Furniture Staging In Homes For Sale Works For Brook Furniture Rental

Furniture World Magazine

With locations in many other U.S. metropolitan areas, Brook Furniture Rental, Inc. has a significant involvement in the real estate sales practice known as a staging of a home. Bob Crawford decided to use Brook Furniture's staging services when he and his family relocated from Atlanta to Chicago, where Brook Furniture has its headquarters in Lake Forest, IL and Crawford is now executive vice president. Crawford joined Brook Furniture from Coca-Cola Company, where he was Director of Marketing in the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) Channel, the largest segment in Coca-Cola North America's Foodservice division. The promise of staging is that the improved appearance of the home offered for sale will shorten the time the house is on the market and will support the home’s stated value. With the national market experiencing interest rate increases and an abundance of available properties, home sellers are eager to improve their property’s odds when they offer a home for sale. For the Crawford family, the promise of staging and the value of Brook Furniture’s service held up: their Marietta, GA home was on the market for 38 days before a buyer came forward with an offer that represented 99 percent of the asking price for the home. The closing took place May 22, 2007. In contrast, during the same period, homes in the same area averaged more than 100 days on the market before a sale. Lynne Cherrington of Harry Norman Realtors was the listing agent. The Atlanta showroom of Brook Furniture Rental, Inc. provided the furniture, placed in the home with accessories according to a plan developed with Georgia Home Staging. Headquartered in the Chicago area, Brook Furniture Rental, Inc. is a service-oriented company focused on renting, leasing and selling a full line of residential and office furnishings to individuals and changing corporations in a highly mobile society. The company is growing through its focus on delivering premier service and high quality furniture to sophisticated customers in the high end of the furniture rental market. The company has become the third largest – and the largest privately-held – company in the rent-to-rent segment of the furniture industry. Customers of Brook Furniture Rental, Inc. are typically transferred business executives relocating to a city for a temporary period of time, sometimes in advance of a family’s move. Other customers include professional athletes, businesses or government agencies that need to set up offices for short work assignments, or home builders or real estate agents staging homes for quick results when the properties are offered for sale in competitive markets.