When you decide to hire a home stager to decorate your property to sell faster and for more money, you need to make sure you’re investing in the right person.
After all, you’re trusting someone with the sale of your largest asset, your primary real estate.
It’s important to put your trust in an experienced professional.
Here are the 4 biggest mistakes people make when looking for a house staging professional:
1. Focusing on Price Alone When Choosing a Home Stager
The last thing you should be focused on is how much the home stager is charging. Saving a few hundred dollars in fees and getting bad advice will cost you thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars.
Of course you have a budget in mind, but you stand to make a huge profit from effective home staging.
That’s why you should consider hiring a home stager as an investment in the sale of your largest asset. For optimal results, invest in the highest quality stager you can find.
Professional home stagers expect to earn anywhere from $250 to $500 for their initial home staging consultation. Beware of anyone willing to work for significantly less. After all, you stand to make anywhere from $10,000 to $70,000 profit from the home stager’s advice!
Rates will vary, depending on your geographic location and the stager’s experience. However, you shouldn’t hire someone just because they charge a ridiculously low rate. As with most things in life, you get what you pay for.
2. Looking for Home Staging Credentials
Another common mistake is to look for “credentials” as a guarantee of quality service.
It’s important to know that there is no governing body or official organization ruling over the home staging industry.
There are no official home staging accreditations or certifications in this completely unlicensed field.
The letters you see after some home stagers’ names simply come from a particular home staging training company who pushes them as part of their marketing strategy.
All members of the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers are graduates of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, which is based on the principal of dealing with clients with honesty and integrity.
However, any stager you hire is an independent business person and their work is not guaranteed by any third party. It is up to you to determine whether they are the right person for your project.
3. Hiring a home stager without looking at a website or portfolio
Because you’re hiring a professional in a visual field, you want to see how they express themselves and review their home staging portfolio.
A professional portfolio of before and after photos is a must. How else will you know what kind of results you can expect from a real estate stager?
Because some companies provide ready-made portfolios to home stagers as part of their training programs, it’s important to ask questions about the photos anyone presents as their own work.
If they can’t tell you details about the property or you’ve seen the same shots on another stager’s website from the same “school” or training program, this should raise a red flag.
To be listed in this directory, Staging Diva Professional Home Stagers are only allowed to use photos of their own projects in their portfolio. They can not use stock photos.
4. Hiring a home stager with no knowledge of the real estate market
When you hire a home stager, you’re not only looking for someone who knows how to decorate.
You want someone who also knows something about the local housing market.
A home stager is as much a part of the real estate industry as a real estate agent, and they should have an awareness of the market they’re in. This would include staying up to date with what real estate listings look like in your price range. That will inform their advice about what needs to be improved.
Because there isn’t an independent organization or association monitoring whether or not a house stager is operating professionally and providing a high quality service, it’s buyer beware.
If you avoid these 4 common mistakes as you search for the perfect home stager for your needs, you should be pleased with the professional you choose.
NOTE: We monitor customer feedback on all of the home stagers listed in this directory and reserve the right to remove anyone who doesn’t operate their business with integrity.
> Read more about how to find the right home stager for you.
