About Mina Montes
3115 Nantucket DriveJoilet,IL 60435(815)1-815-230-3490 mmontes0750@att.net
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January 29, 2008By CINDY WOJDYLA CAIN Staff Writer
Staging takes center stage
JOLIET -- Mina Montes has some advice for homeowners who are having trouble selling their homes in this stagnant market:
Look at your home as a stranger would, and stage the home to attract interest from buyers, she said.
Mina Montes helps people sell their houses by staging the homes. Potential buyers are more likely to buy a house that looks furnished, decluttered and well-decorated.
John Patsch/Staff Photographer
It's worth a shot, said Montes, who started her own home staging and redecorating business, Montes Interior Redesign Ltd., a couple of years ago from her Joliet home.
Montes started the new career after she took an early retirement from AT&T. She always had been interested in decorating and had a flair for color and design. She enrolled in classes at Midwest School of Redesign in Naperville.
"I truly believe if you're going to go into a career, you need to be certified," she said.
Low- to no-cost options
Montes loves what she does. The hard part is convincing people that staging is an important part of selling a home.
"You have to prepare your home so you can show it to the public and have it appeal to the masses," she said.
There are different levels of staging help, she explained. The first level involves a simple inspection of the home which leads to a list of advice on improving the both the exterior and interior.
Some of the suggestions will be low- or no-cost improvements. Others might be more involved. In those, cases a homeowner can opt to get more help from a stager or, in some extreme cases, a contractor. Homeowners decide how much or little they want to do, Montes said.
The key is to make the home look as good as your budget will allow.
"Everybody wants a move-in ready home, and they want it to be pretty," Montes said. "And everyone who passes by needs to say, 'That's a nice house.' It doesn't have to have a wow factor, it just has to be appealing."
Make it look good
Some of Montes' tips include:
• Declutter. Your knickknacks may be precious to you, but they may look like clutter to potential buyers.
• Rearrange the furniture. Find the best placement to show off a room.
• Put away family photos..
• Add flowers and dramatic lighting to highlight architectural elements of a room.
Clean your walls. Get rid of cobwebs and dust. Paint if necessary.
• Furnish an empty home if you can. A furnished home will sell more quickly than an empty home. You don't need a lot of furniture. Just a couple of items.
• If you can afford it, replace carpeting, cabinets or other dated and worn items. And if your home is really in trouble, consider knocking down walls.
One thing you should not do is hide flaws, Montes said.
"A stager will never tell you to cover up or hide anything," he said. "That's not what we do."
Also, try to make the home appealing to a woman. Women often make final home-buying decisions.
Montes said many of her recommendations can be accomplished cheaply. Inexpensive lights purchased from a dollar store can be placed behind a plant, for instance.
"Oh my God, you feel like you're in the tropics," she said of the effect. "It makes the ceiling look higher. It's unbelievable what you can do."
Hands-on help
Montes, who is fluent in Spanish, said she has helped friends and relatives stage their homes and has traveled to other states to help sellers make their homes sparkle.
One friend who hadn't sold her home in a year finally called Montes for help.
Montes told her to make a tiny bedroom a sitting room. She also urged her friend to clean dead leaves from the front and back yards and to move a pile of unused bricks.
Montes also had her friend take down all of her wind chimes and remove a plastic patio furniture set.
Also removed was a garden gnome that had been sitting on a tree stump in the front yard. Montes convinced her friend to remove all of her stained glass hobby items from a sunroom, too.
"Within a week, she had five people over to look at the house, and one person has come back three times now," Montes said.
The key is to detach from your home and make the necessary changes, she said.
"You have to think, 'This is no longer going to be my home.'"
Reporter Cindy Wojdyla Cain may be reached at (815) 729-6044 or at ccain@scn1.com
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