Showhomes St. Pete-Clearwater and Showhomes Staging-Tampa have seen huge recent growth and business continues to improve as the real estate market recovers from a recent slump. Franchisee Carol Ackerman recently transformed a 3,858-square-foot house, listed for $3.4 million on Belleair Beach, Florida, one of 30 homes under contract with her in the area.
"We furnish so people can imagine, but we don’t overdo it," Ackerman told the Tampa Tribune. "It’s minimalist. Just enough to give a feeling that this room is an office, for example."
Ackerman said she saw business double in 2014 from the previous year, and by May 2015 she had already done as much business as she had in all of the previous year. And she isn't alone in her success.
"We are the No. 1 Showhomes franchise in Florida, and the Tampa market is fantastic for staging,” Linda Saavedra, owner of Showhomes Staging-Tampa, said. “We’ve done $200 million in homes since 2009 and no one has ever said ‘I shouldn’t have staged my house.’ I’m going to say we’ve had a 40 percent revenue increase since 2013.”
Showhomes started 30 years ago during the 1980s recession when a lot of homes were in foreclosure, empty and languishing on the market, and company COO Matt Kelton said this year has been the most successful in their history.
“We are up 35 percent (in revenue) year over year. Out of the last 10 months, five have been all-time records,” he said in regard to revenue.
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