Donna Muelver, Showhomes Milaukee

Donna Muelver, her husband Rick and their son Wayne run Showhomes Southeast Wisconsin, a Milwaukee home staging franchise. Donna is a prolific franchisee and often makes  the top 10 Performers list:
Showhomes: How long have you been a Showhomes franchisee?
Donna Muelver:  I purchased our franchise in 2003, so a little over seven years.

SH: Why Showhomes?
DM: Purchasing a Showhomes franchise was pretty much a ‘no brainer‘ once we took a serious look at it.  We were already in a real estate related business and had 100’s of contacts in the market. Vacant homes are a big problem in the real estate market. We wanted to be a part of the solution.

SH: How did you hear about us?
DM: I was introduced to Showhomes by Thomas Scott, the current Vp of Marketing, who was a franchisee at the time and a colleague we’d known for several years.  Thomas discovered Showhomes at the National Association of Realtors Convention and thought we’d be interested.  I kept putting him off, but he was persistent.  Once we took the time to examine the specifics of Showhomes, we were sold.  About a month later, I flew to Georgia to sign our papers to purchase southeast Wisconsin, a territory that covers seven counties.

Before Staging by Donna Muelver

After Staging by Donna Muelver

SH: What’s your background?
DM:  I was a wife and mom for our three children and also a foster mom for over 17 years. We adopted one of the children who came to us through foster care. We had 97 infants go through our home during that time in our lives. I home schooled our children and volunteered at the foster care agency and at church.

Before Showhomes, my husband and had our own sign installation company, Second Day Services. I was also published a real estate trade publication, Broker Agent Magazine and ran a virtual tour business that catered to Realtors.

SH: What do you like best about the Showhomes franchise opportunity?
DM: It’s the opportunity to take a home that is just sitting and languishing on the market and create a warm and inviting space that totally changes the way buyers view the house. Watching the transformation is fantastic, and then to see it sell quickly is thrilling! What we do is really amazing and its very fulfilling to have a business that helps so many people.

SH: What keeps you active in your free time?
DM:  I am the children’s ministry director at our church here in the Milwaukee area. I also mentor moms with infants and young children and do some counseling.  I spend time with my 12 grandchildren and hang out with Rick, my awesome husband and supporter. I also mentor other Showhomes franchisees as they grow their business.  I truly love helping other people get to where they want to be and Showhomes has a really active franchisee community where everyone helps each other.

SH: Why would you recommend Showhomes to someone interested in owning a business?
DM:  The Showhomes concept has potential that has barely been tapped.  With Showhomes’ current growth rate and the improvements we’re always making to the system, the sky is the limit.

I have been with the company for seven years. I’ve come through both a fantastic market and low market. Showhomes is a company that does very well in both markets; but it’s phenomenal in a down market.  It truly seems to be a recession proof business.  How can you beat that?

SH: Can you share one of your secrets? What really works for you in your market?
Long-term networking and relationship building has been huge for us.  Getting the client to come to us is the easiest way to make sure we are able to sign contracts without having to do much work once we are in the discussion process.    A ‘secret’, if that is what you want to call it, is to join the local real estate board right off the bat and become an active member.

SH: What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned?
DM:  How dramatically a home can change when beautifully staged and how it changes the impression so dramatically to a prospective buyer.

Want to learn more about Showhomes Home Staging? Fill out the request information form above.

Showhomes – a home staging company – allows a hired home manager to live within vacant homes for sale with the intent of making the environment more welcoming to potential buyers.
By Nicole DeCosta

The West Linn Tidings, Aug 19, 2010

Vern Uyetake / West Linn Tidings

Edie Moll with Showhomes in West Linn — a home staging company — visits the house for sale at 2335 Oswego Glen Court in Lake Oswego. Her company places home managers and furniture within vacant homes for sale. The home manager pays for the landscaping, utilities and housekeeping services while assisting real estate agents in the sale of the home.

Who is living in your vacant house for sale?

Edie Moll, a general manager with Showhomes in West Linn, said that her company – a national brand in home staging – revolutionizes the way residential real estate is marketed by turning a vacant house into a valuable home.

