The question of when to get paid as a stager shouldn’t feel like you’re gambling at a roulette table.
Last week, I published a home staging business dilemma thinking it would be fun to do something interactive. Giving readers a chance to have their say, or just to think about a scenario they might not have thought of preparing for otherwise.
The scene I set up involved a home stager at a consultation for the absolute perfect home staging project.
The job was worth thousands of dollars and everyone was on board to get started, following all the stager’s recommendations.
The catch was, the home sellers were only prepared to pay for home staging when the house sold. (Click here to read the original post and to see all of the great comments that were left. A special thank you to those who participated and shared such great information for others to learn from.)
Don’t Wait to Get Paid Until After the House Sale
Come to an agreement about your terms of payment before ever taking on a home staging project, large or small.
Don’t agree to be paid when the real estate sale closes. Unless you’re earning a nice percentage of the final sale price (comparable to what an agent might get). Personally, even with a potentially lucrative arrangement like that (assuming an expensive house), I’ve still never agreed to this in 2 decades as a home stager.
Agreeing to those terms is rather like playing a game of roulette. The big payout sounds very exciting, but your chances of actually winning it may be slim. Here’s why:
Things Happen
There are too many factors that go into the selling of a property that a home stager has no control of. That’s why it’s crazy to wait until the house sells to get compensated. If the sellers suddenly decide to take their house off the market, you’d never get paid.
The house could be trashed after you’ve staged it.
After you’ve finished doing the best staging job, the sellers might change things. Or fail to keep the home in showing-ready condition. If it takes too long to sell, or doesn’t sell at all, you’ll never get paid.
Or if they keep dropping their asking price because the house no longer looks staged, your eventual payout will keep going down too!
You Can’t Control the Agent
The real estate industry is flooded with agents. Some good and some not. Your home staging client might make a poor choice of agent. They might neglect to promote the listing, take awful photos, or price it improperly.
You have no control over this and yet your fee is hanging in the balance if you’ve agreed to be paid upon closing.
Getting Paid for Home Staging Shouldn’t Be a Gamble
Many things can happen after your staging project is finished. It’s simply too risky to wait to get paid until a house sells. You could wait months (or years depending on the market) no matter how fabulous a job you did. Or you might never get paid at all.
To quote an old adage, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” That’s because the further into the future your payout is, the less likely you are to ever get it.
I advise students of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to get paid as they go and for some things to get paid up front.
While contracts sound great, if the other party isn’t honoring it, you still have to go to the time and expense of suing them.
Following my method, you’re never:
- Out of pocket
- At risk
- Waiting to get paid at some unknown future date
Curious About How Much Home Stagers Make?
I’ve prepared a handy Tip Sheet on How Much Home Stagers Make.
You’ll learn the 4 phases of a home staging project and how much you can charge for each one.
Find Out What Stagers Make Here
Roulette photo by: Macau Photo Agency on Unsplash
Debra, You can probably tell by my post to “the Dream home staging job with a catch…” I spent a lot of time thinking about it! The one thing I failed to realize, the most obvious one of all, was “What if the owner decides to take their home off the market after I have staged it?” As usual you have given me more things to think about than I thought of by myself! Your wonderful training has kept me from making so many mistakes.
Hi Debra,
I actually came across this recently in my area of the business. I do photography, video and marketing for real estate, and was recently asked to reshoot a realtor’s listing because they were not happy with the original shots they had taken by another company. This was a $1.5 million home that has been on the market for close to a year already. Instead of paying for my services upfront, I was asked if I could defer payment until after the house sold. My rates aren’t anything that’s going to break the bank in the first place, so for my own sanity sake I had to say no. I can’t do something, do it well and then hope a number of other things, that are out of my control, fall into place just to get paid for it.
It’s not always the easiest getting people to understand the worth of creative services. We really have to adopt that business mind set that, our creative is equatable to a product, a product that has value and must be paid for, upfront / on delivery, and on time. You could think about it this way, you wouldn’t be able to buy a new car from a dealer and tell him, “Let me use it until I sell my old one, then I’ll pay you for it.” I’d love it if it worked that way, I’d be driving a sweet car right now.
Long comment… sorry.
A.J.
Just last week I found myself willing to work with a couple in a financial bind who were referred by one of my long time Realtors as long as they agreed to terms in our contract for full payment within a defined period of time and regardless of the state of the sale of their property. It was unusual to do this, and I won’t consider it as a rule, but they were the exception to prove the rule.
Thanks everyone for your comments and contributions to this discussion!
Patricia, Good luck and let us know how it turns out. If you ever get paid and how long it took. I hope of course that it all works out for you and that your long time Realtor will not expect this for future listings to keep his/her business.
Debra
I was asked this week if I would do this and I lost out on a possibly large job because I would not go to this home for no charge and accept payment on closing. I referred it to another Stager.
On top of all the variables you mentioned, my logic, if the client were not willing to pay the small fee being credited back, what chance would I have of getting paid at the end….who knows? With all the foreclosures and short sells here, It would be not smart if I did not start doing credit checks and lien searches on prospective clients who ask for this option…not worth any prospect at the end. I want to help but we are a business too and I took offense to being scolded that other contractors come out for free, curiously I never heard the plumber or the granite guy was getting paid at closing. Just sayin.
Fellow Stagers,
. If the client can’t pay an initial fee, can they afford to stage their property? Not every client is worth pursuing. Learn to trust your instincts.
. Among other health issues, I have 2 ruptured lower back discs. I find these two situations similar. Would any physician, hospital, testing & lab facility, or pharmacist agree TO WAIT FOR PAYMENT until I believed myself well? Ah … No.
. Service industries are “payment up front”. Many service providers (physicians) are self-employed. The health field is a service industry. The outcome [of my health] has nothing to do with the service(s) provided. They [rightfully] expect payment in full.
. Staging is a service industry. A Stager is Self-Employed. I [rightfully] expect payment in full. I wish bold &/or underline were possible! SELF-EMPLOYED is essential to comprehend.
. Every new client begins with a $0.00 balance. We offer a basic service that is changeable. Those changes are chargeable. Flat fees deny added income. Don’t apologize for improving a property. [When a plumber comes to fix something, he quotes a basic rate & states [based on what he finds] the cost could be more. No apology.]
. Our clients are responsible for our fees, just as they’re responsible to other service providers. And yes, we should be sympathetic to a client’s finances, always mindful we’re self-employed. If we start our car, that’s a consultation: our balance should never be $0.00.
Sherry, you share many great analogies. Thanks for your comments.
Debra