How Smart Interior Design Helps Multifamily Properties Sell and Lease for More | Marcy Sagel

Marcy (00:00)
So while the units are incredibly important, the layout of the units, the wow factors, it’s important for the units to look fantastic, but the wow factors are in the amenities. ⁓ People walk in, they do the tour, they feel like they’re in an elevated space that has all of these wonderful, current, trendy, interesting, new things, and they wanna be a part of that. They wanna bring their friends over, their family over, and they wanna entertain there.

Scott Bursey (02:00)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros Podcast powered by Investor Fuel. I’m your host, Scott Bursey.

Marcy (02:04)
And I’m

going to start presentation.

Scott Bursey (02:06)
And today we’re dialing up the energy because we have a guest who brings some serious fuel to the art of investing. The kind of fuel that turns a tired house into a stunning top dollar closing. She’s the visionary behind some of the most profitable property transformations I’ve ever seen. We’re talking about creating environments that buyers must have. Please welcome the powerhouse of design and efficiency. Marcy Sagel from

MSA interiors. Marcy, welcome to the show.

Marcy (02:37)
Thanks, Scott. Thank you so much for having me. I’m really grateful to be here.

Scott Bursey (02:39)
It is wonderful.

It is just outstanding. Yes. And Marcy, before we jump in, for those of our listeners who may not be familiar with your journey, please tell us how did your career begin and what is your main focus now?

Marcy (02:47)
Thank

So we are an interior design firm. We specialize in commercial interior design, multi-family, affordable housing, student housing, senior housing, healthcare, you name it. Any of the big stuff we’re involved in it. ⁓ Started out ⁓ as an interior designer doing residential and had a very big specialty in cabinetry. ⁓ And while I was doing that cabinetry,

Someone asked me that was head of a very large public company ⁓ if I would ⁓ value engineer their cabinetry for their multifamily building that they were building. And it was all in planning stage. And ⁓ I did and saved them lots and lots of money by reconfiguring and relaying out. ⁓ Basically, know, architects are good. Some are better than others in units.

And so we try to maximize that efficiency in units by laying out the living room correctly, maximizing that space, maybe moving an open, changing the doorway and just, so we redline every unit. And we also do the cabinetry. And that’s how I got started in multifamily. And he became my mentor and worked with me on my very first multifamily building and held my hand while I learned everything there was to learn and had been doing it.

ever since and that’s what our team specializes here.

Scott Bursey (04:21)
What an awesome, awesome journey, great foundation. And Marcy, let’s dive right in to the question that all of our listeners want to know. What is MSA Interiors biggest competitive advantage in today’s demanding real estate market?

Marcy (04:29)
Share it.

So because we have a lot of experience, we are incredibly knowledgeable on products and price point of products. And I think that our main advantage is that when we get involved very early on, we hope very early on, because that’s always when you get the best opportunities to get to know a new developer or to work with them and kind of get the best space planning

involvement from an early stage. Because we know so much about the cost of materials,

and what’s new and what’s current. We’ve worked with developing a lot of manufactured materials for multi-family tile, flooring, LBP, ⁓ countertops, you name it. We’ve been involved in creating a lot of those color sources and finishes. ⁓ We don’t have to value engineer later in the job. If we do it early on and we pick with the developer what those price points are. So for instance, if you’re looking at tile and we’re showing

tile and all the finishes to the developer, we’re going to tell you exactly what that buy price is for that tile. So if you’re looking at a $2 tile or a $4 tile or a $1.50 tile and you fall in love with the $2 tile, the developer might say, you know what, I love that. And for 50 cents more, I love the bang for the buck. So let’s pick the $2 a square foot tile. So we’re value engineering as the process goes on.

early, early on so that we don’t have to come back later and have all of the subs and vendors recreating our look for us. We’re creating that look with the team and with the management group, with the developer early on, trying to understand those pricing points early.

Scott Bursey (07:13)
That is an excellent breakdown. Thank you for the clarity and the vision. That is just remarkable. And Marcy, if you could walk us through, where do you see most real estate investors underestimating the cost or time involved in interior design and the renovation phase?

Marcy (07:35)
So we work with a lot of development groups and management groups to do renovations. And sometimes we will walk a project a year before we actually do it so that they can plan the dollars. We can give them how much it’s going to cost for each space so that they can put that into their planning phase for renovations for the following year. We almost always do that with large groups a year in advance.

⁓ or at least maybe six months in advance so that they can put that into their budget.

Scott Bursey (08:10)
If you could help us understand this Marcy, what is the biggest design trend right now that investors should leverage for maximum ROI and which one should they ignore in your view?

