It’s no secret that I love to work with Alex Jordan and his team at McGrath Paddington. They treat Home Staging Brisbane as an integral part of their team and we work hard to keep them and their clients happy. I always ask my clients why they’ve appointed Alex to a listing and they tell me it’s a mixture of his professionalism, the results he achieves, and that he’s a decent person. I couldn’t agree more. Over to Alex…

I had a consult with a potential client earlier this year. It was obvious that she’d done a lot of de-cluttering and arranging and cleaning before I arrived but the house wasn’t ready and felt dark and dated. I needed to have a courageous conversation with her. It must be so hard to hear a relative stranger tell you that 70% of your furniture needs to go and that this is going to cost money. But I had the conversation and this is what happened…

In the gap between Christmas and New Year towards the end of 2018, I sat on my back deck with laptop, pen, and paper and noted down every property I’d staged that year. All 100 of them.

I put the houses into separate piles, then tried to work out what I loved and didn’t love so much about the houses that I had staged. These were the results…

One of the aspects of my job that I find most rewarding is matching the furniture selection for each property I stage with the architecture of the property. Well known designer, Kelly Wearstler sums this up as “being thoughtful about the architecture you are designing into”.

One of the perks of being a stylist is being entrusted to stage a new build. I’m always aware that I’ve been bought in at the end of a project and that the staging is just the finishing touch to a lot of hard work and decision making that precedes it.

A builder that I love working with is Tabrizi Home Builders. Kevin Tabrizi leads the team at Tabrizi. I asked him some questions about his business and the role that staging has in his builds….

Running a business is hard at the moment, isn’t it?

My business is a direct barometer of the state of real estate. We’ve weathered many storms in Real Estate in Brisbane but the Coronavirus seems to be the daddy of them all.

Find out what I’m focussing on right now to serve my clients and protect my business

One of the plus sides of running my own business is the personal development that I’ve gained along the way. I’m a naturally introspective person, which can slow me down (I’m an over-thinker from way back), but this does come with a healthy dose of self-awareness. Find out what I’ve learned here.

I staged this house recently. It’s the third time I’ve staged for this developer and one of my partner agents is listing the house. Two people I love working with and two stakeholders in the success of the sale of this house and future business for them both and therefore for my business.

So what’s next for Home Staging and the Property Styling market? There’s a lot more to running a successful property styling company than knowing where to place a sofa. The companies that survive will be the ones that know and can articulate their value, know their specialisation and serve serve serve.

Since starting out as a property stylist in 2011 I’ve worked with, met and talked to a lot of agents. Here is a list of the seven habits of my favourite agents that set them apart from the rest.

Put a couple of property stylists into a room and the conversation will soon turn to the question of quoting against other stylists and being undercut. Both agents and Stylists have a part to play in the eradication of the game of getting three quotes.