Home staging – preparing a private residence for sale in the real estate marketplace through furnishings and décor – is used to attract buyers by making a home look and feel appealing. Through staging, once vacant homes are transformed into welcoming spaces with furniture, making them more appealing to buyers and hopefully selling the home more quickly and for more money than if it were left vacant.

At least that’s the idea.

But when selling a staged home it costs money to make money and Moll explained the fees associated with the service. She said her company provides a way to offset these fees.

The secret?

A home manager.

“Staging can be expensive. It’s a monthly fee, whether the home sells or not,” Moll said, noting that homeowners or real estate agents typically pay for the service. “But when you have a home manager, they offset that.”

Managing and Staging a home

Home managers with Showhomes live in staged homes for sale and keep the home tidy so Realtors can show the home to prospective buyers. Home managers pay the utilities, landscaping and housekeeping fees, which offsets the cost of the staging, Moll said. The homes are kept in immaculate condition.

“They’re ready all day, everyday – which makes it easy to show,” said Re/Max Equity Group, Inc. Broker Laurie Thiel, who is marketing a listing at 2335 Oswego Glen Court in Lake Oswego staged by Showhomes and occupied by a home manager. “It shows like an occupied home but with the ease of a vacant home.”

Home managers typically have fine furniture, pass several background checks, do not smoke or own pets and agree to move when the home sells, which can happen at any time.

“They could live there a week or a few months,” Moll said. “When they do move we actually move them to the new house. In some cases they may be at work and we’ll move everything and have the home decorated and staged and put away by the time they get home from work, but they’re just at a different address,” Moll said.

It takes a certain person or family to fit the mold for this lifestyle.

Oftentimes, hoping to familiarize themselves with the city, business professionals become home managers.

“Not everybody has the ability to be able to change like that,” Moll said, snapping her fingers. “And more often than not, the home managers are entrepreneurs. They’re used to change. They’re flexible. They like change.”

If a home manager has children, Moll said, they would be moved to another home within the same school district. Single father Thomas Iizuka, who lives in the home on Oswego Glen Court, is an architect and found out about Showhomes in a newspaper ad two years ago. And he’s lived in two staged homes since then.

Iizuka described his living situation as “keeping decorations intact.”

“A lot of people can’t live that way, but the way I looked at it was sort of like when you go to a really nice hotel or you’re renting a vacation home in the desert,” he said. “You have to be in the frame of mine that (in order) to make it look nice and enjoy the experience, you have to be respectful of the other person’s place.”

The concept is set up to be a win-win-win – allow the homeowner to stage the home, help the real estate agent to sell it and provide housing for the home manager.

Setting the stage

Instead of being tenants, the home managers are contractors to Showhomes, Moll said, so “if they leave something in the sink or there is laundry out they have to pay a fine.”

Home managers must have renters insurance and provide photographs of their furniture before being approved.

“Oftentimes they bring their own furnishings and artwork,” Moll said, who noted that her company also provides upscale furniture and décor items to display.

“Each home is unique. Not every home (on the market) is contemporary or traditional. We use whatever pieces would work in their home and add to it.”

The home on Oswego Glen Court utilizes mostly furniture that belongs to Iizuka.

“But these (bar) stools are ours,” Moll said, who houses furniture items not in use in an 11,000 square foot warehouse in Gladstone.

“Part of the requirement is to have nice furniture because most people that have nice furniture live well and live neatly. So if you have worn out things it (can be) indicative of how they probably live,” Moll said.

And while the furniture is nice, the presentation must be also.

A real estate agent and prospective buyer could drop by at any time to view the home for sale. And Thiel said that having the home furnished and orderly at all times helps her business and clients.

“Most people don’t have a lot of vision. So, if you give them an empty space they have trouble trying to fill it with size and quantity. ‘Will my sectional or easy chair fit there?’” she said. Having the home furnished “gives some space dimension.”

Clean living

Another draw for home managers is the price point. Home managers often live in luxurious homes at a cost lower than their mortgages would be, Moll said.

“If (the home) is $850,000 (the mortgage is) going to be about $6,000 or $7,000 a month plus utilities,” Moll said. But living in the same home and serving as a home manager could cost about $2,000, which is what Iizuka pays on his home listed at $849,900. Moll said she has provided this service to clients in Oregon for two years.

