Home Staging Pennsylvania- Hart & Associates Servicing the Main Line, Philadelphia, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties.

Got Staging? : Pennsylvania Home Stager Named Staging Professional of the Year

Having problems selling your new construction or resale home? Are buyers constantly complaining that your home is too small or too "tastefully challenged"? Consider home staging to help your home realize its potential and open buyer's eyes to your home's selling features.

Kate Hart, President and Principal Designer for Hart & Associates Staging and Design of Wayne Pennsylvania, has recently been named Professional Stager of the Year 2007 by RESA- the Real Estate Staging Association. This is the first time this national association has awarded this prestigious honor.

Ms. Hart has personally provided staging services in the Main Line, Philadelphia and Delaware Valley regions for the past 4 years and her network of staging associates service clients nationally and internationally. In addition to helping home sellers, Ms. Hart has mentored and trained hundreds of staging professionals and real estate agents in the art of home staging and is passionate about helping female small business owners achieve their goals.

Ms. Hart believes home staging is an essential marketing tool for home sellers and Realtors that want to better showcase resale or new construction homes. In today's market, home staging can give sellers an advantage over non staged homes in the same price point and location because buyers are more able to appreciate the selling features a staged home offers. Home staging can also help home sellers realize a higher sales price and accrue less days on the market. Homes Ms. Hart has staged sell in as little as 4-6 showings when priced and presented accordingly.

Hart & Associates Staging and Design is the region's premier staging firm. Their work has been featured in prominent magazines, newspapers and television stations including HGTV, The Fine Living Channel and CNN. Ms. Hart is a frequent speaker on home staging and her daily blog can be found on the Active Rain Real Estate Network site.

For more information on home staging and how it can help you to prepare your property for sale contact:

I wish to express my gratitude to all of you who selected me to be the RESA Professional Stager of the Year- I want to personally thank Shell Brodnax for all her hard work to create such a wonderful organization.  I am so honored to have received this accolade and even more honored to have been amongst such a wonderful group of nominees.  These professionals have worked hard to set the bar for stagers to come and I admire them for their professionalism, ethics and the skills they infuse in their work and bring to our industry.  I believe 2008 will be an important year for our industry and am excited to see how we grow and continue to support home sellers with marketing and preparing their homes for sale.  

I also want to thank Shell for all her hard work and passion for creating RESA and all the other stagers that have helped to make it a presence in our industry.

I have posted my accomplishments on the RESA site for your consideration. You can visit the site at www.realestatestagingassociation.com to vote.

I have also created a Real Estate Show to highlight my accomplishments as a stager and I invite you to view it. One of the photos is from my very first staging job- can you guess which one it is? I thank you for your vote and look forward to what the new year will bring for the real estate market and our industry. KH

Last month Chris Benedict a Realtor on Active Rain was looking for a stager to help his team with a new listing. He found my blog, reviewed our work and contacted me to meet with his client to give them a proposal to stage their home. It was wonderful to meet someone in person that I otherwise would have only known online.

Today we staged the property and marketing will begin next week. It is a stunning new construction home in Edgmont Township PA in the heart of Radnor Hunt, a short drive to Philadelphia and near the Main Line.

To see the home yourself you can view the Real Estate Show below. The pictures do not do the home justice- the quality materials and workmanship are outstanding and the kitchen and master bathroom are superb. I recommend that if you are a local Realtor that you view the home in person to fully appreciate the tranquil setting this home offers on 7 acres of conservation land.

Thank you again to Active Rain for providing professionals in the Real Estate Industry witha means to connect and grow their business.

Today I Googled my name to check up on my search ranking for home staging in my area. To my surprise I discovered that my staging articles were posted on other home stagers websites. No need to play plagiarism police, they all cited me as the author although no one linked to my site which would have been nice.

The most surprising thing was that I discovered that I was in 2 articles for HOME STYLE MAGAZINE! I had never seen the articles published and I was excited to read them. If you want to check them out you can see them below. Many thanks to the author Patricia Rivera for including me.

Lights, Camera, Action

Set the Stage

You may want to check out your own name from time to time so you can keep your marketing and press up to date. You never know what you may discover about yourself!

I was recently nominated for the RESA Professional Stager of the Year. If you would like to vote for me please click here.