Marcy (08:13)
Mm-hmm.

So while the units are incredibly important, the layout of the units, the wow factors, it’s important for the units to look fantastic, but the wow factors are in the amenities. ⁓ People walk in, they do the tour, they feel like they’re in an elevated space that has all of these wonderful, current, trendy, interesting, new things, and they wanna be a part of that. They wanna bring their friends over, their family over, and they wanna entertain there.

and they feel like this is their community. And it’s not just the unit, but the actual amenity itself.

Scott Bursey (09:02)
Excellent breakdown on what modern buyers are looking for. Marcy if you could help us understand this as well. Outside of the usual, what unexpected external factors like changes in local zoning or even digital threats I guess pose the biggest risk to interior design projects right now?

Marcy (09:23)
So everyone in the industry is really experiencing, it’s been a pause in 2025 into 2026. We had more jobs pause or delay what I call the push out. So in all the years I’ve been in business, I’d say why we’re very, very busy, the push out was a lot more than I thought it would be. And people were waiting to see what the market was going to do.

They were waiting to see if the interest rates were gonna come down and they were looking at a lot of external factors before they moved ahead with projects. And so while all of these have come back to life,

we did see a lot of changes between 2025 and 2026.

Scott Bursey (10:42)
Staying flexible is so critical and if you could give us the plan your strategy for the next oh let’s say 12 to 18 months marcy.

Marcy (10:45)
Mm-hmm.

So we have a really good log of projects. Our projects are contracted into 2029 and 2030, if you can believe that. So we already know we can plan ahead. We can look at what’s coming. We can see how busy 2027 is going to be because all of the projects are releasing. They’re all moving ahead.

They’re trying to get built as quickly as possible. So the trends are that 2027 for this industry is going to be absolutely stellar. So we’re hoping to see that going into 2027, 2028. We can see that because the planning and the release of projects.

Scott Bursey (11:40)
I love that framing right there. That’s a huge distinction. And Marcy, with all of your experience, what is the one overlooked low cost interior element, let’s say, that drastically increases a property’s perceived value?

Marcy (11:57)
Let’s see, there’s so many things that I think improve value, but ⁓ I think the finishes that you picked for the amenity spaces are ultimately going to be the most important thing that you do in your multifamily space. Whether it’s a clubhouse and a garden style or a high rise or mid rise, ⁓ those amenity features are going to be super important.

And so the finishes that you pick are ultimately to me the most important.

Scott Bursey (12:30)
It’s often the small, intentional details that make a massive difference in an open house. Focus on that high quality. Great words. And marcy.

Marcy (12:41)
Right. Right. And

I tell people this as an analogy. If you look at your home, okay, let’s say you just bought a new home, okay, and you just change a few things in that new home, like light fixtures, like hardware and plumbing, like faucets, those three things alone give a big, big uplift and a big design uplift to your personal property.

And I say the same thing in any of the multifamily.

Scott Bursey (13:13)
100 % and marcy this is a must know. If you could give our listeners just one single absolute must do design secret, a professional tip you use to ensure a property sells for top dollar

of neighborhood. What is that one secret?

Marcy (13:32)
One secret is, people just want to feel the comfort and the ease of flow from space to space. They don’t want to feel like they’re in some trendy art crazy project that’s going to date itself. They want to feel the comfort. They want to feel like community oriented. so we really want to have, what we say is we want to have

the longest shelf life possible for the look. So we wanna make it something that’s gonna appeal to a wider audience, but still have a lot of individual wow factors.

Scott Bursey (14:13)
there that’s the wow factor excellent thank you so much for that and marcy would you like to leave our audience with any advice any golden nuggets today

Marcy (14:25)
So one of the biggest nuggets that I think for any successful project is to bring your GC and your architecture group in there really early. Interior design is a specialty because we do the furniture and the art and all of the accessories as well. Bring your interior design group in early to do a lot of the space planning and early decision making with the architecture firm.

and you will get a lot more value from the extensive portion of the design ⁓ in the long run. So we say, know, the one nugget is bring your interior design group in very early.

Scott Bursey (15:47)
on. Marcy, this has been pure fire today. And for our listeners who want to follow your journey or collaborate with you, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Marcy (15:59)
We can be reached through our website. ⁓ My email is [email protected].

Scott Bursey (16:08)
Thank you for joining us today, Marcy.

Marcy (16:11)
I appreciate it Scott, thanks for having me.

Scott Bursey (16:14)
And to our listeners, we appreciate each and every one of you. If you got value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We have a lineup of exceptional guests, just like Marcy, who are making huge moves in the market. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you in the next episode, everyone.