to be part of the plan for a long time. That discovery occurred shortly after their second date.

They went to church, then to breakfast, then to a bookstore where he bought her a book: "101 Questions to Ask Before You Get Engaged."

Talk about cutting to the chase. "I figured, I liked her, she liked me, so let's flush out any problems before some deal-breaker comes up a year from now."

I'm telling you, this guy is practical in the extreme. "After that, I knew I would marry her."

His no-nonsense approach to courtship applies to home buying, too: Logic first, emotion second.

"I've worked with thousands of families struggling to make house payments, which leads to arguments, all because they bought a house prematurely, and spent too much," said Bet-David.

I thought I'd call Bet-David for a reality check because lately, I've been hankering to buy a home again. As a live-in home stager, I am not currently living in a home I own — a lifestyle that breaks with more than two decades of personal history.

However, I do own a home in another state, which I rent out, making me both landlord and tenant — as well as crazy.

"While I like having the flexibility of not being tied to a house," I tell Bet-David, "being a tenant just isn't the same as owning. I want to paint my way, add built-ins and moldings, put up window treatments, plant a garden, have a dog, get to know the neighbors, nest." He's heard it all before.

"What you're doing — owning a home you rent out and renting where you live — is perfect right now," he tells me. "You get the benefits of a rising market, but can be nimble."

"Perfect?" I'm not sure I heard right. That would be the first time anyone has ever used that word to describe my investment strategy.

"What you're doing has a lot to do with the phase of life you're in. Your kids are taking off. Your career is blooming. You're charting a new course."

"You think I planned it this way?"

"You've built houses from the ground up. You've bought and sold. Been landlord and tenant. You know about the different phases and stages of life and houses. I want to teach other people to do what you've done," he says.

I can't even talk for laughing.

"I work with a lot of millennials just getting started. They think buying a house is the next thing to do. But they saw what happened to their parents," he says.

"Please tell me they learned something from the spend, extend, pretend era," I beg.

"My message isn't 'don't buy a home,' " he says. "My message is, the American dream is not home ownership. The American dream is freedom."

"I want both," I said.

Bet-David is about to have both. In four months, he and his wife, and their two sons, ages 20 months and three weeks, are moving from their rental home in Woodland Hills, Calif., to a house they're buying in Dallas. (He chose Texas partly because it has no state income tax, so it's friendlier to business.)

But he still followed his own home-buying rules.

Smart home buying

Financial services adviser Patrick Bet-David's five rules:

1. Don't buy unless you have more than 12 months of house payments saved. He helped me with the math: Say, you buy a house for $350,000 and put 10 percent down. Depending on your loan, you will probably have a $315,000 mortgage, which will cost about $1,800 a month or $22,000 a year in mortgage payments. Add $3,000 for property taxes, and more for insurance and association fees, so you should have $25,000 to $30,000 in the bank after closing.

2. Don't buy if you're not going to live in the area for 10 years. Do your due diligence. (Bet-David has been considering the Dallas area for two years.) Consider your work, the community, nearby family, schools and neighborhood.

3. Don't buy if you're a newlywed. "Wait two years," he said. "In addition to being a couple, you are business partners. It could take a while for you to learn how your partner manages finances. If one is spending out of control, you don't want to take on a mortgage. First learn how disciplined (the other is.)"

4. Don't buy too much house. Whatever price home you can afford, force yourself to go 10 to 20 percent cheaper. Brokers might try to persuade you to buy as much house as you can qualify for. Resist.

5. Don't buy a house to keep up with your friends. Even if you and your friends have the same household income, and they buy a house for a certain amount, you don't know whether their parents helped with the down payment; you don't know what their debt is or whether they're going to be overextended, he said. Deal with the cards you were dealt. Buy within your means, not someone else's.


Mariyan Khosravizadeh is an experienced Woodland Hills realtor who helps buyers and renters find their ideal home in the best possible deal. Subscribe to this Facebook page to get more tips on home buying and renting.