Getting everything to look "just right" is the job of Stephen Sczubelek of Metro Home Staging in Kearney Mesa.
Home staging is really about preparing your property so that you can sell it for the highest possible price in the shortest amount of time, Sczubelek said.
He took his background in home furnishings and bought Metro Home Staging a year ago. He's been swamped by homeowners trying to sell their homes.
"We're running considerably ahead of business this time last year, and every day we're getting new projects and it really is tied to the condition of the market at the moment," he said.
Sczubelek can bring in furniture and accessories that will give the property a stylish, lived-in look to appeal to a wide range of potential buyers.
"One of the benefits of staging is it leaves a very great first impression in a very short amount of time,” he said. “So you like to have a wow factor, but not so much that the furniture becomes the story of the property."
Rental properties, like Decca at Park and Robinson in Hillcrest are also using home stagers. The property manager hired Sczubelek to bring in furniture to show potential renters what furnished units would look like.
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“When you enter a home and there's furniture in there it brings a warm feeling and it brings an alive feeling to the home,” said Jennifer Turrietta, Decca property manager. "It makes a big difference, you don't really capture the size of a home unless you actually see furniture in it." She said staged units were immediately rented.
“It's all about attracting a renter or buyer by defining the personality of a home,” said Sczubelek. "More important, most importantly defining a lifestyle that they can attach themselves to, so that when they leave they have a memory of that property, a memory that says I want to live there. And that's what I do."
There is a glut of homes, condos and rentals on the market now. People are looking for any edge possible to distinguish their property from others.
Realtor Helen Spear hired Sczubelek's Metro Home Staging to furnish a 4-bedroom, 6-bath, three-level oceanfront property in Ocean Beach home priced at $3 million.
The realtor said having Sczubelek furnish the home, right down to the coziest detail, lets people can imagine themselves living there.
"People can envision where they're going to sit, where they're going to eat, where they're going to enjoy, look at the view and live,” Spear said. "This way people can feel as though it's their home and all they have to do now is get out their checkbook."
Whether it's starting with an clean slate of empty rooms, or having to rearrange furniture, or declutter rooms, a home stager has to be honest and impartial
"A fresh set of eyes who really is just looking at your property as a product to be marketed, that can really see through a lot of that and give you some really good direction as to what you need to do and hopefully you follow that advice and then your property gets sold much more quickly," Sczubelek.
