What Does Tim Bostwick of AMI Staging Have to Say About Home Staging?

Why is home staging so important to the success of a home sale? I’ve brought in the CEO of AMI Staging to explain.

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As a home seller, staging is an important part of the home selling process. With that in mind, I’ve brought in Tim Bostwick of AMI Staging to explain what you need to know about home staging and why it’s critical to the success of your home sale.

According to Tim, AMI Staging specializes in helping Realtors get houses ready for sale, which means doing a lot of front-end work on the home before it gets listed.

“What we do in the house is a reflection of the selling strategy,” he says.

For example, if you have a vacant home that’s getting listed soon, they’ll first talk with the Realtor to discuss the home’s selling strategy and what kind of buyers they think will be looking at the house. From there, they develop a staging plan. This dictates both what kind of furniture they bring into the home and how they stage certain rooms.

If you’re prepping your home for the market, Joe definitely recommends that you stage it. In his words, staging is an amazing investment, and you should look at it as an investment—not an expense. This is because home staging’s ROI can be quite high.

Staging is also an important step in “explaining” the house. When a home is empty, sometimes it’s hard for a prospective buyer to envision themselves in that home. This is especially the case with homes with modern designs where the rooms are generally bigger and tend to run into one another.

AMI Staging covers the whole Bay Area, and each region can differ quite a lot from the others in terms of home styles. For example, if they’re staging a home in San Francisco, that home might be as much as 100 years old, so their plan would have to address the challenges of likely having to deal with smaller rooms. If they’re staging a home over in East Bay, however, that home is more likely to be a ranch-style home with a bigger lot.

One of the most common problems Tim faces when staging is sellers not wanting to let go of their home. This feeling can cause them to not like the staging that gets suggested for that home. At that point, Tim and his team have to explain to the seller that they’re not redesigning the house for them—they’re staging it for the next owner. Tim finds that the more refined a seller’s taste is for interior design, the less likely their home’s future buyer will share that taste in design.

If you’re considering staging your home, Tim stresses that you should rely on your Realtor to recommend a good stager for you.

“The Realtors know who’s good—they know who they can work with,” he says. As Tim explains, you want a Realtor and a stager who are working together and talking to each other. This goes back to his original point about knowing the home’s selling strategy and knowing what kind of buyers will be looking at the home.

A stager’s goal isn’t primarily to stage the house—that’s just a means to an end. Their goal is to help sell your house faster and for more money.

I want to thank Tim for joining me today. AMI Staging is excellent at what they do, and if you’d like to see some examples of their work, I’d be happy to share some with you. If you’d like to get in touch with Tim, you can email him at [email protected].

As always, if you have any other questions or you’re thinking of buying, selling, or investing in real estate, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d be glad to help you.