I thought I would start out the New Year with a blog about a funny but strange thing that happened to me last week with a staging project. One of my favorite blogs to write is my "day in the life of a home stager" series.  I have not had the time to write about my adventures lately but a friend (thanks CS) suggested that I blog about my latest drama so others can enjoy the crazy, and sometimes odd job we do called home staging:

In 2006 a Realtor I work with asked me to stage a property for a family that was going to be renting a home while their new construction home was being built. This was something I normally do not do but decided that it would be fun to create an entirely new look for the family while they were living in a temporary home. I asked one of my Associates to set up a meeting with the family to view the home. She then selected the furniture, wrote up the proposal and scheduled the job to stage the property.

Two days before the job my Associate called me to let me know that her son was ill and that she could not install the home. She had not had time to prep the job and asked me to select the items from our inventory and go to the home and set things up. The renter would not be there (they were at their Summer home) and I could let myself in and stage the home so it would be ready when they returned.

The day of the job I went to the home and set things up. I left the renter a note letting her know that if she needed anything else to call me and I would come back and fine tune the home. The Realtor was pleased with how things looked and told me that the home owner wanted to keep the items after the renter moved out so the home could be staged when it was shown.

6 months went by and I did not hear anything from the renter, the homeowner or the Realtor. 6 more months went by and I finally called the realtor to inquire about what was going on. She said that the renters' home was still not ready. Since I was billing them every month I decided not to complain about it.

Last month I got a call from a homeowner in my town asking for me to come take a look at her vacant home that she wanted to sell. We set up an appointment. When I arrived at the home I rang the door bell and a woman answered. She said that she was renting the home and the owner had not told her that anyone was coming over and that I could not come in to take a look. She said she was moving out in two weeks.

I called the client- she had forgotten about our meeting and we rescheduled to meet last week once the renter had moved out.  It was a charming newer home with great details and hardwood floors. The kitchen was small yet stylish and I could not help but comment on the great accessories she had. I asked her if they belonged to her and she said that they were the renters and she was coming back to collect them that day.

We then went into the family room and I immediately noticed the artwork and lamps the renter had left behind. I loved how they had an elegant yet simple chic look that did not overpower the space but still drew your eye to the fireplace. Again I commented on how nice her items were. The homeowner agreed telling me that she liked the look of the home when the renter lived there so much that she took pictures and was going to use them in the marketing of the home.

When we entered the living room I felt like I was in a dream. In front of me was the most perfect floor vase with reeds and a natural sisal rug and twin topiaries on the mantle. I immediately blurted out "This woman has fabulous taste! Is she a designer? I know I am here to look at your home but she has done such a great job!"  The homeowner replied that she was a stay at home mom with 4 kids and they were living here while their new home was being built  With that I asked her the client's name. Upon hearing the name I was stunned- THIS WAS THE NAME OF THE CLIENT WHOSE RENTAL HOME I STAGED 18 MONTHS AGO! BUT THIS WAS NOT THE HOME I STAGED. THIS HOME WAS 5 MILES AWAY! HERE I WAS ADMIRING HER THINGS AND THEY WERE REALLY MINE!!!

I paused and took a deep breath and explained to the client that I was feeling very strange. I had staged a home for that client and assumed that they were living in that home and now here I was in an entirely different home looking at my own staging work!! I felt as if I was in the Twilight Zone. She laughed and said that at least she now knew what my work looked like! The renter had never told her that these were not her things. The reason I did not know it was my staging when I visited the home is that I never met the renter in person and went to stage their first home before they moved in. When I went to the new home to do the estimate and she answered the door I had no idea it was the renter.

So what happened to the first home? Well it sold and the clients had to move out!  Last night I got a call from the renter and she is now in her permanent home and wants me to pick up the items.  I explained that I was the stager that came to look at the second rental home and she said she did not realize it was me since my Associate met with her the first time. As for the home seller- she contracted us to do the staging work but called me yesterday to tell me that the home RENTED. Another renter had seen the home online (with my staging for the other renter) and decided to live there for the next 6 months. The plan is to stage it when they move out but we will wait and see.

Sometimes this is a very strange job. We go into people's homes day in and day out and help them prepare their homes for sale.  You never know what you will see- it may even be your own staging!

 I am very honored to have been nominated for RESA Professional Stager of the Year. To vote for me please VOTE HERE