Name: Sanja Radovanovic
Title: CEO
Experience: since 2013
Location: Rome, Italy
Company Name: The Art of Staging
1) Talk to us about your early days in Home Staging :
I started my staging business in Chicago, Illinois in 2013. My first client was Beverly Fleischman from Coldwell Banker in Wilmette. She was my repetitive client who, back then, had already understood the importance of staging properties not only in order to achieve better and faster sales, but to also give an extra service to her valuable clients. In doing so, she would always offer them a Home Staging Consultation. Expanding the circle of clients in the United Sates was definitely easier than it is in Italy, but we should also not forget that Staging was born and created by Barb Schwarz in 1972.
2) How did you get your start in Luxury Home Staging?
Pure luck. I started my career landing luxury home staging projects. Chicago’s North Shore is very well known for luxury homes and its lifestyle. In Wilmette, the town where I used to live and work, the average home value is $718,839 and properties go to pending in approximately 6 days (according to Zillow).
3) What are some of the most important elements of a successful Luxury home staging project?
Staging a Luxury Home is all about emphasizing the space and creating a lifestyle. Luxury homes require strategic marketing and a deeper knowledge of Interior Design.
Some important, if not crucial elements are:
- Having a proper knowledge of the luxury real estate market.
- Understanding the buyers’ profile as luxury buyers tend to be more sophisticated and demanding.
- Luxury homes usually come with distinctive and innovative design features, or have unique views. A good staging needs to correctly highlight those features.
- The right furniture and accessories are key. Besides the appropriate scales and proportions, quality furniture and luxurious textures, trending decor and treasured art and antiques will do most of the job. Luxury buyers appreciate exceptional quality and design.
Home Staging on a luxury property must make a statement!
4) Tell us something more about your passions and lifestyle
I am all about nature, sports and adventures! I have a great passion for gardening and if I didn’t have to work, I would spend my days between March and October in contact with nature among flowers, plants, crops and fruits. The sea is my preferred place to go find some peace of mind. I like staring and listening to the waves when I need to brainstorm or plan. Long walks on the beach especially soon after dawn give me the right mindset to start the day full of energy and inner peace. I favor a healthy lifestyle, but I realize I’m not always able to maintain it due to long working hours and business or networking events and trips.
5) Do you have any experience working with real estate agents? Tell us more about it and the way you build value for them.
Together with investors, real estate agents and brokers are the best clients! When you build strong partnerships, you create wealth and build value for each other.
Agents who choose to continuously work with Stagers are those who have decided to set themselves apart from the competition. When they include Home Staging in their marketing strategy plan, they do something that most others don’t. This alone is one of the biggest differentiating factors, and a powerful new listing acquisition tool. Moreover, this shows the owners that they care about them and most of all, about their equity.
6) How do I build value for real estate agents?
With my Home Stagings, I help them get more in a hot market, whereas in a slow market, I help them keep more.
After several years of building grounds together with MARI Team Immobiliare, an agency that stages every listing regardless of its price point and at their own expenses, I have become the first Real Estate Creative Director in Italy; this to emphasize that I have too developed myself professionally, and thus been enriched through this partnership.
We want to attract buyers who are in a specific price range.
7) How would you adjust your decorating and staging choices if the current setup was too expensive-looking?
It is usually the other way around when the existing home owner’s furniture does not reflect the actual value of the property, making it “look or feel” cheaper or dated.Something too expensive-looking not necessarily is tasteful or on trend. The must-do when staging a lux project is to create one of a kind interior environments of the house that do allow to emotionally connect. Highlighting the architectural features and special amenities is another must do. I always like to remind my clients that buyers When buying a luxury properties, they are also purchasing the lifestyle that comes with it.
8) What do you think is the most important skill for a Home Stager to have?
Apart from having received proper training on the subject, it is crucial that a professional Home Stager has some important soft skills such as: creativity, lateral thinking, team and stress management, and last but not least, emotional intelligence.
9) What makes you stand out from other Home Stagers?
The capacity to manage and furnish a large number of Home Staging projects at the same time, and the speed of project execution— of course in comparison to other professionals in Italy.
Latest Work by Sanja Radovanovic
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