Real Estate Staging

Archive for March, 2007

Question: Do real estate "home stagers" ever park luxury cars in the driveway to make homes look more desirable?

I'm wondering if Home Staging professionals ever seek to park flashy, expensive cars in the driveways of high-end homes in order to make the properties look even more upscale and desirable to potential buyers. Is this ever done? If so, how do they procure the vehicles to park there? From dealers? Car companies?

Answer: I have been in real estate for 32 years. Staging is thought to help the home show better- not to pull attention away from the house. A car of any kind parked in front of a house blocks part of the view and does not help sell the house.

Real Estate Halloween Part 2: The Poorly Staged Home

Question: How do I get my daughter to stop being selfish and realize she needs to take care of her grandfather?

I have a 22 yr old daughter who graduated in May with a degree in English. Since then, she's worked for only 1 month in a customer service job, and was let go because she couldn’t meet the sales requirements.
The semester before her graduation, I offered her a job through our family’s business caring for my father-in-law. He has Alzheimer’s, and if he isn’t in the later stages now he will be soon. She declined, saying she felt she wasn’t able to capably perform the responsibilities. She also told us she was concerned the severe depression she’d been treated for four months earlier would come back. I became angry, since the other members of our family all work and he needs full-time care.
She failed to find employment, and moved home. For 2 weeks, I constantly hinted we needed her help. She finally agreed, and started helping for about 5 hours every day. Even after she started helping, I told her many times she could do more.

Answer: First you need to realize that this might be as difficult for you as it is for your daughter. If your daughter was very close with her grandfather, then this Alzheimer thing can be very difficult for her to go through even though she might not show it. And her problem with depression may make this even more difficult for her.
However, if she just does not seem to care about her grandfather. Or if this does not really affect her. You need to realize that you can not force her to change her mind. She is a grown adult with her own set of morals and values. What seems to be the most important thing on your agenda may not align with hers. I understand this is a difficult time for everyone in your family. But constantly hinting her to help more is not going to make her want to do it more. To her, it i will just seem like you are nagging her.
I do not suggest you give her the ultimatium of living in your house and help or moveout; this will worsen you two's relationship. Once again, I sympathize with the difficulty of this issue, but your best bet is to help her find another job and using the money you are using to her to hire another nurse that can take care of him.

Another thing you need to do is to consider things from your daughter's view. To her, you might be the one that is selfish. Forcing her to do something that is not her responsibility. And she might be right when she says she felt she wasn’t able to capably perform the responsibilities, not everyone is fit to preform responsibilities that is needed to take care of someone with Alzheimers.
Hope that helped.
Im sorry about your father-in-law.

Marketing Your Home Staging Business with Karen Schaefer of APSD