How Does a Home Staging Business Owner Spend a Workday?

Working with the Realtor

An Accredited Home Staging Professional (ASP) is trained to improve the buyer appeal of homes for sale. On a typical day, she will accompany real estate agents to homes to be listed for sale.The agent wants her to recommend ways to showcase the home's value. Proper staging of a home helps it sell more quickly, and often, for more money. Real estate agents have more confidence in showing staged homes than empty ones or cluttered lived in ones. Here, the top picture shows a living room after it has been staged. Below, see the room before staging.

Working with the Homeowner

Staging homes is a very creative profession. The ASP is not there to redecorate, or turn on a few lights and add some flowers. She is looking at the best ways to define the space, emphasize the strong points of the house and divert attention from weaknesses. She helps the homeowner see the property through "Buyer's Eyes." For the potential buyer to visualize living in the home, it needs to be as free of clutter and personal items as possible, and yet be welcoming.

Recommendations

The ASP creates a report with a list of her recommendations to prepare the property for sale. She has access to home furnishings, accessories and art all selected just for staging homes, and rotated where needed. She may only need to bring in one lamp and change a bedspread or rearrange the furniture and add a window treatment. She wants to use as much of the existing furnishings as possible. New paint, removal of wallpaper, rehanging pictures may change the feel of the house.

Outside the Home

Curb appeal is extremely important in home sales. The ASP will recommend any cosmetic changes that need to be made to the outside of the house, as well as landscaping improvements. Eliminating children's play equipment, painting a deck, removing overgrown shrubs and adding a coach light can make all the difference in a buyer's interest or lack of interest.

Specialties of the House

A home staging business owner may specialize in holiday and party staging. For customers who are entertaining on a large scale, she will make recommendations for bringing in tables, chairs, and service bars, and adding lavish, festive decor.

Training the ASP

Before she began her home staging business, the owner took a training course through StagedHomes.com to become accredited.
Their statistics show that professionally staged homes sell 80% faster than non-staged homes, and the average return on investment for staging is over 400%. Over 80% of buyers go to the internet first and look at home photos for an average of 3 seconds. Over 90% of buyers cannot visualize their furnishings in a vacant home. ASP staged homes sell on average in under 35 days while non-staged homes are on the market for over 170 days.

Resources

• More about staging services
• More before and after examples