If you have your house up for sale, it’s important to enable potential buyers to envision themselves as the new owners. One of the top strategies for increasing the attractiveness of your home to potential purchasers is to stage it – or adorn it – attractively.
Making your property stand out in online searches, looking appealing during open house viewings, and obtaining competitive offers quickly will all be benefits of this assistance. Data from the Real Estate Staging Association (RESA) indicates that clients selling their homes after staging them received more than $40,000 extra in 2021 compared to the list price.
When selling your home, you will want to make it attractive to those who are interested in buying. You want potential buyers to be charmed by your home and feel as though it could be their own.
One way to make your home more attractive for potential buyers is to present it in a good way. Let us go through the entire price tag of home staging and answer the inquiry of ‘What is the expense of setting up a residence?’
Home staging can make your house distinct from the rest of the homes for sale in the area. By avoiding any kind of decorations, you will help potential buyers to visualise it as their future home. This can help you receive more offers and higher bids.
Home Staging Costs – A Review
Home owners are typically charged between $752 and $2,848 for home staging fees, as stated by HomeAdvisor, though the cost might be different. An example of this would be that it can cost $2,000 or more every month to rent furniture for a long time.
Typically, a home stager will charge for an initial two-hour session with fees that may range from $150 to $600, as per HomeAdvisor. The dimensions of your house as well as the range of the job have a major effect on the other expenditures for setting up your residence.
If your abode is in excellent condition and the furnishings attractive, you may have to just pay to modify the placement of the furniture and clean up the area – a service which usually costs a flat $800 in total.
Should you have a three-bedroom house that is vacant, the expert home stager might advise you to hire furniture for the living area and each of the bedrooms. According to HomeAdvisor, the cost of service alone can range anywhere from $800 to $1,000.
You will then have to cover the expense for staging, typically ranging from $400 to $700 for one month for each room. You’ll need to purchase furniture in order to give those rooms a finished appearance, which could cost anywhere from $500-$600 each month for bedding, a sofa, coffee tables, and other decorative pieces.
It typically takes one percent of the list price of a house to stage it over the period of two to three months, as explained by Pam Tiberia, who runs Spruce Interiors in Hampton, New Hampshire.
If you are trying to sell a house for $320,000, the expense of setting it up for a few months should be somewhere in the range of $3,200.
What is the price of staging a home? On average, it costs $1,444 for a home to be staged in the United States. That price includes renting furniture and decorations. The cost significantly fluctuates depending on the items and services selected and the region inhabited.
Generally, the cost of staging your house is generally somewhere between $631 to $2,312. The cost could be as little as $150, however, it can also be as much as $4,000.
Initial Home Consultation
Prior to beginning their job, a home stager will likely wish to have a meeting. During this meeting, they’ll discuss your needs and goals. The person responsible for setting up your home for sale will decide what services your home requires. An approximately two-hour period typically costs between $150 and $600.
Price Per Hour
After the first appointment, your home stager will work out which of their services you need most for your home. They’ll then present you with an estimate.
Stagers typically charge a fixed rate for their work, which will be outlined in the following section. These fees include their labor. However, occasionally you might receive hourly pricing. On average, the price of labor per hour typically falls somewhere between $25 and $150, with the average cost being around $75.
Price Per Project
This is a usual form for stagers to bill for their services. Following the initial consultation, an estimate for the staging services will be presented to you. The average price per project is $800 to $1,000. This doesn’t include any rental fees.
Decluttering and Rearranging Only
You and your stylist may opt not to hire any furniture or decorations. In this instance, they will utilize what you possess. They will initiate the process by taking out any extra furniture or items that are not needed from your house.
Then your stager will rearrange what’s left. They could reposition the furniture to emphasize the distinctive qualities of your home, such as making an inviting seating area close to the fire.
They will minimize any issues, such as an untoward room design, by deliberately setting up certain items. The average cost for decluttering and rearranging is $800.
Luxury Homes Cost More To Stage
For higher-end homes, however, the cost can be more.
Normally luxury homes are expected to pay between one to one point twenty-five percent of the listed value for staging. The expenses allocated for this process involve wages, renting of furnishings, people for transportation and a contract guaranteeing the safety of the stock.
How Home Staging Works
Home staging involves more than just emptying out closets or taking down photos of family members (which are also wise moves!). Combining elements of interior decoration and real estate promotion, staging a home is an art form.
No matter if you do the staging of your house on your own or if you employ a specialist staging company, the idea is the same: making your house inviting and attractive.
Your home stager will aim to make your house attractive to a broader range of purchasers. They accomplish this by lessening the amount of excessively personalized or subject-specific ornamentation. By making your house a blank slate, you provide prospective buyers with an empty space where they can imagine what they want it to look like.
Home stagers could potentially recommend changing the placement of your furniture in a more pleasing manner. Rearranging the layout of a room can showcase what is good about it and shift focus away from any of its not-so-desirable aspects.
