 Hi, I'm Realtor Saramaro with Cell State Peak Realty. My guest today on this 15th episode of Proper Tea Time is Bridget Waters of Stage Right Homestaging. Bridget is a Longmont native who has been of service to her clients for many years. Bridget's married with four kids, she was a local hairstylist for 17 years before starting Stage Right in 2016, and she's been successful and very busy all six of those years. With a designer spirit and an eye for color and class, her work makes any room into a people magnet. She loves working with us realtors and advocating for sellers who are looking to earn top dollar on their greatest asset. She also has a passion for making spaces beautiful and for helping fellow Colorado homeowners. Stage Right is based out of Boulder County, but she serves as Denver, Weld County, Fort Collins, and she'll travel all across the front range. Bridget believes that there's no market, no property type, and no situation where staging won't pay for itself and results in a seller walking away with more money. Thanks for being here. My pleasure. So let's dive right in. Why don't you tell us about Stage Right Homestaging and how long you've been in business, what you do, and what you love about what you do. I have been in business since 2016, and I love helping homeowners sell their homes and get them ready for the market. Awesome. I know that when we go into a house, we can often tell it's been staged, but what is staging? Is it like really impeccable cleaning? Is it really nice furniture? Is it certain neutral colors? Is it like stuffing all your belongings into storage and getting your house totally looking pristine? What are you mostly doing? It is all of the above. It's best if you have it professionally cleaned before we come into stage and we come in and hang artwork and place the furniture and make the house look homey. Nice. So is it true that you mostly use, like I said, neutral colors? Is the goal to really have a buyer come in and be able to see their own life and their own stuff and their own sort of brand, if you will, in the home? Absolutely. Are you trying for a universal appeal? Yeah, absolutely. But I do say I don't stage in vanilla as far as all light and white, bright. I like to make it feel homey. I like them to be comfortable. Stats show that the longer somebody is in a house when they're looking at properties, they're more likely to put in an offer. I want to know a little bit more about that. So do you know any statistics on, like, by how much the bottom line changes for a seller when it's staged versus when it's not? Is that one of your marketing tools? Absolutely. Yeah. Staging always pays for itself and then most houses sell for 10,000 to 15,000 more. Okay. Cool. So that's sort of something you've seen over time, both in your business and other stages businesses. Is it the sort of thing where, I know staging really should happen right away. Have you ever had to come in and swoop in and rescue a listing that's sitting and not selling? Do they still earn more money? Does it boost appeal, I'm assuming? It does boost appeal and a lot of times, a lot of my agents say that I'm just their good luck charm and they call me and sometimes I just go and look at it and they say I'll never believe it, we're under contract. Or I go in and I stage it and then they're under contract in another week or two. I do recommend that they do get pictures taken again. So you're often, I assume you're called most frequently once the listing agreement's in place but as soon as right away is when they need photos. Absolutely. So you try to get in there cleaner, next day staging, next day photos, get the listing up. Any updating or touch up painting and stuff needs to be done first, then we stage and then have a photographer come in the next day so that you get 30 full days of rental of furniture in the staging. I was going to ask you about that. So staging, there's obviously an upfront cost for what you do and then you rent out, is it just furniture? Is it artwork? You mentioned is it rugs, pillows, what do you use? It's all of the above, decor, artwork, and furnishings. Cool. And that they pay per month for those, that one expense. Yeah. Is there ever a time, you know, we hear kind of different things about the hot market, like we were at the peak of the market as we know, February, March of this past year, of this year. Is it ever okay to not stage? Is it like at a low price point, maybe an as is sort of a situation? Like when is it okay to not stage? Or do you just recommend? I recommend for your clients to at least do a pre-listing consultation. And we go in, I go in and we just look at each room and talk about, you know, removing personal things and extra furniture. And, you know, it's just using their furniture and their belongings and decor. And we do anything from a one bedroom apartment to condos to townhomes and to, you know, million dollar homes. So you do the whole gamut? Absolutely. Any type? What about commercial? Ever like set up a business or an office? I have, yes. I've done a chiropractor's office and also a dental office. Just make it look nicer. Yeah, just their waiting rooms and picking out colors and making it look smooth. Nice. Is there such a package that you offer that's like maybe they don't want their bedroom stage or maybe they need some living areas? Do you ever just do like the kitchen or just the living room? Absolutely. Yeah. If there's just one room that's empty, if a child has moved out or they've gotten rid of some furniture, then yeah, we can come in and do, you know, her room or area or just add some pops of color with artwork