The Australian, July 30, 2011
Guy Allenby

Styled Up and Ready to Sell

Home staging expert Debra Gould, founder of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, was recently featured in The Australian, which is the biggest-selling national newspaper in the country.

The article focuses on the importance of home staging, especially in a sluggish housing market.

In Australia, “home staging” is known as “property styling,” and has become increasingly popular in recent years.

Gould is quoted several times in the story:

“In the US they call it ‘home staging’ and the queen is Debra Gould (aka the Staging Diva) who writes endlessly on the subject and runs training programs for people looking to set themselves up as professional home stagers.”

“As Gould puts it: ‘A house is a product that has to be packaged and marketed to the right target audience at the right price. In a slow or buyer’s market, any house is just one of many for sale in a neighborhood. Real estate agents may say the only way to sell is to drop the price, but this ignores the positive sales impact of improving the product.’”

“Gould, the Staging Diva, has likened the process to speed dating. You may see eight houses one weekend but ‘you’ll reject most and possibly choose one property to go back to for a second look’, she says. ‘Home staging or house fluffing is all about creating the best first impression, paving the way for potential buyers to fall in love.’”

> For free tips on attracting media attention, home stagers are encouraged to visit the Home Staging Business Report.

Michiana House & Home
August 2011 issue

Home Staging: Make Your Home a Show Home

Staging Diva was featured in the cover story in the August 2011 issue of Michiana House & Home magazine.

Debra Gould, founder of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, was particularly pleased that StagingDiva.com was included in the resources section at the end of the story. Members of the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers will benefit from this as readers search out local home stagers.

Many of Gould’s home staging tips were included in the story, as well as these highlights:

“At her website, stagingdiva.com, Debra Gould has listed 10 tips to help any homeowner transform one’s house into a show home that will catch buyers’ attention.”

“All those little touches can add up big when it comes to selling your home. Gould, who lives in Toronto but trains home stagers worldwide, said homes can sell for thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars more, when properly staged. ‘It’s the best way to stand out from all the other homes on the market, get maximum equity out of your house, and sell it faster,’ she said.”

“‘People buy on emotion. You walk into a house and you decide within a minute or two whether you like it or you don’t. We know people are going to form a first impression visually, and to fail to optimize on that with your single biggest investment is crazy,’ said Gould, who likens home staging to dressing up for a first date or detailing a car to be sold. ‘Obviously the more visually appealing a house is, the more likely people are going to be to put in an offer.’”

Home stagers can learn how to get media attention like this in Course 4 of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, “Staging Diva Sales & Marketing Secrets to Boost Your Business.”

Style at Home Magazine, October 2010 Issue
Producer: Sara Cation

Staging for the Sell: Give your home sale a boost with colour picks from Canada’s home staging experts

Home staging expert Debra Gould who is founder of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, says, “Many months ago I chose my favorite colors for Style at Home Magazine for front doors, living rooms and master bedrooms. Much to my surprise, the story finally ran in the October issue. I almost missed it, but fortunately one of my clients found the story for me after I’d just finished choosing colors for her kitchen!”

Debra Gould also received a pleasant surprise from a Style at Home reader who looked her up online and wrote to say, “Two painters transformed my front door and (single) garage door with low-luster Caliente, a beautiful red from Benjamin Moore® that you suggested in the October issue of Style at Home. It looks fabulous. Many thanks.”

Home stagers who panic when it comes to choosing colors should read Staging Diva Ultimate Color Guide: the easy way to pick colors for home staging projects where Gould teaches readers how she convinces her clients to repaint their homes to sell. She also includes all of her top color picks for staging and organizes them into different color palettes for the whole home in this guide. The information is organized by room type and for different painting jobs like floors, trim, ceilings, walls, doors and more. The guide includes both American and Candian color recommendations by specific color name and number.

“I guarantee this ebook will save you from spending countless hours trying to wade through the 2800+ colors that Benjamin Moore offers. You’ll create your own swatch deck in no time with what you learn in this guide!” states The Staging Diva.

Style At Home Magazine excerpts of Debra Gould’s tips (colors mentioned are from Benjamin Moore’s Canadian color collections):

“A front door should be welcoming and fairly conservative, yet attention grabbing. Red doors stand out. I like Caliente (AF-290) and Northern Fire (CC-94). If you have red brick use Jamesboro Gold (HC-88), a gold green tone that looks nice with red brick.”

