When you engage a home stager you are paying for a professional who is experienced in styling properties for sale to help you get the highest price in the shortest amount of time. The stylist will provide furniture, accessories, and art to make your house look its best and appeal to the appropriate buyer segment.

If you need to continue living in your home while it is for sale, a good home stager will use your existing furniture and awesomely rearrange it to delight buyers. However, when you decide to hire a home stager to style your property to sell faster and for a high-end price, you should ensure you’re investing in the right person.

These are five of the biggest and most common mistakes homeowners make when choosing a home styling professional, so follow the do’s and don’ts for a better outcome:

 

1. Don’t Focus on the Home Stylist’s Fees

The home stager’s fees are the last thing you should be worried about because if you choose one who charges a couple of hundred dollars more than another who gives you bad advice, it will cost far more in the end.

There’s nothing wrong with having a budget in mind, but when you consider the profit you stand to make from expert home staging there is no contest. For this reason, hiring a home stylist to stage your home for sale should be seen as a solid investment in your most valuable asset. For best results, the advice is to invest in the highest quality home stager you can find.

What a Home Stylist Could Charge:

  • The costs vary depending on the size of your home. For instance, for a six-week display for a one-bedroom apartment, you might pay from $2,950. For larger homes, a home stylist will generally inspect your home first then provide a quote.
  • Rates for home staging will vary, depending on your location and the stylist’s experience. However, you should never hire a stager just because their rate is ridiculously low. As with most things in life, you get what you pay for and if something looks too good to be true it usually is.

 

2. ‘Credentials’ Don’t Exist In Home Staging

One common mistake homeowners make is looking for a home stager’s credentials when there are none to be found in the field of home styling. The industry has no official organisation or governing body and there are no official certifications or accreditations in this field in which nobody needs a licence to practice. The best stylists, however, will have studied interior design or interior styling at a reputable educational institution and have a background in real estate. 

 

3. Don’t Hire Before You Check the Portfolio and Website

It’s imperative that you see a professional portfolio of photographs of completed home staging projects, otherwise you have no way of knowing what to expect from the home stager you engage.

 

4. Look for References and a Proven Track Record

It’s not rude to carefully read through the testimonials on most home stagers’ websites and ask questions. If there are no testimonials (or the staging company only adds initials and not full names), then ask for references.

You should always hear what other people have experienced with a staging company you are considering hiring.

 

5. Pick Someone Who Knows the Market

To stage your home successfully you don’t just want someone to style it. Be sure the stylist you employ knows the local housing market back to front. A home staging professional is just as much a part of the real estate industry as estate agents. If a home stager doesn’t know how long it takes a home to sell in the area and who the typical buyers are, look elsewhere. Remember, it’s buyer beware in this industry, but if you follow the above advice you’re much more likely to be very pleased with the stager you have chosen.

 

If you need quality home staging from real experts, try Urban Chic Property Styling. Since founding the company about eight years ago, Creative Director Juliana Gowen has developed Urban Chic into one of the largest and most positively reviewed professional home staging companies in Sydney. After 25 years in real estate, Juliana added formal qualifications in colour and design and a Diploma in Interior Styling to her real estate qualifications and vast real estate experience.

Urban Chic has an amazing team of skilled professionals who strive to provide the highest standard in styling properties and customer service Sydney-wide. Call Urban Chic today on (02) 8959 7789 or email info@urbanchic.net.au.

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