Let’s not beat around the bush first! The most important thing you want to know about hiring Ellen at Chrysalis to stage your house is this: We received an offer in THREE DAYS at 99% of our asking price!
The results speak for themselves! We gave ourselves over to her entirely and had immediate interest, and people still wanted to see the house even after it was under contract. We were literally turning people away. We had all the interest we were could hope for!
To start, we LOVE Ellen. We were referred to her through our marvellous new agent Art Lee (equally fantastic!). Our house was previously on the market for 90 days, more than half of that it was vacant, then we took it off and put it back. Here’s our story. The first time on market, we waited until it was vacant to make some improvements. We had touched up our walls both ourselves and hired someone to do larger areas with the existing colour. We didn’t want to hear that the colour was not what people wanted and the vacant sad echo made people complain about other things and make mountains out of molehills. We received only one insultingly and extremely low offer and little interest even after other touch ups we did. The house had nothing wrong with it, a gorgeous place, location was awesome, price reduced… still nothing.
When we decided to go with another realtor with a different perspective, we listened to the experts on Art’s team and were introduced to the lovely Ellen Mann of Chrysalis Creative Home Staging. The house was a very good one, the advice we got was important to listen to – Ellen gave us only the facts. She broke it to us that the colour we had on our walls before was the most returned colour. Meaning people buy it, try it on a wall and then realize it doesn’t work and return it. Only a small portion of people would actually like the colour, which meant we were really cutting ourselves off from a greater audience. We can’t argue with facts, so we decided to put everything in Ellen’s expert hands. She suggested we paint a certain colour and she staged it her way, which meant our time money and efforts we put into painting previously, would be in the toilet, and painted over. It was sad for us but we knew after investigation and being presented with her knowledge, Ellen was the right choice for us and we put our faith in her and her choice of painter.
Well we should have done this from the start and wouldn’t have wasted time or money. The results were SPECTACULAR!!!! Ellen’s painter did an excellent job, the cuts were perfect and the colour is incredible! Better than we expected. Ellen’s choices of furniture, the decor, the art on the walls, the tables and accents, were perfect to appeal to the exact audience that would be in the market to buy our place – and had no complaints about anything! That’s the thing. While our own furniture AND TASTES ARE DIFFERENT in colour and style, Ellen’s was UPDATED, MODERN and exactly what people want to see. Even my mother said that while it wasn’t to her own tastes (who is 30 years older than the average buyer), Ellen knew exactly what the buyer of TODAY AND TOMORROW wants. It’s NOT about what WE like or want, it’s about Ellen’s knowledge of the market and her expertise and skills! And she’s got her ear to the ground about what’s HOT, what’s not, and what will sell your property.
We went live on a Sunday, and immediately started getting interest and showings. No complaints about anything, just great feedback, tons of interest and even others wanting to write back up offers. We got the offer we wanted within 3 days, and by Tuesday night we were signing for just slightly under our asking price! In this market, you don’t know what will happen, but thank God we are satisfied to finally have this long journey over, and SO SOON thanks to the new team we chose to help us sell, which included Ellen’s incredible staging knowledge, experience, skill and advice.
Choosing to stage with Ellen is a NO brainer and in fact a MUST in this market (Summer 2017). This paid for itself several times over. I SHUDDER to think how much longer the house would have stayed on the market if we were stubborn and continued to do things our way, or how it would have affected things if we only took her advice half-heartedly… Yikes we could have sat until next year paying mortgage… No folks, do EVERYTHING Ellen says. If you’re having trouble selling your house, think about taking it off for a couple weeks (and going with any of the competent agents on Art Lee’s Team instead!) and implementing ALL of her advice during that time, she’s right about EVERYthing! Put it back on market and enjoy the magic going to work on the public. Honestly – to my fellow sellers – DON’T take only part of the advice, DON’T do it half-way and cheap out. Give yourself over to Ellen, or you’re literally missing out.
I would also like to add we did all this from another province! Ellen was so great to work with from afar. This was a lesson to us that we want to pass on to you if you’re wondering what you can do to sell the house – call Ellen Mann at Chrysalis and call Art Lee’s office. Painting and staging… costs how much? Compare that to how long you sit on market, paying mortgage, getting low ball offers etc. The best thing you can do is go with a great savvy expert who will present your house in the best way possible and you have to do the work to improve it. That’s Ellen and a good agent like ours, and our willingness as sellers to do our part and listen. It’s a partnership!
Lastly, I would like say a note about Ellen personally. She is a smart, sophisticated and savvy woman, classy, and again SMART. I respect her – she knows what she is doing and works HARD at all hours and gives up a lot of personal evening and weekend time because real estate doesn’t take time off. Ellen deserves the maximum rating. THANK YOU so much Ellen, we are so happy we were referred to you and went for the full package! You are MAGIC!!!
Lisa Beaulieu
