How to Know When it’s Time to Get a New Home Stager
Wondering if you need to hit refresh on more than just your home staging? In the real estate world, finding fresh new talent is common and that’s no different in the home staging world. If you’re wondering if you could get more return for your investment in home selling, maybe it’s time to find a new home stager. Oh, and pro tip: if you’re reading this, you probably already know the answer.
In this article, we’ll walk you through the main areas of interest when considering saying goodbye to those drapes, that floor, and that home stager. Read on to learn more.
Your Home Stager Should Be Flexible
If you work with a professional home stager and they don’t seem to budge on design in any way, regardless of how good they are, that’s a dealbreaker. Developing a level of trust between home seller and interior home stager is crucial to the success of a project. Home stagers fall into two buckets: designing for their own personal portfolio or designing to sell a home. When the professional home stager is equipped with talent and not ego driven, they are quite capable of being flexible and moving forward with a design that satisfies the seller, their own design aesthetic, and the bottom line when it comes to maximizing the value of a home. If you’re working with a home stager that doesn’t seem to “get it” from that angle, it’s time to find a new home stager!
Your Home Stager Seems to Offer the Bare Minimum
Home stagers have a strong sense of design which is a great thing. Sometimes, a little style or design update is needed on the home stager’s part. If you as the seller can communicate that, this is fantastic and it means you have great professional rapport. However, if you see that homes need more than a fresh coat of paint or new window dressings, you should be able to bring this to your home stager’s attention. If they can deliver more than the basics, great. Unfortunately, most home stagers do not provide services beyond furniture and basic staging. If you look around, you can find a home stager that is a one-stop-shop home staging experience. Businesses like The Stagency provide upgrades and mini construction projects to truly maximize the potential of the return on investment. If your current home stager does not do that, it is time to find a new home stager.
Your Home Stager Does Not Take Before and After Pictures
What? Yes, it happens. Some home stagers are in it for the quick design buck for a home sell. This might be a troubling indicator of a home stager who does not care enough about the potential of a space. A real professional home stager will be eager to show off their work by taking a before and after picture. This enhances their experience and portfolio, sure. But the main idea is to show proof to the home buyer that work has been put into the space and is worthy of the asking price. This communication to the potential home buyer is all about value. The lineage of this value starts with the effort put into the space and can be visually demonstrated in design. This is presented with before and after pictures. If your home stager does not take the time to showcase before and after work to you, they are not actually invested in the work that they do. So, imagine how invested they are in the work that you do.
Your Home Stager Does Not Depersonalize the Space
This circles back around to the idea of keeping the potential buyer, the target audience, and the bottom line at the forefront of a home stager’s mind. When you are working with a home stager, they need to always return back to what the seller believes is the target audience and potential buyer. Having a strong understanding of this and communicating this vision is where a seller and home stager need to have commonality. When professionally staging a home, the seller should find a stager who understands the bottom line. This means they know that the space needs to be more than just neutral colors and modern tones. The space needs to feel turn-key ready, showing like a model home. This means all personal belongings of the current homeowners, whether occupied or vacant staging, should be removed and out of sight. As lovely as the family is, their personal belongings do not help the potential owners to see themselves living in the space. If your home stager believes depersonalization of the space is overkill, it is time to get a new stager as they don’t “get it”.
Summary
You’ll know that you need to get a home stager for a property you are trying to sell instinctively. As soon as you see the home, if your reaction is not a “wow!” then it is a dud. Listening to your gut is often the truest form of decision making and home staging is no different. If your list of must-haves is not fulfilled, then yes, it is time to move on to a new home stager. Of course, we’re biased and at The Stagency, we know we fulfill all of the needs a home seller has when it comes to home staging. With an eye on the bottom line of investment returns, flexibility, and faster upgrade services for light interior remodeling, we know we are the one-stop-shop that more and more sellers are turning to. Contact us right now for your quote.