What Is Home Staging?
Home staging is about decorating your home to highlight the most impressive assets of a home so that buyers can imagine living in the space. The objective of staging is to create a home that appeals to many potential buyers, thereby selling the property quicker and for a higher value. If done right, you’ll have no trouble attracting potential buyers.
Who is a Home Stager?
Home stagers are Skilled and creative people whose job is to take up a property, space, or home and optimize and beautify its appeal using the creative decorating idea.
This is a job often in demand by interior decorators, furniture and home store companies, and real estate agents, including home sellers who are interested in presenting an optimized living space to potential buyers. A home stager can work for someone or work as a freelancer.
What Skills Do You Need to Become a Home Stager?
An individual needs unique skills to become a perfect home stager, as explained below:
• Efficiency in decoration and working with colors
• Ability to understand the dynamics in the real estate
• Ability to organize and notice details in home improvement
• Calmness under tight timelines as this will ensure quality performance in home staging
• Perfect interpersonal skills where you can work with groups and different parties on projects.
This is the most important process on Becoming a home stager, therefore spending more time developing these skills.
What education and certifications are required for a home stager job, freelancing or Business?
Becoming a home stager does not require any specific educational qualifications. However, one can choose to pursue any relevant courses in colleges and universities that will help improve their skills and qualifications.
These courses will help them better their interior decorating styles, the psychology of the home buyers, and even their interior decorating skills. At the same time, there are no mandatory certifications for the home stagers.
There is certification on “How to Become a Home Stager” as no governing institution exists in the home staging industry. However, you will find many websites sites on the internet offering certifications. You may want to check these out.
I would recommend taking an online course through the UDEMY, a reputed worldwide training portal. The cost of the training will be around USD 200.
https://www.udemy.com/course/home-staging-for-beginners-is-this-the-career-for-you/
How much can you make as a home stager?
The Bureau of Labors Statistics in the U.S. doesn’t gather data on the information outlook of a home stager. However, an interior designer is close to the home stager with available data from the BLS.
Professionals in the 90th percentile in this career earn $97,920 or more per year, while those at the bottom 10th percentile had an average pay of $33,020 or less per year. From the statistics, the median salary for an interior designer is $57,060.
A home stager is believed to be earning 5% less than an interior designer.
Are home stagers in demand?
The home staging career is increasingly gaining popularity as the homeowners and realtors continue to appreciate the value-add of the people in this industry.
The value offered by a home stager includes the ability to spot the home areas that can lower the selling points of a home. Thus, they are highly objective and continue to be highly valuable in the market.
Is home staging a profitable business?
Home staging is a business known to have a high potential for profitability. Those in the Business will only need to adopt the right strategic approach and engage in proper marketing. They will also need to create and maintain good networks and set their prices right to ensure limitless profitability potential.
Importantly, it is good to note that the demand for the services could decline and affect revenues if the Business is located in weak real estate.
At the same time, the increase in investment over time can affect profitability significantly as the Business tries to build a wide client base.
The steps on how to become a Home Stager
Home staging is a perfect profession for those passionate about interior designing, real estate matters, and nitty-gritty details. If this is your dream career, here are some of the points you’d follow towards realizing your dreams:
- Educate yourself even if this is not a requirement for the career. Attend courses online and read and watch as many training videos available.
- Work in the field for most of your time to gain hands-on experience. Don’t expect to be perfect when starting or to have any clients immediately, as this will take some time as you hone your skills and expertise.
- Get your Business registered.
- Choose your Business name.
- Go to the Secretary of state website – Do a google search (example Secretary of state ‘State Name’)
- File for Article of Incorporation – Fill out a simple form.
- You will get a Tax ID number in a few days.
- Build your client base by aggressive networking.
- Create a Portfolio – You can use a free tool like Canva to create a free colorful styling guide.
- Have your website with photographs, Logos, etc. Create a Social Media Profile on Facebook, Twitter, etc. You do not need to wait for having the first customer. Start publishing to your friends and family.
There’s no definite duration it takes to become a home stager. You can start the career any time after completing the six to eight weeks course offered in some colleges.
Can Home Mom, Senior citizen, Retired person become home Stager?
Home staging is a perfect career for the baby boomers, especially when they’re nearing retirement. Since the career is not physically demanding, it is perfect for home moms, retired persons, and senior citizens.
What are the Tools required to become a home stager?
Every home staging professional should have the following tools and equipment when starting their career:
- A professional-grade steamer
- Laser level
- Furniture sliders
- Magic eraser
- 24″ level
- A computer or Laptop to create designs if required
The costs of home staging investment are approximately $1995 for a 1000 square foot house or $8500 for a 5500 square foot building. The price could vary with how big you want to start your Business and the minimum tools, equipment, and workforce you’ll have at the start.
How much can you make as a home stager?
It will take you 30 to 90 days to become a home stager. This includes registering your Business, creating a portfolio, building a website and social presence, Getting trained, and marketing.
Home Staging Consultation Steps
The simple steps to expect from a home staging professional are as follows:
- A walkthrough of the home
- Discussion of the target market for the home
- Reviewing the curb appeal for the home
- Rooms review
- Conducting the necessary changes
Conclusion
Home staging is in high demand, especially by customers who would want to sell their home or property at higher rates. A home stager has creative thinking and an eye for minor details. They ensure the color, furnishing, walls, and placement of the items are optimized and look very appealing to prospective buyers. Anyone can become a home stager. All you need for the job is some training, which is quickly taken through online videos or by attending certification classes in your area.