“I think a master bedroom can be a bit darker— I prefer muted tones that stay neutral, like Piedmont Gray (CC-690) or Killarney (CC-698). You want your bedroom to feel mellow and welcoming, and have nothing too bright jumping out at you.”

REALTOR®: Magazine – July/August 2010
“8 Camera Tips to Capture a Room’s Size” by Melissa Dittmann Tracey

Home staging expert Debra Gould provides 8 Camera Tips for Real Estate Agents to Capture a Room’s Size in the July/August 2010 issue of Realtor Magazine. These are:

1. Remove area rugs
2. Use a wide-angle camera
3. Get creative with furniture
4. Fill up empty space
5. Use mirrors to your advantage
6. Lighten up
7. Shoot at an angle
8. Remove clutter

Many of these can be done by the real estate agent on their own, however the photographs will be that much stronger, and take far less effort for the agent, if a home stager is there to ensure everything within the frame looks at its best.

Excerpt from REALTOR®: Magazine:

Buyers love spacious homes. They also love to look at online property photos. But it’s not always easy to squeeze square footage into a camera shot—and sometimes furniture arrangements or floor coverings actually do a disservice to the way your listing is presented online or in marketing photos, says Debra Gould, president of home staging company Six Elements Inc. in Toronto and creator of the Staging Diva training program.

She offers these tips for making sure that every room of your listing looks as large in photos as it does in real life.

1. Remove area rugs. Rugs break up the expanse of the floor and can make rooms look smaller. Keep the floor as clear as possible.

> Read the full camera tips for real estate agents story at Realtor.org

House Selling Secrets of a Home Stager
by Debra Snoonian

Excerpt:

When this story first hit the This Old House website, it was on their front page for a week, as shown above.

Based in Toronto, Gould has trained a network of 1400+ home stagers across the U.S. “Most owners aren’t seeing bidding wars the way they were a few years ago,” she says. “But with the right staging, you can get close to your asking price.”

Here are before-and-after photos of rooms in houses Gould has staged in the Toronto area, along with information about fees paid and sales prices. . . ”

Read the full story here

Home Business Magazine – Debra Gould Success Story

Excerpt:

“Debra Gould bought, decorated and sold six of her own homes in eight years while she ran her marketing consulting business from home. This led her into a new career as a home stager. It was the perfect way to combine her passions for decorating and real estate without being on call 24/7 the way agents are.

Gould finally found a way to fully use her creativity without becoming a starving artist. In fact, she was able to earn up to $10,000 a month staging homes by her second year in business.

During those first two years, Gould heard from so many others who wanted advice on how they could have the same success and recognition she had. That prompted her to create the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. . . ”

National Post Homes Magazine
by Rebecca Vogt

Ready, Stage, Sell: Hiring a pro to primp your pad before it goes on the market could reap you thousands of dollars

Excerpt:

“‘Every house has a soul’ says Staging Diva Debra Gould, a petite woman in hipster black with a shock of dark hair and an engaging smile. We’re chatting on the second floor of her airy home.

As president of Six Elements Inc., and the force behind Staging Diva, a six-year-old company, which as primped hundreds of homes variously priced from $190,000 to $1.7-million — in addition to seven of her own (she’s also taught home staging from Spain to New Zealand)— Ms. Gould knows what it takes to sell a house quickly and for a hefty sum. A good stager, she says, ‘will set the scene so that the highest number of potential buyers fall in love the the space.’ At her web site, StagingDiva.com, she offers information on services and products geared toward the home seller, before-and-after photos of past clients’ homes and even training for those interested in starting their own staging business— a field that’s been garnering more and more attention in the real estate industry.”. . .

Summary

For the fourth consecutive year, Debra Gould’s Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program has been featured in the bi-annual Entrepreneur Magazine Startups Guide. Gould’s is the only home staging training program to be featured in all of the past eight issues of this popular resource.

Staging Diva Recognized by Entrepreneur Magazine for Fourth Consecutive Year

(UNITED STATES) January 8, 2010 – Anyone considering a career in home staging today has lots of options as far as obtaining their training goes. However, with the virtual nature of the majority of these home staging courses, it can be difficult for an aspiring home stager to determine which courses are legitimate, which really are too good to be true and which will actually provide the caliber of training they’re seeking.