If needed, home stagers can hire furniture and decorations to make your property look as attractive as possible while it is listed for sale.
What Does a Home Stager Reall Do?
Home staging provides an alternative perspective on your property, and each stager has their own unique perspective and style of services. They offer services like purchasing and incorporating suggested products, like modern shower curtains, decorative cushions or new bedding.
Many home stagers hire props and come in to arrange the house before taking photographs and open houses. Some other services a home stager might offer include:
- Discussing how best to furnish a space and recommending which furniture should be removed or added, along with accessories, art and styling items.
- Pointing out any noticeable repairs or maintenance issues.
- Recommending best spaces within the house to be staged, particularly in vacant homes. Not all rooms need to be staged, typically.
- Advising homeowners on ambiguous spaces. Some homes with random rooms or funky floor plans can be improved with creative staging and furniture placement.
- Suggesting removal of or changes to window treatments to lighten a space.
Virtual Staging
Virtual staging, which involves digitally modifying photos of rooms to look different, is a more affordable choice in comparison to other options. Price wise, some organizations are capable of producing renderings as low as $35 per room, while Tiberia typically incorporates furnishings in photos that both have and lack furniture.
For those shopping on the internet, utilizing virtual staging techniques can encourage them to come see the home in person.
Many businesses take advantage of virtual staging services, which utilize picture editing software to show an idea of what a room or the whole home could appear like. Some of the editing techniques in virtual staging include:
- Changing paint colors and floors
- Air-brushing out furniture to make a room vacant
- Replacing existing furniture with digital images of new furniture, artwork, plants, etc.
- Changing the seasonal or time of day window views (i.e., putting leaves on trees or showing the sunset)
Home Staging Furniture Rental Cost
It can cost an estimated $2,000 initially and between $2,000 to $2,400 per month to stage a typical 3-bedroom, 2,000 square-foot home with furniture for rent.
Read your contract carefully, though. No matter how much time it takes, most staging businesses require a minimum 3-month agreement.
You can control your costs by reducing the amount of space you furnish. It is possible to set up a 12×12 room for an initial charge that is typically between $400 and $700. Afterwards, typically a fee of between 500 and 600 dollars is charged per room to rent furniture on a month-to-month basis.
Other Projects
Your stager may propose additional initiatives that are not accounted for in the price of preparing a house. You could spruce up your residence by coating it in muted hues, swapping out your current light fixtures and employing a specialist cleaning crew.
Who Pays For the Staging of a House?
Typically, the seller will be responsible for the entire home staging expense. You can always consult your agent to explore the possibility of sharing the expense.
Do Realtors Pay for Staging?
The real estate agent may be willing to be flexible with their fee if the sale price is higher than what was initially offered, resulting in a bigger payout for them. Do not be afraid to inquire, but be ready to provide reasons why a real estate agent should contribute to the expense of home staging.
Factors That Affect Home Staging Costs
When home staging, there are numerous potential solutions. You can opt for something as uncomplicated as a meeting, during which they provide you with assistance with arranging.
They could choose to completely redo their home, clear out old stuff, redesign it, and see if they can acquire rental furniture. The cost will be principally determined by the services supplied by the home stager.
How long will your house be listed for sale? The longer you require rental items until your house is in escrow, the more expensive the rental is likely to be. Particularly with pricier items, like furniture, this rings true.
The local market can also drive up the cost. Prospective purchasers who inspect houses in a high-end area will look for a specific calibre of furniture. Your stager will likely furnish your residence with pricier items, in order to give your abode the luxurious feel that buyers in the vicinity are seeking.
How to Save on Home Staging Costs
Here are some savvy strategies to save on home staging costs and keep more of your hard-earned money in your wallet:
- Get the ideas without paying to implement them: Many times, the home sellers stop at the consultation with a stager just to get ideas and then do some of the staging themselves.
- Choose your rooms: See if you can negotiate with the stager to reduce costs by having only certain rooms staged.
- Ask about minimums: If you need to rent furniture, try negotiating how long you have to pay for it. Some designers have three-month minimums for furniture rentals. If your home flies off the market in a few days, you don’t want to be on the hook for unnecessary rental charges.
- Consider virtual-only: The cost to stage a home virtually is around 10 percent of what a physical staging would run you, according to New York-based virtual staging firm Barion Design.
- Clean up: 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.
- Paint it yourself: Painting interior walls with a white or off-white color can change things dramatically. Not hiring a pro painter — which comes with an average price of $1,900, according to HomeAdvisor — can help you save dramatically.
- Let there be light: A simple cleaning of the windows can help showcase your home’s natural light. Updating your lighting fixtures can also enhance rooms and make them seem more open, notes Tiberia. You can also add mirrors or lamps to help brighten things up.
- Move furniture away from the walls: This can communicate to buyers the ideal flow in each room, helping them envision how they can maximize the space.