“I was doing this in Phoenix before. And I was a home manager for almost eight years. The homes (I lived in) there were 7,500 to 10,000 square feet,” she said.

An added value, Moll said, for homeowners allowing a home manager to live within their vacant home?

Protecting the valuables inside.

“Security is a big deal. You don’t want to leave a vacant home for too long because your appliances can disappear,” Moll said of what thieves often steal from vacant residences.

Having a home manager live within a home “also reduces insurance costs,” Moll said, noting that vacant homes could cost more.

For new housing developments, having homeowners already moved into several homes is valuable for those looking to buy, Moll said.

“People don’t want to be the first in the neighborhood,” she said. “This way, it feels comfortable.”

But when the home is shown, home managers must leave the home and make sure everything is neat and orderly.

“Buyers will look at everything. They must keep it this way all the time,” Moll said. “Even closets must be organized.”

Iizuka said he lives neatly because it’s how he’s “wired” but for many, living this way would just be good practice, he said.

“You’ve got to make your bed and take the dishes out of the sink,” Iizuka said. “There should be Showhomes for teenagers. Sort of a, ‘you can live here as long as you clean your room.’”

Iizuka continued, “I wish there were more Showhomes because I think there are a lot of people in my situation who either (went) through divorce or job misplacement (and) would like to be in a home like this because they still have their furnishings – nice things – and want to be able to enjoy them.”

Moll said she typically oversees between half a dozen and a dozen home managers at a time.

At the beginning of the summer, Moll said, she was overseeing 12 home managers, “but those homes sold.”

For more information about Showhomes visit www.showhomes.com.

]]> http://showhomesfranchise.com/showhomes-new-vacant-home-staging-franchise/feed/ 0 http://showhomesfranchise.com/showhomes-home-staging-featured-on-national-public-radio-news/ http://showhomesfranchise.com/showhomes-home-staging-featured-on-national-public-radio-news/#comments Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:48:50 +0000 Thomas Scott http://showhomesfranchise.com/?p=929

Showhomes’ Extreme Home Staging Spotlights Human Props

Carla Cheifetz, Showhomes Franchisee

National Public Radio featured Showhomes Home Staging on its Morning Edition radio show, August 18th, 2010.

NPR reporter Carolyn Beeler interviewed Jonathan and Carla Chiefetz, franchise owners of Showhomes Home Staging in Princeton, NJ, and interview Showhomes Home Manager Bill Worthington.

Here’s a link to the full NPR story which talks about new forms of Home Staging including Showhomes’ highly successful use of ‘human props’ to occupy and help sell vacant homes:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129270692

As a side note, there ARE statistics about how much more effective occupied staged homes are than vacant homes! Our staged homes are often selling in less than half the typical time on market and often for a full 15% higher sales price than comparable vacant homes.

Here’s some photos of Carla’s work:

Staging by Showhomes Home Staging

Staging by Showhomes Home Staging

Interested in opening a Showhomes Home Staging Franchise? We’re recruiting!

Fill out a request form to join a weekly webinar and learn more.

Here’s a transcript of the story:

Extreme Home Staging Spotlights Human Props

Filed by KOSU News in US News.
August 18, 2010

Bill Worthington calls himself a human prop. He seems more like an enthusiastic tour guide. Worthington is walking around his $1.5 million Princeton, N.J., home, like a proud owner.

“Look around the kitchen here,” Worthington says. “It’s essentially a brand-new kitchen, with high-end appliances, brand-new cabinetry…”

But he doesn’t own the place, or even know the owner. He was hired as a “house manager” to live in the property. He moved in with his own furniture, and bought some new items to fill out the expansive white brick colonial. He pays a monthly fee of $1,500 to live in the house, a fraction of what the mortgage or rent on the property would be.

“I’m living high on the hog for not a lot of money,” he says.

The catch: He has to keep it immaculate. The house must be ready to show prospective buyers at a moment’s notice. He can’t leave any toothbrushes out in the bathroom, shoes in the entryway, or dishes waiting to be washed in the sink.

