My name is Justin Zakrook.

I'm a realtor here in Vancouver, BC at the Agency of Vancouver.

I'm here at this beautiful new listing of mine in Brentwood, BC.

I'm at a pre-staged

condo and I'll take you through the process.

Love interior design and architecture.

I feel like that's one of my big assets.

Really look

into the details of a home, what can make the home better and what you can do to improve

it as well.

And things to change around your home to actually make it look aesthetic and

With staging, I definitely think it's about selling a lifestyle.

With this condo in particular, it was actually previously tenanted with Tenet in it.

And I find with tenants' furniture, sometimes they don't buy furniture that fits the exact space.

So with this one, the tenant actually has moved out, so that's why we're staging it now,

to really paint that picture for buyers to really see

how they can fit in the space and what can fit in the space.

It definitely helps you see the flow of the home and what you can do.

Countless times I walk into bedrooms and the main question is,

will a queen-size bed fit in here?

With staging, you have the potential to show

a bed can fit in this bedroom, which sounds crazy,

but with these small spaces, not a lot of times you can tell, right?

So when I'm looking at the styling of our home, I always look at the area

For example, in somewhere like Kitsilando, there might be a kind of boho chic couple

that loves to work out, run the seawall.

We kind of want to stage it to the area.

That's something that would match that perfect buyer.

Burnaby is usually young couples over here.

Usually a nice, sleek, furnished apartment, which is great,

where they can have space to entertain, hang out with friends.

In the home selling process, usually you meet with your agent first,

have the walkthrough, and then we talk about staging, staging tips,

and then usually a week before photos, stage your home.

So I do help with the process too, I'm usually here for both moving day and with the stager too to kind of put my own personal touch on it as well.

For photo and video I like being here too just to make sure we get all the right angles.

When you're picking a stager, we have our recommendations, of course.

I love stage masters, but you want to make sure they have a huge catalog of a warehouse they can pick from.

I would definitely recommend seeing their previous stages, so it's not just the same picture and the same couch, the same bed, sheets, everything.

So it's not just copy and paste, copy and paste.

They're actually putting effort and love into it.

So definitely the benefit when you're selling and you're working with an agent that has been through the process.

They can definitely curate it for you, so it's a lot easier and a seamless process.

But you can also do semi to light staging as well, where they come in with your own furniture

and just do a light fluff.

They may bring throws, pillows, just artwork and just little things that they can do to

make it feel like an interior designer home.

So there's definitely totally different options.

There's options where you can still live there, there's options where it's totally vacant,

and there's some options where they bring it in for photos and video and sometimes they

take it out.

If you have a furry friend at home, it can be a little bit more challenging.

What I would recommend is probably just having the stagers come in for the day,

for photos and video, to really get that vibe of the staging and to see it all still.

What I find in Vancouver...

Our spaces are a lot smaller, so we have to be a lot more creative with the spaces.

A lot of times we had the millennial grey, as we used to call it,

and that was a big fad where everything was grey and it was easy to do,

where now we want pops of colour, we want different things, we want it to look cool.

A lot of the homes in Vancouver, their condos, they're all stacked,

so they're all the same floor plan.

Things like that can really make your space feel incredible and individualised.

I always say declutter, and I say declutter to the extremes, so a crazy amount, basically

like it looks like someone's kind of living there, but not really, appliances on the counter

is a big thing, a lot of people will have their toaster, their blender out, all that

stuff needs to go away, sometimes even their coffee machine, less is more.

Buyers should definitely look out for what caters to their life.

If you like to entertain, a big thing I always say if you like to be outside,

don't get a patio that's linked up to another patio with a little divider

because you're going to hear your neighbors.

One huge feature everyone looks for is in the kitchen prep space.

So having prep space to help entertain or a kitchen island.

So one big thing with stagers, if they don't have that,

they can actually bring a movable island or a dining top table

where they can have bar stool seating.

So it's like you have the best of both worlds where you have

counter space to prep and you have a space to eat on too.

I think the biggest thing you see when you're investing in staging is you see lower time on

market.

So staged homes sell faster.

You're not sitting on the market as much, so that's a cost

too.

So you're not incurring all those carrying costs.

If your maintenance is becoming every

month, especially if you have vacant property, you're not paying the mortgage still.

A home

that is staged definitely sells way faster than a home that is not.

It appeals to way

more buyers, gets 10 times the amount of showings, and so much interest.