Companies to Watch: Relocation Advisors Group

A picture is worth a thousand words, but when you set it against a mauve wall, it might be worth a thousand dollars in what it can help a house command on the market. That’s the thinking behind the services of home stylists, in some cases known as stagers, the design consultants who sales associates employ, particularly in the high-end market, to make a house look as attractive as possible for sale.

But to Bobbi Hauser, GRI, styling is too useful to be limited to upscale homes and too important to be left to designers outside real estate. That’s because styling can help salespeople reposition a house on the market in terms of price and, in some cases, add to the overall value of the neighborhood—pluses for almost any listing.

Styling—Hauser calls it “lifestyling”—can include permanent changes to a house, such as interior painting, new carpeting, and new windows, not just those for marketing purposes.

Because changes such as these can increase a home’s value, they’re a strategic consideration best managed by a licensed practitioner, says Hauser. To put her styling ideas into practice, she launched Relocation Advisors Group Inc. in Palatine, Ill., with her broker husband, Rick Hauser, GRI, in 2002. The company is a buyer brokerage that offers styling services to salespeople at other companies.

Hauser’s company is too new to have much of a track record, but she’s working with half a dozen brokers to provide styling services to their associates. Styling costs vary greatly, but a typical project might cost $2,000, she says.

By having licensees take these projects on, sellers can factor the cost of styling into the commission. That can take the sting out of the costs and extend the affordability of styling to houses in mid-range markets. Remember: Commissions can be split only between licensees.

“I provide a contract rider to the sellers’ associates that delineates everything I’ll do to improve the value of the house,” says Hauser. “They factor those services into the commissions they negotiate. When the sale closes, I receive a cut of the commission in the same way that a buyer’s rep would.”

Styling works well for older houses on large lots that builders like to buy and replace with high-end homes, she says. Builders say the existing houses have little value outside the land they sit on. But by adding styling changes, sellers can attract owner-occupant buyers, who can challenge builders’ ability to keep their offer low, she says.

The technique also can give a competitive edge to sellers who list their home while new models in the community are still being built. And exterior styling, such as landscaping, can encourage buyers to look at a house with a shopworn appearance.

For 2004, Hauser’s goal is to roll out presentations to educate brokers to the benefits of styling, and to train associates to build styling into their services. “When practitioners see what I can do to a house, they know their clients will want that,” she says. “They see the sense in using commission money to increase the overall value of the home and—over time—market values in the area.”