Worthington was hired by the Princeton, N.J., branch of Showhomes, a national home staging company. “Home staging” — or furnishing and decorating a home to help sell it — has been around for decades. But with home sellers facing a dismal housing market, they’re going the extra mile to make their homes stand out in the crowd. That includes hiring house managers like Worthington to give homes a lived-in feel.

A New Routine

Every morning as soon as Worthington wakes up, he makes his bed so it looks like it belongs in a hotel. He tucks the sheets in nice and tight, straightens the off-white comforter, and replaces the decorative throw pillows he tossed on a chair the night before.

“I’m not a real good Suzy Homekeeper,” Worthington says, “so it takes me maybe 10 minutes of staggering around here half awake.”

In addition to keeping the place clean, Worthington must decorate the house to help other people visualize how they could live there. That means he can’t hang any political or religious artwork, and can’t have many personal photos. And if a buyer wants the house, Worthington has to pack up his things and move out.

The owner of the house approached Carla and Jon Cheifetz, the husband and wife duo who run the Princeton franchise of Showhomes, after the home had been sitting on the market for three years. The company operates under the assumption that lived-in houses sell for more than empty ones. Even if a house is nicely staged, Carla Cheifetz says, buyers can tell no one lives there, and that hurts the sellers.

“The prospective buyer will know that the house is vacant, because there is no food in the refrigerator,” Cheifetz says. “There’s no clothes in the closet, so therefore what happens is they will lowball offers because they feel that the owner might be struggling because they may have two mortgages.”

Staging On The Rise

Nationally, Showhomes says it has about a third more homes in the system than this time last year. It is generally accepted by real estate agents that traditionally staging a house — adding furniture and decorations — does help move a property faster.

Koki Adasi-Efuya, a Realtor in Washington, D.C., says he saw home staging increase among his clients when the housing market hit the skids.

“I saw the big jump probably around 2007, 2008,” Adasi-Efuya says. “Inventory, you know, kept increasing and people saw that it was getting harder to sell the house, so they started to think of other creative ways to make the property sell.”

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (CBS – David Wiemers is trying to sell his lovely townhome in Rancho Santa Fe.

“It’s three bedroom, three bathrooms, 2,129 square feet,” he said.

It’s filled with beautiful furniture. None of it is his. The furniture belongs to the home’s current occupants, Darla Allen and her husband.

“We just relocated here from another state for my husband’s business,” Darla said.

Darla and her husband aren’t renting or leasing. They are home managing.

“We manage the property, make sure it’s clean, it’s taken care of and we get to live here,” Darla said.

Living in an upscale ZIP code for a fraction of the cost.

“We have to have the home ready from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and they give us at least a half-hour notice,” Darla said.

Lisa Gulliver is a representative for Showhomes.

“To be in our program, they need to have high-end furnishings. We only use high-end furnishings to the make the home really beautiful. They have to have a clean lifestyle. The house has to be ready to show to a potential buyer at any moment,” Lisa said.

Having an occupied, staged home has advantages to the owner.

“It goes from being a house to a home, and that’s the emotional difference,” David said.

For the current residents, it’s a chance to try before they buy.

“This worked well for us because we could try different areas of town. We’re empty-nesters now, so we don’t have to worry about dragging the kids around,” Darla said.

And should the house sell, Darla’s ready to pack up and move again to another show home.

“They will find us another property in an area that we like. We’ll try again until we’re ready to buy,” Darla said.

These days, living a lavish lifestyle is not a question of coin. It’s more a function of furniture.

Jack Hunglemann

Jack Hungelmann, an insurance industry expert and author of the bestselling ‘Insurance for Dummies’ book, recently published an online article about the issues owners of vacant homes have with homeowner’s insurance.

In his article: “Showhomes” Solves the Coverage Problems of Home Vacancy“, Hunglemann had this to say about Showhomes:

How Showhomes Works

Showhomes solves both the vacancy and unoccupancy problems. A resident manager moves in and completely furnishes the place. The manager takes care of the premises, including lawn care, snow removal, etc., and pays the utilities. The manager also keeps the home neat and ready for showing at any hour. When a prospective buyer comes through the home, they see that it is clearly cared for inside and out. There is food in the fridge and clothes in the closet. Prospective buyers pay more and buy more quickly in an occupied, nicely furnished home.

