Down housing market forces Realtors to be creative

HOLLISTON - With Realtors across the state losing confidence in the struggling real estate market, a husband-and-wife team has found a creative way to draw interest in at least one home they're trying to sell.

What Leslie and Kyle Mann, of Realtors at Hallmark Sotheby's International Realty in Hopkinton, came up with was a fashion show inside a Holliston home.

Working with Lyn Evans Potpourri Designs of Westborough for clothing, Platinum Cut & Color of Hopkinton for hair styling, the Color Studio in Wellesley for make-up and a few of her friends for models, Leslie Mann had a pool-side photo shoot to show the glamorous side of 464 Marshall St. in Holliston.

"I kept saying, 'we've got to do something special for this house, because it's so different,"' Leslie Mann said. "When you're flipping through a magazine, and you see a really fabulous car or piece of jewelry, there are always people enjoying it and showing it off. It always seemed really odd that in real estate, it's always devoid of humans. Why not show off people enjoying the space?"

Mann hired a fashion photographer from Boston, Lucie Wicker, and said she and the clothing boutique are sharing the photos to cross-promote the clothing and the home. All told it cost her $600, but selling the property currently listed at $639,000 would make the extra cost well worth it, she said.

"I felt like it just needs a little oomph in the marketing," she said. "It's a really fantastic house and we really needed something special for it."

A monthly survey of market confidence released earlier this week by the Massachusetts Association of Realtors showed agents saw the market continue to decline in July, compared to both the previous month and July 2010. The same survey also showed most Realtors expect prices will continue to decline.

The Manns' idea has inspired other local agents.

"It's ingenious," said Carolyn Chodat, the broker/owner at Classic Properties Realtors in Medway. "I give her credit for doing something creative like that."

Chodat is an "accredited staging professional," a professional designation for Realtors showing she's trained in preparing a house to look good for potential buyers. "Staging" is all about a well-placed piece of furniture, a clean look, and maximizing the potential of a space, not filling it with stuff.

"The first rule of thumb for staging a home is: staging is not decorating, staging is undecorating," she said. "We're trained to want to minimize the home and show as much space as possible without it looking barren. You want the new buyer to envision the home with their own furnishings."

Chodat said the Holliston home fashion show is different than staging, it's more like advanced marketing. But the pictures Mann's photographer took are trying to provide a good first impression for the space.

"I think staging, (that's what) 99 percent of it really is," Chodat said. "It's that first impression. When you're new on the market you need to have that good first impression."

Rob Harrington, broker/owner of the Framingham real estate agency Nexum Group, said Mann's photo shoot is less showing the space, like staging, and more showing a fun way to use the space.

"It's more to lure someone in, and sell them the lifestyle of what's going on in the pictures," Harrington said. "I think it's more intangible, but I think it's a wonderful thing for a Realtor to do something like that."

Harrington said his agency works directly with developers to sell new homes, so when he stages properties it's often with a home that's never been lived in. The extra touches added make the buyers in new developments want the model home, which has been lightly furnished, instead of an empty but identical home.

"The staging, to me, is really about the house and how it looks and how it feels," he said. "I bet we sell our model to an empty unit, three-to-one. (the empty home) is lacking the personality, and it's lacking the drama, but adding those pieces and your lifestyle, it makes a big difference."