The Proof is in the Flipping!

I enjoy George Clarke’s programmes, so 6 weeks ago I was looking forward to watching his latest Channel 4 series Flipping Fast, with brother and sister property developers, Scarlette and Stuart Douglas. What I wasn’t expecting was to be surprised by the by the content! I suppose if I was to be honest, I was expecting a Homes Under the Hammer style game, how wrong was I?

Being home stagers for over 10 years, we, together with fellow stagers have spent years slowly educating estate agents and property owners the benefits of investing in staging as a marketing tool when bringing their properties to market and now finally Channel 4, George Clarke, Scarlette, Stuart and two of his contestants, mother and daughter team Janet and Olivia have proved how imperative staging is in order to sell faster, stand out from the competition and best of all make a healthy profit.

For those of you who haven’t watched it, it’s well worth tuning in on catch up. The idea of the show is that six teams were given £100k each and a year to purchase and flip as many properties as possible, without spending over the £100k float. The team that made the most profit would keep not only the initial £100k but every penny profit they made. The other teams would keep all the profit they made, so strategically it was a win-win for all.

By the end of the second episode, four teams had bought, renovated, and sold their first properties. It was a very close race with only £500 profit difference between team one (Janet and Olivia) and two, (Ricky and Andrew) and £4,193 profit between team two and three (Harriet). The main difference between all the teams was that Janet and Olivia, currently top of the leader board were the only ones that had ensured they kept a healthy budget aside to stage their property, this showed the other teams an additional marketing tool possible to increase their profit margin.

By episode five, with four teams now renovating their second properties, brothers Ricky and Andrew decided if they had any chance of competing with Janet and Olivia, they would need to up their game and stage, which they did and had accepted an offer on their second property which took them to the top of the leader board.

Episode six was edge of the seat viewing, with only two teams left to finish and sell their second properties, husband and wife team, Pamela and Gordon, who were very much the underdogs (only making £1,280 profit on their first property) and now with the biggest renovation of the whole series looked as if they could pip Janet and Olivia to top spot! Talk about nail biting…..

In the end thanks to Janet and Olivia’s forward thinking staging model they won with a whopping £54,632 profit, followed by Pamela and Gordon, the underdogs, with a healthy profit of £38,833.

Thank you Channel 4, George Clarke and especially Janet and Olivia for finally creating a programme that clearly shows just how beneficial staging a property is.

So, if you have an empty property that you are intending to sell, get in touch with the multi-award winning staging company The Property Presenters for your winning formula.