Residential real estate values go down in Poland

That is the sad part.. those books obviously are for the sellers, not the buyers. Smoke and mirrors. Snake oil salesmen. The fact is that cleaning up and repainting the place yourself will probably save you money, even if you hire somebody. And somebody else's clutter is probably a more accurate representation of what the place is going to look like once you move your own clutter in.

i've seen too much of this on channel5 to be fooled.

50 sq meters is 50 sq meters, however one presents it.

because so many people here live in similar homes they are very aware of what is and what is not.

clean and tidy is enough for me to view a home.

Pip, I know where you're coming from, but what would be your honest advice to the buyer? Should any of this staging really matter?

staging is one thing- but cleaning is another. i have a link to the work i have done but i don't want to give out too much info and the photos are in flash so i can't copy them to prove my point.

yes, staging is for sellers. you want to show your home when it is clean, no clutter and nothing in ill repair. you want to get the most money for the sale. and you want to show the space. how can a potential buyer see how much space there is in a 25m2 room if it has a sofa, chair, table and all the other stuff of life.

paint can't hide damage. it can only change the look of a room and clean it up.

question for you. would you want to see a home that has pictures showing dark purple walls and death metal posters as well as empty bottles of vodka on the shelf?

this is an example that I showed when I was teaching a course. An agent put this picture on oferty.net. Not to mention a sink full of dirty dishes, a cat on the kitchen counter and loads of clutter.

you don't get past the photos- and today people do their initial shopping on residential listing sites.

you can't stage a 250,000 pln 30m2 flat in an old block to look like an 80m2 flat in a new construction building. but you can clean it up, fix the damage, do small renovations, fresh paint and update any old things so that a potential buyer doesn't only see how much work they have to do.

but once again, staging is not tricking or lying. part of it is doing all repairs before you put the place on the market.

i know some people will never "get it"-- this has nothing to do with channel 5. it works and usually in co operation with agents- clearly in poland agents need all the help they can get.

i do 'get it' and channel5 showed how it works, but as my roots are in construction i see things in a different light.

As a buyer, Yes! I want to see paint that was there more than a week. And to me, staging means that I will be paying for it.

than you are the exception because most people want to be able to move into a place with the intent of unpacking and cleaning.

paint is a minor detail. you will have to pay for it whether the seller does it or you do it. it is more a matter of convenience.

and Wraclaw, you are also the exception- because you are in the business. i can also go into a space and see it for what it can be- that is what i do. but most people can't and that is what a stager is for.

usually the cost of hiring a stager is covered by a good real estate agent. in poland the agents don't have exclusivity so they don't do the extras for a client like they do in other countries. when we sold our house we had 7 agents. no lie. and they did nothing. we got more calls from the sign on our front lawn than any of the agents ever brought us.

we got lucky and had an agent who represented us and found us a buyer- so he double dipped on the commission- but our house sold in 3 months and our house had nice photos on oferty.net which showed a clean house.

I just think the decor is the last thing the buyer should consider. Location, price, size, layout are the important factors. And considering the prices in Poland, it's downright foolish to be swayed by staging.

Pip come on, a 35m apartment is only fit for a chook shed, I see you are easily pleased..

^ true but someone isn't going to be "fooled" into inquiring about 35m2 flats, are they? A lot of people know what they want and have a sense of what they can afford (unless you're an american) and then narrow their search according to those things. I can't believe for all the self proclaimed experts here how little salient points have been made.

exactly. When searching for a resale flat- the initial search is done on the internet, then the agent is contacted. So a buyer is basing their decision on the pictures that are on a residential website- that and the price. so if a search for 35m2 flats come up all in the same price range will the average buyer want to look at one that is a dirty cluttered mess or will they want the clean one that shows how much available space there is?

fstop- it is not about the decor. It is about undoing the current owners decor so that the house appeals to the most amount of people. In a word it is neutralizing a space. Statistically buyers make a decision based on the first 8 seconds of entering a place. If your entryway is filthy, cluttered and has dark orange walls- the showing is over.

here is a sample- this link is a staged home

oferty.net/dom-na-sprzedaz-warszawa-wilanow,84632964 - 1million 7 for this home, obviously finished by a designer- but it is for sale and people will want to view it, it is clean, no mess, neutral.

This is a second home in the millions
oferty.net/dom-na-sprzedaz-warszawa-wilanow,84434605

which makes you wonder what the eff the realtor was thinking when they put these photos up- want to see more? for 1 million 5 many people would just skip by this one.

ll

lol you must be involved in the real estatate business....get back to homes around the
35 m ... those other homes are reserved for the foolish...

