Buyer’s Guide: Home Staging Solutions

Before the For Sale sign goes up, sellers can improve their chances of getting a house sold by sprucing up inside and out.

Home staging is a growing sector within the real estate industry. Real estate professionals are taking special training and certification programs to learn the tricks and tools of the trade in speeding up home sales, while others in the industry are turning to professional stagers to team up with in marketing houses.

There are plenty of reasons behind the staging industry’s boom: A 2011 HomeGain survey focusing on home improvement found that staging can net sellers about $2,000 more in the sale of their house. What’s more, staged homes spend 83 percent less time on the market than nonstaged homes, according to a study by the International Association of Home Staging Professionals and Stagedhomes.com.

“With staging, you have to show sellers how they can turn the house into a commodity on the market,” explains stager Sharon Brown with Homescapes by Design in Roseville, Minn. “The home needs to be depersonalized, and it’s important to get sellers to understand that. The buyers need to be able to visualize the house with their things in it, not [the sellers’ belongings].”

Stagers pull from a variety of tools in their treasure chest when sprucing up properties for resale, from using their own inventory of furnishings and accessories to special software for space planning or virtual staging to mobile apps to use while on-the-go.

“You only have one chance to make a first impression,” Brown says about staging. “If a home doesn’t present well, it’s not going to sell. The purpose of staging is to get it right the first time and get the home sold as quickly as possible.”

In this Buyer’s Guide, you’ll find the terminology of the trade, staging solution products to fit every budget, and tips to build a home stagers inventory. You’ll learn the secret tools of staging professionals in taking homes from drab to fab in getting it sold.