Home shoppers can feel a bit like Indiana Jones when they first enter a foreclosed property for sale.
They never quite know what they’ll find when entering these temples of potential doom. The home could be in pristine condition — or it could be missing major appliances, have foul pet odors and show other signs of neglect.
Such unwelcome discoveries are happening less frequently these days.
Some banks are hiring professional design teams to make their properties look more presentable — and, therefore, more marketable to the buying public. Some foreclosed homes are merely getting a fresh coat of paint and new, neutral carpets. Others, particularly older homes, receive aggressive face-lifts from professional home stagers in the hopes of selling faster.
Either way, it’s increasing pressure on home sellers to up their game, said Mike Walker, a broker associate with Innovative Real Estate Group in Denver who underwent negotiation training.
The company offers home sellers a design report card of sorts to help them compete with this trend. That means the standard real estate advice — remove clutter, keep surfaces spotless — as well as more advanced tips from a local design pro.
The report starts with ways the homeowner can maximize his or her existing resources to improve the home’s appearance. But it also can include more elaborate information on how to keep up with the foreclosed Joneses.
Some of Walker’s clients will simply do as told, while others will go one step further and sink a few thousand dollars into their properties.
Sellers of new homes must understand they’re not only dealing with a sluggish real estate market today, but “they’re competing against professional (design) companies,” he said.
Erica Starich, owner of Star Interior Solutions in Highlands Ranch, said professional staging increases “the likelihood of a quicker sale, which is very important in this economy.
“Staging is all about the presentation, making it look the best it can,” he said. “With a foreclosure, you never know what you’re walking into . . . the lighting fixtures could all be pulled out.”
A handful of banks did not return messages regarding professionally staging foreclosed homes.
Barb Schwarz, a pioneer in the home-staging industry and chief executive of , said banks began pouring resources into their foreclosed properties in earnest last summer.
“They’re slow in some cases to awaken to this,” Schwarz said of the benefit of modifying foreclosed properties for the marketplace. “Now, they’ve started replacing the stonework, relandscaping the front yard” in their foreclosed properties.
The better bank-owned properties look to the casual home buyer, the more pressure comes to bear on people trying to sell existing homes.
“For traditional sellers to compete, they have to stage,” she said.
Gary Harper, a broker associate with Re/Max Advanced in Fort Collins, said banks began tweaking their foreclosed properties sporadically at least 25 years ago.
“They got away from it, and then somebody in the system remembered they got return (on investment) for doing it,” Harper said.
Some bank-owned properties today are even being held off the market for weeks at a time while they get a nip and a tuck, he said.
Schwarz said people shouldn’t expect this trend to stop, especially given the current marketplace.
“It’s becoming more urgent. We haven’t seen the end of the repossessed and short sales,” she said. “They’re really getting on board with this. I don’t expect that to change.”