You do know there is no way to objectively arrive at that statement, don't you? Ah yes, the real estate market, where opinions become facts at the whim of realtors.

That being said, I have no idea why anyone is arguing the point you're making here. I'm not even sure anyone is but if they are I fail to see what the heck they're thinking process is; maybe they were thinking from some extreme angle but even then, an extreme shouldn't be the norm. More attractive is more attractive and all things being comparable, the debate ends there.

no- not in real estate. i have a shop. i just went through the process of selling and buying a house in Poland. I am also an interior designer. of course, none of these make me an expert- but I have never claimed that I was. just my experience with realtors. i also used to teach a home staging course in poland.

there is a massive difference when selling a house in Poland. the residential agents here are the stupidest, most unprofessional idiots I have ever come across. I can only compare to my experience of selling a home in canada to this. however, working with a home staging company has actually opened my eyes to how little residential agents do in this country and expect commission for it.

commercial is standard around the world- same everywhere. residential here is a joke.


I am just trying to make a point. That is the current average for a house in Warsaw.

I actually do have photos of a before and after that I did for someones 30 m2 flat but they are on a website in flash and i can't copy and paste them.


this is a stat from a book about home staging- didn't make it up.

ultimately, people will always believe what they want- I won't change anybody's minds but that is ok. I have experienced how home staging does work. I sold a house in Canada, I sold a house in Poland (in three months) and the flat I did for a client was sold in 3 days- this is not a joke nor a lie. I do have a link but I would rather maintain my privacy.

Getting back on topic, I think the following article is worth considering. Although it refers to the situation in the UK market, it seems sensible and unbiased and could be on a parallel with what is happening/likely to happen in Poland.

uk.finance.yahoo/news/house-prices-fall-mortgage-rates-071612791.html

Some facts not pointed out by the writer:-
a) 160,000 newly married couples, enter the market each year.
b) The reluctance of elderly people to downsize once their children have left home.
c) The price of these middle size homes is out of the reach of first time buyers.
d) As more young couples/single people are forced into the rental market, the rents are rising drastically which leaves little of their income to be saved for a deposit to satisfy lenders.

e) Increased immigration, has forced up rental prices.
f) The governments failure to cap housing allowance has kept rents artificially high.

Luckily, most of the extra points I added do not affect the situation in Poland.

that's an interesting one. my folks were still in their 30's when i left home.

why should anyone downsize ? unless it's for health reasons.

Oh wow, the home staging hand book! Really? That changes everything then, doesn't it?

Look, you may want to believe that's an objective source whose writers come to their numbers without bias or of opinion but that doesn't change the fact you've used a rubbish source. This is why realtors are often compared with to car salespeople.


My old wrestling buddy from university has sold hundreds of homes (he's not a bright individual but damn it if he can't b.s. with people) and a good looking flat will sell itself in the right market. You're stats have been shat on.

I rather agree with Pip. In a buyers' market everything helps and if people see some of the photos in online sales ads with full clothes airers, kids toys cluttering the floor, garish paint colours that make a home lok worse, too much of an 'individual stamp' ruining somewhere they just click the mouse and go to the next ad unless they have a very good reason to do otherwise. A flat might be in the right area, the right price etc but there's no point making someone's heart sink when they think about all the fixng up they'll have to do.

you did say 'good looking flat'. and that's the point. the better it looks the easier it will sell.

staging can't be a bad thing to entice a buyer.

There has been an argument brewing that modern, new built detached and semi-detached (outside of the luxury market, are very small, compared to what was built 40-50 years ago. A survey discovered that there were some 300-400,000 such homes which had a single occupancy. Labour have recently published a report which suggests that these people should be "forced" into smaller accommodation to free up these houses for young families. Typical "socialist", Labour.

It is thought that one of the reasons that the occupants of these larger houses do not want to move out is because they have all there memorories there, they have lived in these homes a long time (mortgage paid off) they raised their children there and feel safe amongst neighbours they know. They do not want to finish their days amongst strangers in areas they do not associate with.

NB. I read reently that the average size of a newly built 3 bedroom, family home was around 70m2, whereas the UK government housing guidelines recommend some 83m2. The developers are being accused of making these houses smaller to maximise profits.

