This week’s theme will be staging related, although it will encompass some of the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Some sellers and listing agents spend top dollar staging their properties.

Others take short-cuts, and it shows.

And some sellers have absolutely no clue how to prepare a property for sale, and it makes you laugh, rather than look at the property as a serious candidate…

Having just listed and sold a property where I completely overhauled the home, I can’t tell you how much I believe in the power of staging.

If you spent $5,000 staging your home, it could get you another $50,000 on offer night.

Read that again – it’s not a typo, and it’s not an exaggeration.  If you do EVERYTHING right, including the staging and the marketing, you can see a massive return in the end.

On the other hand, some sellers take shortcuts, and rather than….say…..renting a bedroom set, they install something like this:

It’s not that bad, is it?

It looks cheap for sure, and it’s a bit wrinkly, but it’s better than nothing, right?

Consider the photo below the equivalent of looking up a lady’s skirt.  When you see something like this, you can’t take the property seriously:

Some areas of the home don’t need to be staged, and you’re not hurting your sale chances if you simply leave the area empty.

And if you do decide to stage that area, in some cases it makes people do a double-take, stop, and look at the weird choice of staging location and/or items, rather than spending time looking at the property.

Case in point: who the heck stages a closet?

Some staging items are used incorrectly.

Below, we see a bit of a twist on the old wine-bottle-holder.

Maybe the “flippers” of this house just had a ton of Budweiser left over from when they got drunk and installed that awful backsplash that doesn’t fit with the granite…

In a house that was about 98% vacant, we went down to the basement, turned on the lights, and came face-to-face with some wildlife.

“Don’t touch it,” my client told me, as I reached toward the bird like a 5-year-old child.

Why in the world would somebody leave this in their house when it’s up for sale, especially considering that lamp, chair, and desk were just about the only other items in the home?

Repairs are a big part of the staging process, and a good staging company can often help you fix a few odds and ends around the property.

Below is a closet, in a higher-end downtown condominium, where the sellers thought it prudent to leave the broken track, broken door, cheap do-it-yourself clothing bar that doesn’t fit the space, and giant hole in the wall.

It’s not their fault.  It’s not like they’re experts.  Oh, wait, this place is owned by a Realtor…

I don’t even know what to say about this sad half-banana, half-lady candle.

But I do know that it shouldn’t be in anybody’s home…

Way to make prospective purchasers feel welcome!

This condo was a whopping 80-degrees when we went inside.

It’s a good way to ensure that buyers only spend 60 seconds in your home…

And last but not least, and nothing to do with staging…

Here’s the manager of our Bosley Queen West office, and TREB president-elect, Mark McLean, showing us his eco-friendly initiative as he tries to encourage Realtors to GO GREEN, and help cut down on emissions: