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. You have to be careful to put that trust in an experienced professional.
Having operated a successful home staging business since 2002, and having trained thousands of people worldwide how to become home stagers, I am well aware of what a homeowner or Realtor® needs to look for when selecting an expert home stager.
Through a 5-part blog series, I will highlight what I feel are the five biggest mistakes homeowners make when it comes to hiring a house staging professional.
To start things off, I’m going to talk about the problem with hiring the least expensive home stager you can find.
The last thing you should be focused on is how much the home stager is charging. Saving a few hundred dollars in fees only to end up getting bad advice is going to cost you thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars in the long run. 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 treat hiring a home stager as making 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 $350 to $700 for their initial consultation. Beware of anyone willing to work for significantly less for doing work that you stand to make anywhere from $10,000 to $70,000 profit from.
Rates will vary, depending on your geographic location and the stager’s experience, but 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.
The next post in this series will talk about another huge mistake homeowners make, and that is looking for home staging “credentials”.
Stay tuned!
Searching for an expert home stager? Visit the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers.
If you’re interested in becoming a home stager, check out the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program.
