Tenants

What to do when there is a tenant living in a the listing that is being sold? This house was in need of staging, but I enjoy when I have a challenge. The place was very modest - a rental property - and the tenants had many small objects and oversized furniture (and a python in the kitchen). With the house being so modest in size, it was important to de-clutter as much as possible.

As a further challenge, none of the bedrooms (there were 3), were photographable (too dark, painted black, and too small respectively), so we had a limited number of rooms to take pictures in (the "we" is Diane Wescott and I, who is the listing agent and certified stager).


The kitchen was the selling point (large, new, nice granite and backsplash) so we did that the last and spent the most time on.




The challenge for the living room was there was at least one too many pieces of furniture (we moved a couch out of the way) and tons of clutter (flying pigs, anyone?). There were many plants though, so we utilized those.
Before

After


The outside was very modest, so what I tried to do is use the best light, bluest sky, and made sure that the house was centered very symmetrically in the picture. I avoided the various cars parked in the driveway (I’ll make people move their cars usually but there were at least four of them, and the angle wasn’t great anyway so I didn’t bother). Pick your battles with these kinds of houses. Don’t take shots from every angle, just pick the best, most workable one, and stage for that.


[Its always amusing to me when we stage the house for the shots, and then put the house exactly back the way it was (usually for tenants), even though we are basically making it messy again.]