Selling Your Home? Consider Hiring a Home Stager
| Want to sell your house? Before putting it on the market, you’ll probably want it to look as good as possible. So, you’ll do a few things like paint the gutters, fix that leaky faucet, and finally throw away all those piles of papers you’re never going to look at. But that’s the old-fashioned way. Today, the business of getting a house to look as good as possible before you sell it is much more sophisticated. In fact, there are professionals you can hire to do this for you called “home stagers.” |
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They’ll toss your old furniture in storage and rent you better looking stuff. They’ll place beautiful plants all over the house and they’ll hang impressive paintings on the walls.
When I first learned about this, it seemed a bit excessive, but I figured “business is business.” That was until I heard about the latest thing that home stagers will do to make your house seem more appealing — they’ll hire actors to be a fake happy family in your home. Since I live in the city built on fantasy, I assumed that this “home staging” was just an L.A. thing. But it’s happening all over the country. I can’t speak for the rest of the world, but if it’s going on in Tupelo, Miss., can Paris be far behind?
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September 5th, 2006 at 6:49 pm
Internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould, president of Six Elements Inc. (sixelements[dot]com) offers these tips for homeowners thinking of hiring a home stager:
- A true home staging expert will stage your home for your particular target market. Home stagers aren’t merely decorators, they should understand real estate and how and why people buy the homes they do.
- Home staging is a completely unregulated field with no official credentials. Beware of anyone who claims to have official “accreditation” or “certification”.
- Review before and after photos of the home stager’s work. Some training programs provide portfolio photos, so ask questions to determine if the photos you’re looking at are their own.
- Professional home stagers should have an Internet presence that allows you to review their work, read client testimonials and articles they’ve written, and learn about their background or experience.
- Ask your agent or neighbors for referrals to home stagers in your area. You can also locate someone at the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers.
- Be suspicious of any home stager who will do a free consultation. This indicates lack of experience. True professionals expect to be paid for their expertise.
- Don’t base your selection on the lowest price. Saving a few hundred dollars on staging services can cost you tens of thousands when you sell your home if the stager doesn’t give you the right advice.
- Home stagers usually base their fees on time. Some will price by the room or square footage. For a consultation, expect to pay anywhere from $200 for someone new, to $700 or $900 for a seasoned pro.
- Home staging services can range anywhere from: a consultation where you get recommendations for what’s needed and you complete the work on your own; to a full-blown staging that might include repainting, minor property improvements and the stager bringing in new furniture, accessories and art. The average 3 bedroom empty home can be staged for about $6,000 and boost the selling price by $10,000 to $70,000.
- During a home staging consultation, keep an open mind and don’t take the recommendations personally. The home stager is there to transform your home into a hot property that will appeal to the greatest number of potential buyers. Decorating a house to sell is very different than how you live in it on a day-to-day basis.
Home staging expert Debra Gould, also known as The Staging Diva, has been featured on HGTV, GlobalTV, CityTV, The Wall Street Journal, CNNMoney, MoneySense, The Globe & Mail, The Toronto Star, National Post, Reader’s Digest, Woman’s Day and more. She has staged hundreds of homes in the $190,000 to $1.5 million price range and has taught 300 women all over North America to start and grow their own home staging businesses.