Resident managers pay Showhomes a monthly rent, about a third of the rental value for that type of home in the rental market.

Vacant home for sale damaged by vandals

Features of the Showhomes Homeowner Contract

I’ve read the Showhomes’ contract. From a risk management perspective, it’s quite reasonable to both parties. Note the following.

• Insurance Obligations—Showhomes agrees to carry general liability for injuries and property damage to the public, special perils legal liability coverage for damage to the home itself, and workers compensation. The homeowner agrees to continue the insurance on the home.
• Mutual Waiver of Subrogation—Both parties agree to waive claims against the other to the extent the loss is covered by their own insurance.
• Mutual Indemnity Agreement—Both parties agree to defend and pay any judgment against each other when one party is sued due to the sole negligence of the other party.

The Benefits

There are several benefits to the owner of a vacant home of the Showhomes relationship:

• The home is no longer vacant or unoccupied—ergo, no exclusion for glass, vandalism, or arson.
• The insurance is no longer at risk of being immediately canceled. In fact, the homeowners policy underwriter may elect to continue the homeowners policy. The home is now occupied by a “caretaker,” and the homeowner is not receiving rental income from the resident manager.
• If the policy must be rewritten due to the fact that it is no longer owner-occupied, the home should be eligible for a preferred market dwelling fire policy. This means preferred rates and broad coverages, thus avoiding the high-priced limited-coverage specialty marketplace.
• There is a high probability of a quick home sale at a better price.
• It transfers the maintenance and responsibility for utilities to the resident manager. This is especially an advantage if the owner of the home has moved to another area. (The resident managers won’t however scrape up your doggie poops, nor will they clean your swimming pool!)

You can read the entire article here.

Vacant home staged by Showhomes in Nashville

Showhomes is a near-perfect solution for homeowners that have a vacant home. Vacant homes are a hand grenade when it comes to insurance; often the only option for an owner is to pay 400% more for a policy that has less coverage.

Fortunately, with Showhomes, owners get a perfectly staged and occupied home that looks and shows well. Because we carry specialized insurance, the homeowner can often get a far less expensive policy that costs less and covers more.

Pat Hermann poses before the mansion she stages in Minnetonka, Minn. AP

Steve Ladurantaye, Real Estate Reporter

Globe and Mail

Forget fresh flowers and percolating coffee, human stagers are where it’s at in the tough, high-end U.S. home market

Patricia Hermann is the ultimate house sitter.

In the past four years, she has lived in six monster homes in Minnesota, where she works as a nurse at the Minneapolis Heart Institute. The average emergency room nurse in the state makes about $70,000 – good money, but not enough to make the mortgage payments on the $850,000, five-bedroom Tudor-style she’s currently calling home.

Ms. Hermann is a “home manager” for Nashville-based Showhomes Home Staging, an nationally franchised network of home staging businesses. She pays a small amount each month – the amount is different in each market, but is usually around $1,200 to $1,500, or the average rent in a city for a decent two-bedroom apartment – and moves into empty homes that are languishing on the resale market. She’s a human prop, brought in along with fresh-cut flowers and some tasteful paintings to help a property feel “lived in.”

“I’ve been doing this since 2006 and I kind of take it one year a time,” said Ms. Hermann, a 63-year-old grandmother of three. “Maybe I’ll decide to get a place of my own again some day, but I’ve gotten so spoiled that it would be hard to move into a little apartment.”

The concept of home staging, often called “fluffing”, is an old one. But in the aftermath of the U.S. foreclosure crisis, it has taken on greater importance, as desperate homeowners try to set their properties apart from millions of others on the market.

Staging used to mean bringing in some snazzy furniture and making sure there weren’t any lingering odours to turn off prospective home buyers. But that is no longer enough. The housing crash has left some 20 million homes unoccupied and for sale, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Many of these are high-end properties being sold by people who took on too much and have since moved to rental properties or smaller homes. Others are empty because of foreclosures.

