For 17 years, Sharon Colvill worked as a successful Realtor and loved every minute of it.
“I thought I’d be working that job my whole life. I envisioned myself as an 80-year-old lady selling real estate!” says Colvill with a chuckle. After she got married, however, her husband traveled a good bit for work, and she began to find that working nights and weekends was not conducive to being available to spend time with him and her two step-children. The wheels started turning on ways she could remain in the industry without having to sacrifice precious time with her family.
“I’d often have friends & family tell me they thought I had such a good eye for design,” recalls Colvill. An idea was born and out of that grew an entire company.
In 2009, Sharon launched Eye 4 Design Interiors, a full-service staging company that works with Real Estate Agents, Homeowners, Builders and Rehabbers to transform their properties and encourage quick sales. Being a seasoned Realtor, she knows what a property needs to look like in order to sell.
“Staging is different than decorating,” says Colvill. “Decorating is more personal and taste-specific whereas staging is strategic marketing that highlights the features within a home so it will appeal to the masses.”
When Sharon started in the staging business more than a decade ago, it was a bit of a hard sell to make Realtors see that staging is a phenomenal marketing tool. HGTV has helped them make their case.
“It’s critical to showcase the features of a home in the best possible light so that it sells as fast as possible and for the most amount of money the market will bear,” says Colvill. “Now when Sellers ask their Realtors if it’s smart to stage their homes, they say, ‘Absolutely!’”
Julie Back, Executive Sales Vice President with Sibcy Cline Realtors and a top Agent in Cincinnati, is one such Realtor.
“There have been times when a home just needs accessories freshened up. Sharon’s staging skills help immensely in the sales process of my Listings,” says Back. “ ‘Livability’ and ‘show ability’ don’t go together in this marketplace. Sellers need to work hard to get their homes in the condition Buyers expect.”
Back explains to her Clients that to elevate a property to the level that is commensurate with what they want to ask, their home must be buttoned up and show perfect like a model home.
“Julie had a Seller a few months ago who had a $1.7M house in Indian Hill. While the furnishings were beautiful, they were sparse, so Julie asked us to come in and punch it up to create the wow factor,” says Colvill. After the Eye 4 Design Interiors team worked their magic, the home sold immediately and over asking price.
Some people are reluctant to hire a Stager because they are under the impression that staging is super expensive. What they don’t take into account, however, is the money they save by staging, which is often 1/3 to 1/4 the cost of a price reduction.
“If you’re going to take a $10K to $15K price reduction versus investing $3K to $4K on staging, why would you not be proactive as opposed to reactive?” asks Colvill.
Sometimes a home doesn’t sell simply due to dated furniture.
“I recently was in a house that had furnishings with a French country flair,” says Sharon. “In this market, that doesn’t appeal to most Buyers, so they put their furniture in storage and we brought in pieces that were more transitional.”
It’s not that she doesn’t understand Homeowners’ hesitancy to make a change.
“When it’s your own home, it’s really hard to be objective and look at it through the eyes of a prospective Buyer and see the features within that house that first drew you to it,” says Colvill. “The way you live and the way you sell are very different.”
When Sellers can’t look beyond their own environment or their own style or furnishings, that’s where bringing in a Stager is helpful, as they can offer suggestions for how to make sure every space looks fantastic—both in photographs and in person. Then, if needed, the Client can either purchase or rent.
“Once you cast that vision for them, the Homeowner often says,
‘Oh, I get it now!’” says Colvill. “The main focal point of the room
should be that great feature which is what I first noticed when I bought this house.”
Sharon and her 12-member team tackle homes of all sizes—Million-dollar Luxury homes, houses in the Suburbs in the $250K to $450K price point, as well as 700 sq. ft. downtown lofts. While their warehouse is located in northern Kentucky, Colvill and her 5 Lead Designers work all over the Northern Kentucky and Greater Cincinnati area, offering a variety of services.
“I have an incredibly talented team around me and I absolutely couldn’t nor would I want to do this without them!” says Colvill. Along with her Lead Designers, that team includes her husband who handles billing, an operations manager and purchasing agent who stay on top of scheduling and inventory supply needs, and terrific support staff who keep things running smoothly with installation and de-staging of projects.
Eye 4 Design Interiors offers Owner-occupied staging consultations during which they coach the Homeowner on everything they need to do in each room of the entire house to ensure it shows optimally. That might include removing, replacing, updating, editing or purging items that do not positively add to the space. Then, if needed, the Client can either purchase what they need or rent inventory from Eye 4 Design Interiors on a one-month minimum basis.
The majority of their staging projects are vacant homes.
“Those are fun because we have a nice neutral palette where we can create what we want with all the inventory we have,” says Colvill, noting that they pull from a 20,000 sq. ft. warehouse that holds enough inventory to stage up to 90 houses.
One Realtor recently wrote the following review: “What a difference professional staging makes when selling a home! Eye 4 Design Interiors has such an incredible gift of creating the most out of any space, large or small, that gives our potential Buyers the vision of what the space can truly be.
Their attention to detail and talent of staging each room so beautifully continually helps my Real Estate Agent Team, and our Seller, to get the home sold quickly and at the highest price! My Clients appreciate Eye 4 Design Interiors’ straightforward approach and professionalism and respect for their home throughout the process. Eye 4 Design Interiors has my Clients raving about the results! We highly recommend them to both Real Estate Agents and their Clients! Unequivocally, an outstanding company!”
Sharon loves it when Buyers and Sellers are dumbfounded at the incredible difference staging makes.
“We get a lot of Buyers who often love the staging so much that they either ask to buy everything in the house, or they ask us for help in decorating their new home,” says Colvill. “We also get a lot of Sellers who walk in after we’ve staged their place and say, ‘Oh my gosh...I had no idea my house could look this good! Can you help me decorate my new house?’”
Eye 4 Design Interiors is located at 400 Homan Dr., Cold Spring, KY 41076. For more information, call 513-916-0500 or visit https://eye4designinteriors.net