New Sales Tools:
A Little Help Please
By Heather Buchanan
Tactics to make a house more saleable used to range from a fresh coat of paint to flowers in the foyer to a loaf of home made bread baking in the oven. In the current competitive market with increased inventory, sellers and their agents are looking for new and creative ways to make their listing more appealing. This may range from offering the agent who comes in with the buyer a two year lease on a brand new BMW to inviting prospects over for “Friday Movie Night” in the expansive home theater, popcorn included. One open house off Further Lane was a veritable high end cocktail party with a full bar, catered hors d’oeuvres, and a scented candle gift for each guest. Like the pretty country girl who arrives in the big city, homes for sale simply have to try harder to stand out.
Staging a house is becoming vastly more popular in the Hamptons, already having a major foothold in the city. Barbara Feldman of BF Designs reports her staging business has taken a quantum leap in just the past few weeks. Her services range from furnishing empty spec houses to rearranging existing homes doing everything from choosing paint colors to hanging curtains to hiring a cleaning crew -- the difference from her interior design business being that she works very fast and creates a style which will have broad appeal. For a monthly rental fee, she will pull from her warehouse of fine furniture. “The staging has to not only make the house look good,” Feldman says “but set it apart, make it memorable. The days of an all white empty house are over.” One Sag Harbor house which was on the market for months with no action got an offer the first day it was shown furnished.
Another new sales tool is not new at all but the ancient Eastern art of Feng Shui (Donald Trump is a believer) which maximizes the positive energy and balance of the home. Georgia Fotopoulos who runs Fotopoulos Design Inc. with her sister Daisy out of Montauk and Astoria has been a practitioner for seven years adding the specialty to their residential and commercial architecture and design firm. Her home sale advice ranges from the very literal, don’t have a key that sticks, indicating something not moving, to the more esoteric, using a rice ceremony to clear a negative vibe from a nasty divorce. A major component is chi or energy and she consults with clients on creating a visible and inviting entrance which then flows easily through the house without obstruction. She also uses the Bagua, an octagonal diagram which indicates where the money center is, hopefully not literally going down your toilet. Luckily remodeling is not necessary - mirrors, chimes, plants, and light can help solve problems, and she’s seen some amazing turnarounds, even solving a child’s chronic insomnia with changes in his bedroom.
Some agents, albeit in hushed tones, will confess to turning to higher powers, or to St. Joseph in particular. The Catholic Company has seen booming sales of its St. Joseph Home Sale Kit. European nuns used to bury medals with his likeness on property they hoped to acquire for convents (wonder if they did that at Villa Maria in Watermill). Now a home seller can petition the saint by burying his likeness in the front yard face down towards the house and praying. Of course if the house sells he must be dug up and put in a place of honor in the new home. If you’re more of a pagan, one witchcraft spell is to chop a little of the front door step off and wrap it in a $20 bill then put it under the doormat, having the potential buyer walk over it, and be sure to do it when the moon is waxing or getting fuller.
