One of the top reasons for not making enough money in home staging is not charging enough. Here are 3 tips to help you establish your home staging fees:

1. Consider all the time you don’t get paid for.

For example, preparing for a client appointment, answering potential clients’ questions in advance, scheduling and re-scheduling appointments, travel time, follow up calls (before, during and after the project), keeping track of client expenses and time on each project, bookkeeping, standing in line at the bank, etc.

If you think $100 or even $250 per hour is too much to charge a client, remember the many hours you put into your business that no one pays for.

2. Consider what tangible benefit you bring to your home staging clients.

Do you believe you provide real value to your clients? If you don’t believe this, it will be very difficult to convince them. It might help to think about how much financial value you can bring to a client if you do the job well.

Don’t fall into the trap of feeling embarrassed about your rates. Done well, a home staging project should generate anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000 profit for the homeowner.

So, why shouldn’t a professional home stager be paid well?

This house sold for $71,000 over asking.
The client invested about $900 in my advice during a home staging consultation. Someone could easily say, “wow, $900 just for advice, that’s a lot of money!” But if you asked, “what if you could invest $900 and make $71,000?”, few people would consider that too expensive.

Home Staging is an investment in a potentially significant financial return for the client. Consider this when determining your rates.

3. Remember that when you’re in a service business you are selling your time.

You have limited “inventory” so make sure you’re not always “on sale!” Since you can’t manufacture more hours in a week, the only way to earn more is to charge more for your time.

The Staging Diva course “The Business of Home Staging: What you need to start and how to grow” includes a detailed discussion of pricing strategy.

If you’ve already taken the course, now is a great time to review your notes so you make sure you earn what you’re worth this fall real estate season. If you haven’t taken course 2, you can order a recording of it right now for only $179. You’ll make that back easily on your first client because I share with you everything I’ve learned about pricing based on my MBA training and the real world experience of being an independent entrepreneur since 1989.

I have also built a lucrative home staging business from scratch in a very competitive market.

In Staging Diva course 2, you’ll learn what I charged clients three years ago and how I systematically increased my rates over time. I’ll share the single biggest discovery I made in how to best price home staging services for profit.

You’ll also learn what home stagers charge all over North America and how not to make the same mistakes they are!

Discover the ONLY Home Staging Business Training Program taught by a seasoned entrepreneur who has successfully grown her own home staging business (not as a side-line to selling real estate) — The Staging Diva Training Program. With an MBA in marketing and hundreds of home staging clients, internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould, The Staging Diva, is uniquely qualified to train others how to start and grow a profitable home staging business.

It drives me crazy when potential students fret about whether I already have a Staging Diva Graduate in their area. Unless you’re living on a tiny remote island with hardly any homes, you couldn’t possibly stage all the homes for sale in your market.

One new student from Florida just wrote that there are 13,000 homes for sale in her county alone! That’s a big enough market to support MANY home stagers and she can watch the number of unsold homes on the market climb even higher as we head into September and October.

Once the kids are back at school there will be many new listings and many new homeowners wondering how to make their home stand out from all the competition in their neighborhood.

You might want to read this story on why home staging sells a home faster and for top dollar.

So, when you find fear of potential competition stopping you from following your dreams, ask yourself whether there wouldn’t really be room in your market for a new home stager who really understands marketing! Let’s face it, in most industries, marketing know-how is the single biggest determinant of which companies are successful and which aren’t!

Discover the ONLY Home Staging Business Training Program taught by a seasoned entrepreneur who has successfully grown her own home staging business (not as a side-line to selling real estate) — The Staging Diva Training Program. With an MBA in marketing and hundreds of home staging clients, internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould, The Staging Diva, is uniquely qualified to train others how to start and grow a profitable home staging business.

Read full Staging Diva Home Staging Training course descriptions and schedule

Home staging, because it’s tied to real estate, is a seasonal business. If you’ve been doing your marketing the way I advise in “Staging Diva Sales & Marketing Secrets to Boost your Home Staging Business“, you should get lots of calls from prospective clients now heading into the fall real estate market.

In most major centers, people want to get their homes on the market right after Labor Day. So, you should be getting calls now (and over the last 10 days or so) and stay busy through the end of September.

I’m already booked up with as many projects as I can handle for the next 4 weeks and I’ve turned away several because I didn’t have anyone to refer them to [hint: Graduates in Toronto, if you haven't let me know you're in business and got your portfolio together, you're missing valuable referral projects!].

