GUEST POST: HOME STAGING FOR THE REAL ESTATE MARKET WITH MAUREEN KENNEDY, USC™ OF STAGEHOMESRIGHT.CA

​Stage Right is both a Home Staging and ReDesign service. They work with homeowners, real estate professionals, investors, and builders to provide quality home staging that will bring top dollar sales in your target market. Here's what they had to say about staging your home for listing: 

Staging is about making your home visually appealing and welcoming to prospective buyers. In many homes only minor tweaks or temporary adjustments are needed to make your home presentable. 

​Here are 5 major tips & tricks I always tell my clients:

Our homes are filled with memories that tell our story, but we don’t live in our homes like we sell them. Remove personal items such as family photos, trophies, and sentimental items. Maybe paint that bright coloured wall to neutralize the space, so that prospective buyers can see the chapter of their story as soon as they walk through the front door. ​

​Every room should have its own purpose and function as it was originally to be. An example, if a dining room is being used as children’s playroom, then the children’s toys should be moved to another location in the house and proper dining room furniture be set up. Only 10% of the population can see the rooms potential if being used for an alternative purpose.

​Before a buyer even steps through your front door, you’ve created a first impression. Keeping the outside of your home clean and tidy improves your home’s curb appeal and will make a difference when you’re looking to sell. Simply paint the front door, replace old hardware, tidy your garden and spruce up your entrance by placing a chair and small table to the side of the door.

I started my first market update of 2020 with a series of news headlines:

• “Housing prices hit record high in Halifax,”
• “Nova Scotia average home sale prices took a big jump in the past year,”
• “This Hydrostone home sold for $80,000 over the original asking price.”

Housing prices in Halifax have been just as newsworthy in 2020, with 7 properties in the urban core selling for over $100,000 above asking.

In 2020, we saw the average house price in Halifax rise by 14.6% (compared to the norm of 4-6% annually) leaving first-time buyers with fears of being priced out of the market. 

What didn’t happen: Back in the spring, CMHC CEO Evan Siddall forecasted a 9-18% drop in average house prices over the next 12 months. This prediction was based on the belief that we would see a high number of foreclosures once homeowners were no longer able to defer mortgage payments. 

With prices on the rise and increasing homeowner equity, it is unlikely we will see a high number of foreclosures as sellers in financial trouble will opt to sell rather than foreclose. Several Canadian economists have spoken out and said the CMHC Housing Market Forecast is no longer relevant.

​We started 2020 with record low inventory levels in Halifax, entrenching the sellers’ market that had been building in our city since 2018.

Add in a pandemic and we saw the number of new listings drop between 65-70% each week as sellers held off on listing their properties amid uncertainty in the market and fear of community spread.

What’s causing these record low inventory levels? Millennials.

The Demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z, are now 27-40 years of age and have entered their peak home-buying years. Millennials make up 31% of the population in North America and represent 45% of new mortgage applications. What we are experiencing is termed the Millennial Draw Down. 

As such a significant portion of the population enters the housing market for the first time, we are seeing Millennials buy up home inventory at a faster rate than the inventory comes to market.

What slim pickings mean for buyers: Low inventory means you need to be on your toes when you go house hunting—the best homes will likely be snatched up fast. Check out my post on buying a home in a seller’s market for more tips.

​The timing of the first wave of COVID-19 in our province disrupted our Spring market which is usually considered the hottest season for real estate. We often see the highest number of new listings and highest number of sales in the spring, but this year people pushed pause on their real estate goals—unable to take advantage of the buying or selling process as it once was.

The lack of a traditional spring market didn’t hurt our overall annual sales numbers. A surge in home sales toward the end of 2020 actually made up for the spring market losses.

13,923 properties sold in Nova Scotia over the course of 2020. This was an increase of 13% from the same period in 2019 and marked the highest level of any year in history, beating the previous record set in 2019 by more than 1,500 sales.