Great Business Ideas

Catering

Child Daycare

Employment Consulting

Fishing Guide

Grant Writing

Writing Grant Proposals

Home Staging

Home Staging

Home Staging Basics

Home Staging Resources

Author 

Meal Assembly Kitchen

Professional Gardener

Senior Home Care

Swimming Pool Service

Tradeshow Consulting

Tutoring

Vacation Planner

1)     Understand that home staging has nothing to do with making a home pretty, nice, cute, or worth more.  Home staging is the “marketing” a piece of real estate.  When you stage a home, you are presenting the property in such a way to highlight the best features while reducing the impact of the negatives.  

You are not tricking or hiding things from the buyer, but you are making the most of every situation, similar to putting on makeup or attractive clothing before going to a job interview.  According to HomeGain, staged homes sell more than 60% faster and for nearly 3.5 times the amount of investment in staging a home. 

2)     You must understand your local real estate market in order to stage a home properly.  A staged home in Connecticut may have different priorities than the same house in Nevada.  If you don’t understand what sells a home in your market, you may be emphasizing the wrong things or simply waste the customer’s money and ruin your reputation. 

3)     Be able to identify and stage rooms and parts of the house for their best purpose in your market.  There are rooms that make better home-office space than others.  Dining rooms are best suited for that, not as family rooms.  These will all make a difference in how a house is staged and therefore, shows to prospective buyers.  The market is just as important in staging.  Neighborhoods that cater to young starter families will have different priorities over those that tend to cater to retirees.  People who prefer older homes often have different things they look for than people who buy elite homes or modern style homes. 

4)     Home stagers must keep up with certain trends, materials, and ideas.  If you don’t know what your customer already does, they won’t hire you.  Knowing these basics is critical to your profession.  It is also important that you understand the strengths and benefits of materials that you suggest and how they might work out in a given situation.  Recommending the replacement of kitchen flooring to a certain color range will have no meaning.  You must be able to discuss options that work and fit the budget.

5)     Bring resources to the table.  If all you do is recommend an idea to a client but don’t have the resources to get it done, the value of your services diminishes.  Your client may not go with your recommended contractor, but you will have at least presented one way of accomplishing your home staging recommendation. 

6)     Understand the idea of a budget.  If your customer has $10,000 to spend on staging, it won’t do you any good to present $20,000 worth of ideas.  Prioritize ideas by ranking them according to the most recommended.  You can go over budget in your recommendations so long as those have value, as some people will find more money in their budget than what they thought, or decide that going a bit more is worth the effort.  Just stay reasonable.

7)     Charge what you are worth.  It is tempting to offer your services at reduced rates to begin with.  However, few people value the advice and counsel of the person who values it least.  You may get a few clients, but they are less likely to view you as the expert and take your advice.  That means they will get less results, and this can be a black mark on your reputation.  Value yourself and others will see you as valuable. 

8)     Get some professional training.  You want people to recommend your services and professionals see the need for other professionals to be prepared and trained.  Without that training, it is hard to suggest that others should put their trust in you.