Vacant Staging – How it works

I get a great many inquiries about staging vacant houses and how it works. These inquiries can be either from real estate agents or home owners that have vacant property and are considering having the property staged so that it will show better.

Most people think that you just put a few pieces of furniture in a house and some hand towels in the bathrooms and that’s all it’s about. Well, it ‘s a good bit more than that.

It’s usually a 4 step process starting with an initial consultation with a home staging professional reviewing the home, taking photos, drawing diagrams and taking measurements on every detail needed to complete the job. This is when budget and goals are discussed with the home owner.

Once the home owner decides to proceed, the professional consultant meets with a furniture rental company with which they have a good and reliable working relationship and design a plan. Then the pieces that best suits the home and the sellers budget are chosen. Most furniture rental companies require a 2-3 month minimum rental contract and the monthly rental fee is paid directly to the rental company

This is where most people think that the job ends ……not so. The day that the furniture is to arrive at the property, the consultant and their assistants meet the rental movers and direct where all of the pieces are to be placed. The consultant then starts adding tons of additional accessories in the form of bed linens, wall art, plants, trees, table decor, pillows, throws, light furniture, knick knacks and materials. These touches create the emotions, the feelings of the house and what turns the house into a home. This is where the professional home staging consultant shines, creating the emotional connection points that draws a buyer into a room so that they will linger a little bit longer and begin to start imagining this as their home. A monthly rental fee of the accessories is paid to the staging company.

A few days before the house is to close in escrow, the home stager meets the furniture rental company again and spends the day de-staging the home.

What all this boils down to in dollars in cents is a staging service fee, a monthly furniture and accessory rental fee. The cost is usually anywhere from 1/2 to 2% of the asking price and based on the size of the house and number of rooms that are to be staged.

This is usually the place where the owner suffers from sticker shock, but be reminded, *statistics show that homes that were on the market without staging, on average took 9 months to sell (across the country). Those same owners had their homes professionally staged and they sold, on average within 2 months. WOW! That’s 9 months vs 2 months!

This is an investment in selling your house, not an expense. Making extra mortgage payments while the house sits on the market….that’s and expense.

You may want to go over the formula below, to figure out if you can “afford” to stage or not;
Mortgage + expenses (utilities etc.) = Monthly expenses
Monthly expenses X 9 months (avg. time un-staged) = Cost to list house un-staged
Savings: Expenses X 7 months (average time on market reduced) – staging fee = Savings if you stage your house first!

Note: If you have a price reduction you can also add that into the loss you are taking by listing a property un-staged.

Let us help you sell your vacant property faster and for more money with professional home staging.

www.southern-staging.com 770-251-0608 home/office

*study conducted by Real Estate Staging Association (RESA)