The crashing economy and crumbling real estate market have had an unexpected side effect: an emergence of the frugal rich who no longer buy just because, but demand to visualize themselves in a palace before they plunk down the cash.

For most people trying to sell their house, that visualization has always meant ``staging'' -- the strategic placement of a borrowed La-Z-Boy chair, the shifting of a floral arrangement, the hanging of that painting that has gathered dust in the garage for 10 years.

High-end staging, or ``hyper-staging,'' as some South Florida experts have taken to calling it, is another thing altogether.

We're talking custom-made light fixtures the size of a small car, hundreds of color-coded books placed in the home's library to stimulate a buyer's visual cortex, the removal of a kitchen wall, and the placement of a temporary wall in a bedroom, to name a few changes.

``I would say that we've gotten two dozen requests for this hyper-staging over the past couple of years,'' said Giselle Loor of Hollywood-based B&G Design. ``The way it started was, homeowners and their sales agents began asking us for our opinion, `Why won't this house sell.' And after we studied the market and even social factors we figured out that it was about buyers in all income categories being cautious.''

Until recently, many high-end home buyers were not as discriminating as the average home buyer, says Barb Schwarz, founder of Staged Homes, a sort of staging university for home decorators and related professionals in California.

Rather than needing to ``see themselves in a home'' to be convinced, they simply needed to be convinced that the home -- the structure and the grounds -- and the surrounding community were high quality, she said.

The recession has made many of those buyers more cautious.

Alex Bruno, a Remax agent and historic-home and staging expert, agrees that the failing economy has made staging necessary for top-flight houses.

``It's strange, but it's true,'' Bruno says. ``People with money to spare are not so carefree. I've found it with many of my listings over the past couple of years. And now, when I list a higher-priced house, I don't even wait to see if its size and beauty can sell it anymore. I just automatically stage it, unless it is already well-appointed.''

Bruno says his first sign that high-end home sales were no longer a given was when he listed the Young mansion, the 7,200-square-foot East Hollywood home built in 1925 by Hollywood city founder Joseph W. Young, in mid-2008.

A LOT OF HISTORY

``That house came with so much history, so many stories. It's on three lots. And the structure itself is just beautiful,'' Bruno says. ``And at one time, someone who could afford to pay $2 million to $4 million for a home would have just snapped it up, because of its location. That didn't happen with this house.''

Indeed, the Young mansion hasn't had any decent offers until recently, Bruno says.

The difference?

``In my mind, the difference came after we changed the look of the inside of the house to suit a new kind of high-end buyer,'' he says. ``Yes, I mean a more careful buyer. But I'm also talking a more modern buyer who will accept that a home is well-built and therefore spend less time questioning the structure and more time trying to see if it feels right. And if people are going to feel right in a house, it has to look like a place where they would live.''

Join the discussion

The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. In order to post comments, you must be a registered user of MiamiHerald.com. Your username will show along with the comments you post. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.

     Showing: Oldest first Newest first Most-recommended first Least-recommended first

@Nyx.AuthorDisplayName@ wrote on @Nyx.PostedAtTime@:

@Nyx.repliedToText@

@Nyx.replyAnswerText@

Reply to this Comment @Nyx.Recommender@ @Nyx.AbuseReporter@