Is home staging worth the costs?
If you're selling your home, you know i t should be clean and clutter- free, along with photogenic.
Home staging can help accomplish this, and has been proven to bring in more interested buyers and sell your home quicker and for more money. In fact, 85% of staged homes sell for 5% to 23% over list price, and a staged home can stay on the market for just 23 days, according to the Real Estate Staging Association.
How much does home staging cost? The cost to stage a home ranges widely, anywhere from $1,000 to $8,600, with the national average running from $2,300 to $3,200, according to FixR, a home remodeling website.
Generally, a home stager will charge first for a consultation, which can cost $150 to $600 for two hours, FixR reports. The bulk of the cost is then determined by the size of the home and whether it's occupied or vacant.
A 2,000-square-foot vacant home, for example, can cost $4,000 to stage upfront, with a rental fee of $ 2,000 per month for all the furniture and
decor until it's sold. For an occupied home, the cost can vary depending on the rooms the seller wants staged and the style and condition of the existing furnishings.
The cost of staging a home for two to three months typically falls somewhere about 0.75% of a home's list price, according to Pa mT iberia, owner and designer at Spruce Interior sin Hampton, New Hampshire. So, if your home is being listed for $320,000, the cost to stage it for a few months would be $2,400.
For higher-end homes, however, the cost can be more.
“Typically, luxury homes range around 1% to 1.25% of the listprice for staging ,” T iberia says .“These costs include labor, furniture rentals, movers and an insurance policy to protect the inventory.”
Virtual staging might be the l east expensive option, with some companies doing renderings of rooms as inexpensively as $35 a room, says Tiberia, who typically does a combination of occupied and vacant staging.
How staging works
About 83% of buyer agents report that home staging makes it easier for homebuyers to visualize a property as their future home, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Home staging indeed offers a new outlook on your home, and each stager offers their perspective and different services. Some offer services like shopping and incorporating recommended items, such as a new shower curtain, accent pillows and updated bedding.
“Many stage rs also rent these kinds of props and come into style the home before photos and open houses,” Tiberia says.
Some other services a home stager might offer include:
• Discuss how best to furnish a space and recommend which furniture should be removed or added, along with accessories, art and styling items.
• Point out any noticeable repairs or maintenance issues.
• Recommend best spaces within the house to be staged, particularly in vacant staging. (Not all rooms need to be staged, typically.)
• Advise homeowners on defining ambiguous spaces and how to stage them. Some homes with extra rooms or funky floor plans can be solved by creative staging and furniture placement.
• Talk about removal or changes to window treatments to lighten a space.
With virtual staging services, on the other hand, most companies use photo editing software to render a conceptual view of what a room or the entire property can look like, according to the Real Estate Staging Association, RESA. Some of the editing techniques in virtual staging include:
• Paint color and floor changes.
• Removing existing furniture from a photo and adding in digital images of new furniture, artwork, plants, and more.
• Changing the views from the windows.
Is home staging worth it? About three-quarters of home sellers see a 5% to 15% return on investment over the list price of their home after making an average investment of 1% of the list price, according to RESA.
“There are fewer houses on the market in a seller's market, so those that are professionally st aged will typically command more interest and garner more offers, creating a bidding war situation in which the home sells for more than the listing price,” Tiberia says. “In either market, a buyer's or seller's market, the better a home presents, the more perceived value it has, which typically makes it sell faster and for more money. Staging addresses many potential buyer objections, such as wall colors that are too specific, tricky floor plans or worn or outdated finishes.”
Save on staging
While paying to have your home staged is often well worth the cost, not every staging service has to drain your bank account. You can do some DIY projects to save big bucks, and also use other savvy strategies in order to save:
• Many times, the home sellers stop at the consultation with a stager just to get ideas and then do some of the staging themselves, Tiberia says. This could be an option for you if you're looking to save considerably.
• See if you can negotiate with the stager to reduce costs by having only certain rooms staged.
• Declutter and clean your home to make sure buyers can actually see what they're potentially purchasing. Box up, clear out and spotlessly clean every surface to make it sparkle for tours. If you need to keep some items, you can rent a storage unit (although this can contribute to costs) or ask a friend or relative to store it in their basement or garage until you move. Otherwise, you can give items away or sell them.
•Painting interior walls yourself with a white or offwhite color can change things dramatically. You also may want to hire a professional window cleaning company to help showcase your home's natural light.
• Updating lighting and fixtures can also enhance rooms, T iberia says. You can add decor such as mirrors or floor and table lamps.
•One final pro tip: Move all furniture away from the walls. It'll help communicate the ideal flow in each room to buyers, and help them envision how they can maximize the space.