Beauty added to homes helps sales
DOWNTOWN It takes more than just a fresh coat of paint and some new carpet to sell a home these days. A seller has to make the home inviting, warm and comfortable for the buyer.
That’s where Chris Rohloff comes in. The son of legendary surf photographer and filmmaker Grant Rohloff uses his father’s prints to decorate homes for sale in a popular and rapidly expanding business known as staging. Design firms use photos like Rohloff’s black-and-white images of surfers hanging-10 off Malibu to compliment furnishings hand-selected by interior designers to create a certain vibe for a home or condo up for sale.
The idea is to make a home more attractive to the eye and get buyers to visualize what it would be like if they owned it.
“Stage designers have been doing it for decades in the movies, why can’t we do it with a home?” asked Chris Rohloff, who has followed in his father’s footstep as a photographer and is set to distribute his work to staging companies for display.
His father, who directed the surf classic “The Men Who Ride Mountains” and the popular “Wet and Wild,” died in 1989 at the age of 54 after suffering from lymphoma cancer. Chris Rohloff found an old brown bag which contained long-forgotten surf slides that he has since made into prints that sell anywhere from $750 to $3,000.
“I was just taking photos and marketing my dad’s stuff when all of a sudden I fell into this staging thing, and in the last couple of years it’s caught on like wildfire,” Rohloff said.
Simply put, staging is enhancing a home’s décor though elements of interior design. That includes, but is not limited to, fine furnishings, artwork, rugs, blinds, plants, vases, candles, even clothes.
Realtors swear by it, pointing to research by the National Association of Realtors and staging professionals that shows homes which are staged often sell faster and for a higher price than homes or condos that are not. A recent study of west coast homes found that 17 out of 25 staged homes sold within seven days and the rest within 30 days, and that prices jumped 2 to 10 percent in a moderate market. The biggest advantage to staging occurs with luxury homes or in a market with bidding wars over properties, where effective staging can boost prices by 20 to 50 percent.
“It makes all the difference in the world,” said Gaby Schkud, associated manager of Coldwell Banker in Santa Monica who has used staging more frequently in the last five years. “Sometimes buyers have a difficult time picturing themselves in a home or some homes may be over cluttered and can be presented in a better fashion. Staging companies can come in and transform a home overnight, bringing everything in, including pots, pans and silverware.”
Schkud said some will even provide clothing for a seller who may be going through a divorce and needs some female or male clothes to fill out a closet and make the home appear more family-oriented.
“You only have one chance to make a good impression,” said Beth Ann Shepherd, president of Dressed to Close, one of the leading staging companies in the Los Angeles area. “When selling a $25 million home on the beach or a $650,000 condo, buyers are going to walk in and either they like it, or they walk out. If the market is sluggish or there’s a lot of competition on the market, people are going to gravitate towards the home that looks good, smells good and sounds good.”
Prices for staging vary depending on the size of the home and the type of furnishings a sellers is looking for. Most staging companies will do a walk-though to determine a customers needs. The seller has input on the design and can suggest a look that fits their lifestyle or that of a potential buyer.
In Santa Monica, the look is very casual and California modern, Shepherd said.
“There is typically a lighter look, with clean lines and light colors,” she said. “More than anything, it’s a young group of buyers and they are hip. Even when they have families, they want it to be young, stylish. More than 50 percent of the homes we stage for sale, we sell some if not all of the furniture within the home.”
Kind of like “The Endless Summer,” a film about surfers who travel the world in constant search of the best wave, Chris Rohloff has found a seemingly never-ending need for his and his father’s artwork, introducing a new generation to the beauty of beach life.
“Homes are going to keep selling,” he said. “It’s just really refreshing to find a new venue for this. I was dealing with interior designers, but they were too finicky. With staging, basically your stuff is going to work eight out of 10 times, so there is just a lot more demand for my stuff.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 11, 2007. Read the original PDF.