Home Staging

Although staging originated as far back as the 1970s, it started gaining momentum in the 1990s during a sluggish nationwide real estate market. Staging became a frequently-used tool by realtors searching for ways to get list times down and give their properties an edge.

Staging can involve a consultation with a staging professional, assistance with reducing clutter and rearranging furniture, or a whole-home staging project complete with rented furniture and accessories. As the New York Times suggested in 1998, staging is “the process of preparing a house to be sold. Staging can be as simple as moving furniture around – or as elaborate as hiring an opera singer to perform. The scale varies, but the purpose is the same – to sell the house.”

Staged homes tend to sell much faster and often for substantially higher prices than comparable homes that have not been similarly prepared for sale.

According to the San Jose Mercury News in 2000, “Good staging is effective because when potential buyers walk into a house, they carry with them all their hopes for their new life in the new place…how they feel in the home ultimately gets reflected in the sales price and the number of offers….prestige, love, dreams, all the common denominators we all have as human beings, are at work in the home purchase…the staging maximizes, intensifies all those feelings.”

The following is a summary of the results of HomeGain.com’s 2007 national survey, based on 10 areas of home improvement identified by 2000 real estate agents in HomeGain’s original survey in 2003.

Typical cost of staging: $403-$584

Price increase (of home staged vs. non-staged): $1,938-$2,431

Return on investment: 343%

Percent of agents recommending staging: 93%

An interesting note – the return on investment in the initial 2003 survey was around 169%. Five years later, that number has climbed by 174 points!

Before Home Staging
After Home Staging