All The World's a Stage...er

     I got a call the other day from my New York real estate partner. I had asked him to help an old client of mine, one whom I'm extremely fond of. Formerly a partner at the largest law firm in the U.S, he is now president of a university. He has always been one of those people who defined the Upper West Side to me; he and his former wife chose to create their lives there when it wasn't such a popular destination for families and young professionals. And when brownstones sold for $20,000.  He had called me because, in the near future, he's probably going to sell the co-op I sold him 20 years ago. He wanted some advice on the advisability of redoing the kitchen.
    "Wow," my partner told me. "I haven't seen an apartment like that in so long."
    "I'm guessing very Upper West Side, yes?" I replied.
    "Totally. You know, everything you see now is so polished."
     I knew exactly what he meant. As brokers we want each listing to show at it's best but, because of this, I fear we've created a  new monster: The Stager.
     Actually, it's the stagers who are creating the monster; the monster is the look. 
     And today, this is the look:

     It is attractive, especially the first time you see it. It's a bit less appealing when it's the fifth house you've seen it in that day. And so many stagers are like crack addicts-they just can't stop staging.

     How tired am I of tables that are set? We're supposed to believe that the very busy, very chic owners will be running in around 6pm to serve a tasteful dinner to their tasteful guests? My very least favorite, however...

.....is staged books. Look, we know you've just gone out and bought the books by the yard, but if you want us to believe we're in the home of a great thinker or even an avid reader, what's wrong with the real covers, other than they're not white? What you're really making us think is that we're in the home of someone with OCD. 

     And yes, while I have believed for a long time now that it is the fantasy of 95% of the citizens L.A. to live in the Peninsula Hotel, I'm also getting really tired....

....of rolled towels, artfully scattered about poolside or in white marble baths. Can the Cabana Boy be far behind? "Why is no one rolling the towels in my house," it makes me think, which reminds me that in my house no one even picks them up off the floor.

     The truth of the matter is that we are selling a fantasy just as much as Hollywood does. To be honest, it was probably the element of fantasy, of living in so many different spaces, that propelled me into the business and keeps me going. But I fear that stagers are skewing the fantasy toward the utterly unattainable. I mean who lives in these all white houses? Certainly no one with children or pets or a messy spouse or who has guests to whom they serve red wine.

     It's true that when you're faced with an empty house it can become a much harder sell. Staging does, at minimum, give the semblance of a household.

    I may be in a minority in my profession, but I happen to prefer it when it feels like someone actually lives in a house; that there is a life going on there.  Personally I'd always prefer to work with what the seller already has; to tone it down or tone it up as the case may be. De-cluttering alone can make all the difference in the world as to the psychological effect upon a prospective buyer.  Perhaps my problem with most staging is that it generally feels like the same person lives in each house.
    That being said, I would also like to give a Brilliance In Staging Award, to whomever it was that did the beautiful  house in Hancock Park that I saw recently, asking just north of $4,500,000. This is the same house as the living room picture up above. As I walked through the impeccable, but relentlessly white, English Manor house, I peeked into the 'hers' closet in the Master Bedroom.
    There were several styrofoam wig stands in the otherwise empty closet.

     At first I thought, how odd to have gone to such expense to stage this house so meticulously and not finish cleaning out one closet? Then it dawned on me-this was no oversight; this was actually suggestion at its most brilliant. Architecturally, this is the grandest section of Hancock Park and is home to a number of wealthy Orthodox families. I have to guess that the message here is "Yes, you could be living in all this White Magnificance, but don't worry-it's still home."

     Then again, as an agent, from time to time you will walk into a perspective listing and know you're going to need big help. For example, this (from an actual MLS picture):

     I don't think rooms come much sadder than this. Now here's an agent who should have rushed to call either a stager or a psychiatric social worker. 

   Jamie Foreman