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YORKTOWN, N.Y.-- Joanne Palumbo has seen the ebbs and flows of the real estate market, both inside and outside the home.
Palumbo, who is an interior decorator, as well as a home stager and blogger, works with clients to either decorate the home they live in currently, or help them to decorate their home in such a way before it sells.
When I started getting back into real estate, sometimes I was almost even shocked at how people would leave their houses when they tried to sell them, and so I thought maybe this is something I could really get into and do and it turned out that it was a really new industry, Palumbo said. I kind of molded together my love for real estate and my passion for interior design and combined the two."
With the economic crisis that affected much of the economy, especially the housing market, from Palumbos seat shes seen a back and forth between the popularity of home staging versus interior designing.
Because the real estate market is so slow, a lot of people are choosing to stay in their homes, so then they say well if Im going to stay here then Im going to make it come out the way I really want it, so theyre spending the money in decorating, Palumbo said. Staging comes in waves, but the decorating seems to be pretty consistent, because maybe people dont see moving as an option anymore.
Palumbo said Yorktown has been largely receptive to the idea of home staging or even her interior decoratingbut the home staging aspect is something fairly new to the East Coast, yet more and more realtors or clients are calling her for help.
For that reason, Palumbo started her own blog called Homestyling 101 to discuss home staging and interior decorating as a way to create conversations with interested people and to help those who are in need of some tips.
I really felt like there was a need for it, just from a local arena to really put my business out there and reach out to the local community and see what the local concerns were, what people were encountering in their own homes and with their own design dilemmas, she said. And its a great way to really stay in touch with your consumers on a regular basis and make it a value to them. So its not really just me selling my business, but just kind of helping other people out.
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