and throw pillows. I bet that makes a big difference. So tell me, I've been in some homes. I've been in many homes, of course, and there's a lot of stuff. People have stuff. You know, and I assume when you're a stage or your goal, not only is to make a blank canvas and to do your thing, but to like get, to reduce the amount of clutter in a home, to reduce the amount of belongings. What if, like where do they put their stuff during this time of staging? Is it like, do you park in the storage unit? Is it a pod out back? Is it their garage? What do you see people do for that solution? Yes, it's minimizing and packing things away. You're moving anyways, so you might as well go ahead and get the moving boxes out and start packing things up. You can store that in the basement or in a closet. Pods are great because you load it up at your house and then have them come and get it and drop it off at your new house. That's true. Just stash it, assuming they have another house. Yeah. And this definitely helps because we're selling the four walls. We're not selling all of your stuff. And people look at those pictures. They get to the third picture and they better be in the house by then and they decide if they want to see the house or not. And if they're checking out what book you're reading or what you're saying on your wall is, then they're not looking at your house. It's a really good point. And I don't really have that skill, that ability to see past what's actually there. Yeah. So it is. It's a blank canvas sort of a situation where I do this for a living. I get distracted, oh my gosh, look, there they are. I've climbed that same mountain before. Yeah. Oh, look, these guys, like Harry Potter, so do I. It's very distracting. Exactly. Exactly. And when you're in there selling the four walls and the home, then you want to have depersonalizing and minimizing things. You want to get the attention in the right spot. Yeah. Absolutely. Great point, yes. I assume you mostly work with sellers. Is there ever a time when you work with maybe like, I don't know, a landlord or a business owner? Is it just mostly sellers that you're working with? It's mostly sellers. I do know that there are some staters that do a lot of Airbnb's. Airbnb's. Yeah. Airbnb's. I have not, but mostly just working with realtors and homeowners. So you bring up Airbnb, that's an interesting point. I wouldn't know where to start. Not only am I not really a designer, but I don't really own, I'm single, I don't own that much stuff. Do you ever find people, like, do you ever consults if I wanted to Airbnb out a unit of mine? Maybe you just tell me how to go by? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Definitely. And is your business mostly based, so I boast that my business is mostly Northern Colorado, particularly Longmont. I like, where's your home base and do you do the whole front range? Longmont and the Boulder area are my home base, but I go all the way down into Denver and I try to keep the suburbs close, you know, like, mostly this area. Sure. Whenever you can. Can you give us, let's just, I mean, we've got to talk dollars here. Can you give my clients who are sellers and thinking about staging a sense of the cost? You said it pays for itself, which is great. Uh-huh. But is it, I mean, how much are we talking for your services here up front? Maybe a consultation, what does it cost, maybe on average, to actually stage, say, like a two, like a three bedroom two bath here in Longmont and does that, then I assume those rental fees are add-ons. Can you talk a little bit about your offerings? Yeah. We have different packages. A pre-listing just going in and talking to the homeowner and getting the house ready for the market is 125 and that comes with notes afterwards that I send the homeowner into the agent. And then we have called an open house package and that's just bringing in 10 to 15 decor items and artwork, just some pops of color. And then like a full staging of a three bedroom, like you said, would be anywhere from 1700 to probably 2500. It's actually really affordable. About 2000, yeah. Okay. And that doesn't include the rental of certain units? No, that does. That doesn't include the first 30 days of business and the rental of furniture. Another reason to price your home right the first time. Absolutely. Get it sold in that first month. Yes. Can you talk about basements a little bit? Like three bedroom two bath, I assume you have like, you know, your kitchen stuff that you use, your living room stuff, your bedroom stuff, assuming the paint and the carpet look okay. What about like an unfinished basement or even a finished basement? I would not necessarily want my buyers down in there. How do you do, how do you make it look better? Do you want some bright colors, opening the blinds and lighting? We can always set up on a, for a bar. Or I always recommend if it's an unfinished basement to go get from Kiko some blueprints of different ideas of an exercise room down there or a game room, movie room, theater. So are you kind of like my stylist where I can show you pics in magazines and you can match sort of ideas? Yeah, absolutely. I love the bar idea. I never even thought that you could stage that and give someone else the idea. Absolutely, yes. Well, I'm pretty much out of questions. I think this was so helpful. I am curious, like how do people find you? How can they, do they mostly word of mouth? Do you have a website? I do have a website and also word of mouth. We're on Facebook and Instagram. Stage right home staging. Bridget Waters. Yes, thank you so very much. That was awesome. That's the best for you.