Regardless of the reason, vacant homes often sell for less than occupied ones. Buyers know the sellers are motivated to unload the property. Empty houses can depreciate quickly because maintenance is neglected, and buyers have a hard time picturing themselves living in what is currently an empty shell. In the U.S., buyers already have a lot of choice: For every qualified one, there about 40 homes available.

“The bottom line is vacant houses get low-balled by bottom fishers,” said Thomas Scott, vice-president of marketing at Showhomes.

Enter the professional house sitter, whose job is to keep the property in “pristine” condition in return for below-market rent. “We don’t let just anyone do this,” said Mr. Scott. “There’s pretty rigorous screening involved. You can’t have a criminal record, you need good credit and you can’t be a slob.”

There’s no particular demographic in play, but young professionals and even families are prime candidates, Mr. Scott said. Many of the home managers are coming out of a divorce and looking for short-term housing while they figure things out. Most managers stay on for a few years, while some have been around for a decade or longer.

Showhomes charges homeowners a fraction of a percent of the selling price and also makes money from the monthly fees it collects from its managers.

The Canadian market hasn’t seen human stagers yet, but Mr. Scott said the company would target model homes and homeowners who have been transferred to other cities.

There is no shortage of actual home stagers in Canada, however. They typically work with real estate agents to make a home look more desirable to prospective buyers, removing clutter, adding new furniture and rearranging things so there is better flow.

“Ten years ago this was just a cottage industry made up of housewives looking for something to do,” said Christine Rae, president of St. Catharines, Ont.-based Canadian Staging Professionals and co-author of Home Staging for Dummies. “Now there are savvy professionals making a good living.”

The goal of professionals in both countries is to ensure the changes look as natural as possible, so that the buyers don’t feel like they are walking into a movie set.

It has been a profitable business for Showhomes, which now has 65 locations and hopes to have 80 offices open by the end of the year. Some 450 people are signed on as house managers, and collectively they help sell about 1,000 homes a year.

As for Ms. Hermann, she’s torn between loving where she’s living and hoping the homeowner is able to sell the luxurious home. She has been there for nine months, and the longest she’s ever lived in one of the homes is 16 months.

“I think with this economy, I may be here for a while,” she said. “I feel bad for the homeowners, they get worried. But I know I’m helping. The house looks amazing.”

For more information and franchise opportunities, visit www.showhomes.com

June 03, 2010 — TAMPA – FOX 13 News: Selling a home in today’s economy isn’t easy, but there are ways to speed up the process.

The last two years have been a rollercoaster ride Jim and Nancy Ward. They have been realtors in the Bay Area for nearly 16 years, having gone through the boom and the bust.

“It takes more creativity to showcase a home,” said Nancy, “to put it in its best light, because there is so much competition.”

To help them showcase, they’ve teamed up with a company called Showhomes home staging.

“When we come in and design and decorate a home, what we’ve done is transformed a vacant house into a valued home,” Karla Dorsey, Showhomes’ Director of Sales.

Here is how the showcasing works: a professional house-sitter moves into your home with their furniture. They maintain the house and pay the electricity bill, but you continue to make the mortgage payments.

“What we do is we bring a home manager in, that’s a professional house-sitter,” explained Dorsey. “They have their beautiful furnishings, we come in as a design team and we design and decorate the home.”

“Showhomes” are selling 50 percent faster and 25 percent more than vacant homes in Hillsborough County. In the last two weeks, 9 houses have gone under contract.

“First home we ever staged with Showhomes, we actually were able to put a contract on a home that had been for sale with other realtors for three years in 29 days,” said Nancy Ward.

Five of the Wards’ homeowners went with Showhomes. All of those houses have closed or are pending.

“Another success story recently was a house in Cheval,” added Nancy. “A more expensive home, fewer buyers available to buy a home like that, and it was under contact in 9 days and has already closed.”

For more information about Showhomes home staging, go to www.showhomes.com

Nashville – Showhomes, a national home staging franchise, awarded its Chicago North Shore – Barrington location its coveted Franchise of the Year Award for 2010.

