Wednesday, June 11, 2008

For The Record: A Home Improvement Business Idea

OK, as long as I'm thinking about getting ideas into the permanent record, here's one I had a few days ago while on a run. It may be cruddy, but it's been knocking around in my head long enough - time to get it on paper.

So, I'm running along and notice a whole bunch of houses for sale. This, plus a bit of oxygen deprivation, triggers a thought that a co-worker Mike R. had mentioned to me years ago: don't wait to fix all the annoying things about your house until you move out. Fix them now, so you can enjoy the benefits of having done so. (That's not a direct quote, but it's close enough).

Which triggered this idea - what if you had a small business that specialized in real estate staging come in and stage your house. That is, prep it be sold - fix all the glaring issues, perhaps re-layout the furniture, put stuff in storage, etc. Now, you take this ideally staged house - and - just live in it. Don't sell it. Just enjoy.

Something like: stageitbutkeepit.com. The person doing the staging would know all the contractors and folks to call to get all your woes fixed in a hurry. And after an intensive cleanup session, the house would be like a new home.

Of course, parts of this idea don't work - part of staging is removing your presence so that someone else can move in. But still, I'm sure (and this is me guessing) part of it is doing things like fixing that leaky faucet, and getting the yard landscaped (or at least weeded).

So there it is, the idea. Hmmm, maybe I just described the job of a good cleaning service? No, I think it's more than that...

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