Hiring a Home Stager: 5 Questions to Ask About Home Staging
If you want to impress a buyer for your home you need home staging. A home stager is a person who prepares for home showings. They know all the ins and outs about staging your home for the best impression for the buyer. Here are 5 questions to ask when selecting a home stager.
“Can I see a portfolio?” is the first question to ask. Don’t just look at the portfolio, review it, and ask a lot of questions to find out their capabilities. Check the pictures to see if they’re presented neatly, attractive, professionally, and if it matches how you want your home staged. Be sure to meet the stager in person and ask questions of their background such as how long they’ve been a stager, how many house have they done, and what the percentage of buyers they have.
Find out how much training they have in home staging for a sale. Home staging is an unregulated industry so it pays to find out what type of certifications they have AND what they mean. It’s easy to make an authentic certification these days so checking if the home stager has a background in real estate and how much they know about the market and market prices will mean the difference in selling your house.
Another question to ask is if they have a specialty. Most home stagers like to work with certain types of homes. Some choose lofts, condominiums, luxury homes, and new homes. If their portfolio shows high-end décor in a lower priced home then you might want to think again about using them. They should match your home with the price range and the type of home it is.
The next question to ask is how well do they communicate with home owners. If possible, try to get on one of their walk-through before hiring them. When it comes to homes people are very sensitive. Look at how they interact with home owners and how they speak to clients. They should be professional, compassionate, and sensitive when dealing with clients and owners. If they don’t communicate well, look around for another home stager.
Ask them if they have other marketing ideas other than the normal ones they use. You might want your home to be marketed a little differently than others. If they can’t get buyers through the door they haven’t done their staging correctly. A good example is rather than having the regular open house, they might come up with a co hosted cookout, especially if there’s more than one house in the neighbor selling. If they don’t have any unique ideas for your property, look around for another one.
Staging a home for selling is an art. It pays to look around and choose the right one for staging a home. The more unique ideas they have the better your chances are of selling your home to the right buyers.