For the fourth year in a row, the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine’s Business Startups Guide. The Staging Diva program is the only home staging course to be included in all of the past eight issues of this respected guide.

About being featured in the Startups Guide for the fourth consecutive year, The Staging Diva says, “In this day and age, it’s difficult to obtain the trust of consumers. There are a few ill-reputed home staging courses that do not deliver what they promise. Unfortunately, not everyone researches a company properly before investing with them. Since others have had bad experiences, this makes some aspiring stagers understandably gun shy when it comes to selecting home staging courses. Seeing Staging Diva featured in Entrepreneur Magazine Startups Guide for the eighth time should inspire confidence that this program is the real deal.”

To learn more about the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program and to read reviews from people who have taken the program, visit stagingdiva.com for full details.

About Staging Diva

The creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, Debra Gould has staged millions of dollars worth of real estate, including seven of her own homes. She is the president of home staging firm SixElements.com and has trained over 4000 home stagers to start and grow their own businesses.

Debra has gained international recognition through features in major media in the US and Canada including: This Old House, HGTV, CNN Money, CBC National News, CBS Radio, Global TV, City TV, The Wall Street Journal, Women’s Day, Reader’s Digest and more.

Contact

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva
Six Elements Inc.
416-691-6615
debragould@stagingdiva.com
http://www.stagingdiva.com

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Pittsburgh Tribune Review – August 28, 2009
“Setting the Stage: Telling a Home’s Story Helps It Sell”
by Bob Karlovits

Excerpt from Pittsburgh Tribune Review:

. . . Debra Gould, a Toronto, Canada-based stager, author and staging instructor, says staging can be known as “house fluffing” or “home merchandising,” but basically it’s the effort to make a house irresistible.

“The better job you do, the better chance you create that someone will just fall in love with the house,” says Gould, the author of several guides to staging whose ideas are on three Web sites: debragould.com, stagingdiva.com and sixelements.com.

. . . Gould admits there is an element of theatricality in the term “staging.” It hints at setting the stage in a home and suggesting action and events that could happen there.

“A well-staged home will not look staged,” she insists. “Take the dining room table that is set for a dinner. That isn’t realistic. You suggest things. You take a lamp, a chair, a book and hint it would be a good place to read. But I don’t add the tea set on a folding table.”

It is important to make statements mildly enough that you “don’t tell people how to live,” but suggest what could happen in a space, Gould says. . . .

> Read the full story at Pittsburgh Tribune Review

Center of The City Magazine, May 2006
“Debra Gould is The Staging Diva”

Story by Karen Bridson-Boyczuk
Photography by Jill Kitchener

Excerpt from Centre of the City Magazine:

They are known as “fluffers.”

They are the creative minds realtors depend on in their effort to make top dollar on the sale of a home. With a bit of paint, a few selected touches, an imaginative eye and a lot of elbow grease, the work of these “home stagers,” as they are more commonly known, can quite dramatically increase the selling price of a home. . . .

Staging Diva Debra Gould, says homeowners without any plans for selling can make drastic improvements to the look of their homes simply by following a few ‘home fluffing’ techniques.

“So often my clients say, ‘wow, and to think, (my house) could have looked like this for the last five years,” says Gould, president of Six Elements Inc. (www.stagingdiva.com).

Gould says there are some very basic steps people can take to ‘fluff’ their homes for themselves.

“The biggest problem I see in people’s homes is inadequate lighting,” she says. “Many people live in very dark, dingy homes and they don’t even know it.” . . .

Beyond small clutter items, many homes have too much furniture for the size of the rooms, she says. . . .

“So it’s important to take a look at how else the furniture can be arranged in a room,” she says. “Often people will say, ‘oh, it never occurred to me to put that there.’ . . .

Mismatched bedding and towels are another pet peeve of Gould’s. . . . “I’m always buying sheets and duvets and towels to go into the homes I stage,” she says. “It gives you a nice focal point and can make such a huge difference to the way a room looks.” . . .

“If you’ve got a basement filled with things you are planning to fix one day, just get rid of them. People feel liberated when they knock those things off of their to-do lists. It’s very freeing.” . . .

Gould has staged hundreds of homes, ranging in price from $190,000 to $1.5 million. . . .