I completely agreed with that in post #135:



So did I. It's just the whole "decisions are made in 8 seconds" jibber jabber is what I find to be silly. A decision is made instantly and how long it takes to get there is another matter but there's no way to actually measure how fast people make their decisions in such situations because a yes/no buzzer isn't there for people to slam on like in a quiz show.

ok so 8 seconds may sound ridiculous as a number but put it this way. the moment a potential buyer enters a home and shuts the door- the first glance is the deciding factor. so from the moment the door is shut and the potential buyers see the cloak room, hall, whatever- that is the 8 seconds.

if a hall is messy, if it is painted in garish colours or it smells- a potential buyer will know at that moment that they will not purchase the house. and this is why in Poland, the resale housing market lags far behind the western world- people who are selling are trying to dump the house and don't see it as somebody else's potential home so they think that the buyer will clean it up the way they want to. Giving a home a good clean and fresh paint is the minimum that should be done- and it is not done by a long shot.

and another major factor is that agents in Poland don't ask for exclusivity in a listing. which means it is a free for all when selling. In Canada, agents have exclusivity but they work for the money. they know the inside out of the house and will be able to answer any questions. they arrange open houses and try to sell the house. --that is not done here. we had an agent call my husband while he was showing to a client to ask the details of the home. we prepared a flyer for people that came to view the house with all info and pics- not one of our 7 agents did that. we had an agent show our house to her client who wanted to move in with her elderly father who is bound to a wheelchair- our house had 10 steps getting to the front door, a basement and an upstairs- no bathroom on the main level. the agent wasted our time but more importantly her clients time.--she should have filtered that house in her search.

a whole useless industry sprung up in US and some think the rest should follow. Remodeling. Staging. Flipping the house. It has to be modern. Anything short of steel appliances and granite counter tops won't do. What color should the walls be painted, what should it smell like. Bunch of lemmings buying into it. Buying a million dollar house and getting swayed by the color of the walls, or so the statistics say. Frivolous and short-sighted. I know there are idiots that bought houses that way, but nobody I know.

[imgs=][/imgs]of course- when there is a tv program made from it- some think this is the standard. in my opinion, in poland flipping houses is a good option to make some money. I am not talking about what you see on t.v. The average house flipper is more concerned with budget and making profit not designing a house for a tv show.

there are many old low rise apartment blocks in Warsaw that are pre war and the owners haven't renovated in 30+ years. clearly things have changed since then and in a buyers market- sellers need to get a leg up any way they can. I am not talking about putting a 75,000 pln kitchen into an apartment but there is nothing wrong with an Ikea kitchen or refinishing the old hardwood flooring and changing the lights- and of course paint.

just because it is on tv- doesn't make it real. most times these shows are dramatized for added effect. the entire concept of staging a home is to do it with the least amount of money possible. a seller doesn't have or want to throw cash around but the cost of a can of paint is pretty minimal and can make a huge difference- same with a good cleaning and decluttering.

fstop- ever view a house that stank of cat ****? I have. Ever view a house with dog sh*t all over the back garden? I have. This is the smell I mean and it makes a big difference because not everyone is a pet lover. The number one thing that all home stagers will say is the most important is to clean the house from top to bottom- nobody wants to see somebody else's dirt.

you still don't get it! That's where the best deals are. The smartest buy is always the worst house on the block. Before the "stagers" get their claws in to jack up the price. Getting the yard cleaned and house repainted is completely insignificant amount of money when compared to price of the house.

no I absolutely get it. I do get it. I can totally see a house for its potential- not its current state. But the majority of the population can't. and this is where a home stager comes in.

here is the thing. I am not going to sway people. I don't need to. I know otherwise and people will always think what they want and that is fine by me but I know it works. I am not trying to sell anybody on it. they need it or they don't. whatever.

Polish population maybe....at best!

Pip if you were doing it to zero in on the Canadian market I would agree, poles have a different mentality, they look at it differently (things may change in the future) for the Polish market, do a place up and you will get the same as if it was in its original state...I agree with you about Polish real estate agents though, there absolutely shockers!

yes, i do agree with you- but it is more of a "it has always been like this so no need to change it" When I co operated with this home staging company in Poland- the owner received many calls and loads of people were interested. I think this comes from watching that "house dr." show on tv- so many Poles were interested. We received a few calls from people that had inherited their grandparents flat and needed to sell it fast.

Oferty.net is a great resource, much like mls. it has loads of pictures- even the links I provided above shows a resale home for 1.7 million. who would buy a house in that state for that amount of money unless it was in West Vancouver? Some of these houses have been on there for three years!

The market is too saturated with new construction homes to expect to pull 1.7 million for an older home and then have to reno the entire thing.

Indeed, when I was buying a place not so long ago, it was amazing how little effort people made when it came to selling a place. I think - honestly - only one person actually had a place that you looked at and said "wow, I could live here".