Showhomes recognized the North Shore – Barrington location because “it excels in home staging, maintains the highest standard of quality, has shown steady growth several years in a row, and has produced outstanding home sales results for its customers,” said Bert Lyles, Showhomes CEO.

The home staging franchise has a twist that is producing results in today’s real estate market: it uses live-in home stagers to help sell vacant houses. The company helps home owners and their Realtors in the Chicago market sell homes substantially faster than comparable vacant homes and often for a much higher price.

The Chicago North Shore – Barrington franchise is owned by Barbara Bliss, a former Lake Forest Realtor. “It’s thrilling to be a part of so many success stories,” said Bliss. “My franchise has flourished during the boom and the bust. We have roared through the recession; we’ve seen double digit growth every year since 2005.”

“I have a passion to help Realtors, home owners and buyers visualize the very best possibilities for presenting a house,” Bliss said. “A beautifully staged home with a live-in home stager makes all the difference in a market that’s overflowing with inventory.”

It is also the most economical way for a home owner to stage a large home: the live-in home stager pays the monthly staging fee so the home owner doesn’t have to, saving thousands.

Houses staged by Showhomes are often the first to sell in the northern suburbs of Chicago, where Bliss’ franchise has its blueprint. Case in point: recently, she staged a $3 million home that had been on the market for 806 days before staging and it sold in 78 days once the live-in stager moved in. In addition to selling faster, the home sold for very near the asking price.

Bliss’ current listings top $40 million. She has six employees and a bustling storefront in downtown Lake Forest. She credits much of her success to a boundless passion for home staging and her willingness to educate Realtors about the benefits of Showhomes.

“This is tough market for home owners,” Bliss said. “I’m happy that our hard work makes it possible for many homes to sell that would otherwise sit. In many ways, we are helping the housing market recover one home at time.”

About Showhomes Home Staging

Showhomes is a home staging business with a twist: the company uses live-in home stagers to manage vacant houses while they are on the market for sale and offset a home owner’s expense to stage the home. The innovative marketing strategy has been producing results since 1986 and the company has helped over 25,000 home owners sell vacant houses valued at over $8 billion. For franchise opportunities and more information, please visit www.showhomesfranchise.com.

]]> http://showhomesfranchise.com/chicago-home-staging-business-awarded-best-in-nation/feed/ 0 http://showhomesfranchise.com/showhomes-home-staging-toledo-in-the-news/ http://showhomesfranchise.com/showhomes-home-staging-toledo-in-the-news/#comments Thu, 03 Jun 2010 12:06:11 +0000 Thomas Scott http://showhomesfranchise.com/?p=906 Judy and Matt Pokorny, owners of Showhomes Home Staging in Toledo, OH were recently featured on the local ABC affiliate in Toledo. Showhomes garnered this piece through its PR efforts paid for by the national ad fund. Showhomes has one of the most successful PR campaigns in franchising and our franchisees get strong returns on the contributions they make to the fund. Take a look:

At Showhomes Home Staging, we have a tradition of celebrating wins by ringing bells. We do this when we add new franchise owners, we do it when we contract new homes to stage, we do it when we move in our live-in home stagers and we do it when we help home owners sell their homes. Ringing the bell increases our energy level, helps us focus on progress and helps everyone in our company pick up the momentum. When you move faster than everyone else in business, your business thrives. Most of all, ringing loud bells is just plain fun.

At our national conference in Nashville this month, we took our bell ringing to a new level. Matt Kelton, Showhomes’ COO, is a fan of Saturday Night Live and in particular of this famous skit featuring Will Farrel and Christopher Walken:

Kelton had the brilliant idea to hand out cowbells to everyone at the conference and when they heard a great idea, ring the bell and yell out ‘I need more cowbell!” It worked and throughout our high energy gathering, cowbells were a-ringing (if ringing is the right word for the dull thonk a cowbell makes.)

Showhomes has lots to ring bells about: Our franchise system has expanded greatly, our overall revenue numbers are way up despite the slow real estate market and recession and most importantly, we are succeeding at helping home owners all over the country sell homes faster and for higher prices.

It may be a ring, a ding or a donk – we’ll take it!

Take a look at our group as they Thrive in 2010:

For more information, visit: www.showhomesfranchise.com
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