Should You Hire A Professional Stager?

It is time to sell your home. Maybe you are getting ready to list it. Maybe it is already, unstaged, on the market.

Should you hire a professional stager?

Yes, you should interview one or more professional stagers. And, if there is any way your budget can handle it, you should hire one.

"Oh sure," I imagine you thinking, "A professional stager says that."

Oh sure, a professional stager says that. ....... But not for the reasons you suspect.

I am going to discuss four of the reasons I believe a person should not stage their own house.


Reason One: Today it is a House that is for sale, but it will always be your Home.

Maybe you love it and are sad to have it leave it. Maybe you hate it and can't wait to be gone. Whatever the feeling, almost everyone has an emotional reaction to the place they live. And that emotion impacts staging decisions. Staging requires an objective eye. It is unlikely you can have that eye about your own home. Too many memories, emotions, and habits get in the way. It is unlikely anyone can make objective decisions about their own furniture, their own colors, their own accessories.

Let me give you an example.

Just now, I got up and stood at the door to my guest bathroom. I went over the steps I would use to stage it. I looked at the shower/tub combo and knew, because of the placement of the light sources and the shape and size of the room, the shower curtain should come down. The shower/tub, enhanced with a few accessories, should be open to view.

Then I looked at the over-the-toilet-tank shelving unit we installed when we moved in. I cannot decide whether it should come down or stay up. There are valid staging reasons for each action. And I cannot decide. In YOUR house, I could be objective. In YOUR house, I could make the decision that will best enhance the guest bathroom. But, in MY house, even with this simple thing, my emotions and my history get in the way.

I am a very good stager. When the time comes to sell my house, I will hire a professional.


Reason Two: You are probably not going to do the research.

What colors are popular nationally? How do they differ from the colors that are popular locally? How do you decide whether you should you use the national or the local colors? When is it most likely to matter?

What colors are likely to make most buyers uncomfortable?

Let's assume we can stage that spare room as an office, a media room, or a guest bedroom. We know each room in a house should be staged with only one purpose. If we put all three purposes into that one spare room, we will confuse buyers and drive some of them away. How does your stager decide which purpose will appeal to most buyers? The neighborhood makes a difference. Different locations have different answers.

Just what is the percentage of buyers who cannot imagine how their furniture would look in your house?

Please note, I am not telling you the answers. That is because the answers change as our culture and the local demographics change. In fact, the questions change too.

Do you know the answers? Do you even know the questions? Probably not, that is not your job. That is your stager's job. And she or he spends a lot of time each week doing research.

When you hire a stager, you get the questions defined and answered without spending the time doing the research.


Reason Three: You do not have accumulated staging knowledge.

Each time I finish staging a house, I ask permission from the client and the Realtor to contact them periodically about the feedback they are getting. I ask them to let me know when the house sells.

Yes, I do this because I really care. I also do it because I want to know how buyers react to the staging. Are there things I can do better? Are there things I should do differently?

Mentally or in writing, each stager keeps a record of the staging decisions they made and why they made them. Over time, this builds to a body of ever-growing knowledge that ensures the stager does a better and better job.

When you hire a stager, all of that knowledge is used to help you.


Reason Four: Your house is unique.

Let's say you live in one of those ticky-tacky neighborhoods where the builder took one design, one floor plan, and built it 110 times. 110 guest bathrooms started out exactly the same. But the people living in the homes made changes. Each family's colors and furnishings make each bathroom different from a staging point of view. Sometimes the over-the-toilet-tank shelving unit stays up, sometimes it comes down. Sometimes it gets installed.

I can, have, and will give you a lot of information about how to stage a house. But, until I see it, I cannot tell you how to stage YOUR house. When your stager sees your house, she or he draws on all the time spent doing research, and all that accumulated staging knowledge, then uses that objective eye to make the decisions that best market your unique, your one-and-only house.

Your stager is a professional. Just like an electrician, a plumber, a Realtor, your stager is brings specialized knowledge and abilities to help you achieve your goals.

Now, go find your stager.

Final Thoughts

Okay all you stagers and sellers out there, what do you think? What key points did I miss? What examples can you share?

Unless someone gets a really interesting discussion going, tomorrow we will talk about WHEN you should hire a professional stager.

Keep safe.