TIDEWATER HOME STAGING

Description of Work: I was in the process of selling my father’s home and, in consulting with my real estate agent, identified the need for someone to help with upgrades and staging of the home to prepare it for sale. My agent recommended Kimberly Cash. Kimberly was an ideal choice as she is among the few licensed home stagers in the region and has extensive personal experience in managing home upgrades, an avocation she and her husband perform on their own. Kimberly proposed an upgrade plan in consultation with my real estate agent that sought to both extract the best value from the upgrades in the sales price and go beyond the cosmetic to provide improvements that a future home buyer would find suitable. She explained each proposed upgrade, its priority in the expected value it would provide in a sale and the level of effort involved (which she would oversee, anyway). She reviewed the various options with my agent and me and the pros and cons of each choice and then she contracted out all of the subcontract work and managed it. Further, Kimberly handled a number of assorted issues, such as donating furniture and clothes to worthy charities. Kimberly performed a fantastic job with the many, many details of a home upgrade, including calling subcontractors back for repairs or unfinished jobs and ensuring they performed the quality work she expected from them. Then she methodically bundled all warranty and other such information for installed appliances and other fixtures for the future home buyer. As part of the plan, Kimberly also staged the house for resale. This both assisted my agent in getting photos that would best represent the house in her marketing efforts and appeal to prospective home buyers during the home’s showing. I found the techniques for home staging fascinating—it certainly goes beyond baking cookies during showings to appeal to prospective buyers’ senses of smell (which Kimberly did not recommend) and helps prospective buyers to envision how the house layout might work best for them. Kimberly provided an aggressive timeline for all of this work and then she met this timeline. This was a great benefit in that it helped my agent and me to get the home on the market during the prime selling season, despite delays from me and my family in making final decisions.