October brings new flood of calls from desperate homeowners

There’s always another wave of new project activity around the end of October as the people who haven’t sold yet (because they didn’t have their homes staged in the first place) start to get nervous. They realize that by the end of November their chance to sell before spring will be all but gone.

While this group may not have been open to spending money on the home they’re selling at the beginning of the season, by end of October they realize they have no choice. Especially since their agent would be asking at that point to cut their price dramatically.

Staging is far cheaper than price reductions which even on a very modest listing start at about $5,000. I had one client last spring whose agent wanted him to drop his price $50,000 from the $949,900 list price. When you’re up at that price and not selling you need a bigger drop to get some action. For the agent, that would have been only about $750 out of her pocket. For the client, however, that’s a loss of $47,000! John called me instead and spent about $1000 and got 98% of his original asking price. Honestly, why wouldn’t everyone stage their house with those sorts of numbers?!

If you’re a home stager, “spring” starts end of January/early February

The biggest season for home staging is of course spring, which starts in Februrary (it may look like the middle of winter where you are, but the spring real estate season will already be underway). Your marketing efforts should be in full swing by late January to keep you busy right up through end of April.

Then you’ll see that second spring surge in demand for home staging at the end of June from the desperate homeowners that didn’t sell in the spring market. Again, their agents are pushing for price cuts and they’re realizing if they don’t sell fast they can’t move before the kids start school in the fall.

All of this presumes you live in a major urban center in North America. If you live in a market that appeals to people buying vacation homes, the pattern will be different of course with the peak selling time being in the summer or winter ski season (depending on the destination).

And if you lived in Australia as some of my Staging Diva Students students do, the seasons would also be reversed.

So, my challenge to all home stagers reading this is… get out there and let homeowners and agents know you’re there. This is the second biggest season of the whole year and while you might be clinging to summer pleasures or worrying about your kids starting school, you’re also an entrepreneur, in charge of building your business! Here’s an easy way you can start to build an immediate profile and it’s FREE!

Discover the ONLY Home Staging Business Training Program taught by a seasoned entrepreneur who has successfully grown her own home staging business (not as a side-line to selling real estate) — The Staging Diva Training Program. With an MBA and hundreds of home staging clients, internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould, The Staging Diva, is uniquely qualified to train others how to start and grow a profitable home staging business.

Read full Staging Diva Home Staging Training course descriptions and schedule

I have two homeowners who need home stagers in the Cincinnati OH area. I think one of the projects might be closer to Loveland.

One is a vacant home that needs to be completely furnished and staged and the other belongs to a woman who has been living there for many years.

If you’re a Staging Diva Graduate and you’re interested in these projects, please send me:

• Your name
• Your company name
• Your phone number
• Your primary email address
• The address of your website or page on the Staging Diva Directory

Please include “Home Staging Project Cincinnati” in the subject line of your email.

Of course both of these projects could be handled by the same stager. One has all the creative challenge of taking the “blank canvas” of an empty house and turning it into a show home. The other has the challenge of working with what the client already has. Probably rearranging existing furniture, accessories and art, deciding what needs to go into storage, choosing paint colors, perhaps adding some new things to complement what is there, etc.

Staging Diva students learn how to handle both of these types of assignments in course 3 “Taking the Mystery out of a Home Staging Consultation.”

Because of all the traffic I get to my two sites, SixElements.com and StagingDiva.com, I get lots of leads on projects from all over Canada and the US. I will only refer them to Staging Diva Graduates.

To qualify as a Graduate of The Staging Diva Training Program, you must complete the following 5 courses (10 hours in total):

1. “Cashing in Decorating Homes to Sell”
2. “The Business of Home Staging: What you Need to Start and How to Grow”
3. “Taking the Mystery out of Home Staging Consultations”
4. “Staging Diva Sales & Marketing Secrets to Boost your Home Staging Business”
5. “Over 30 More Ways to Make Money in Home Staging”

Learn more about The Staging Diva Training Program

It’s really tough to make a condo stand out from the many others for sale in the same building. That’s why home staging is so critical.

This client had to put her condo on the market in the slow summer season and on top of that she was competing with dozens of others in the same complex.

With condos, building color recommendations into the appointment is also important as nothing warms up a space faster than the right coat of paint. Most new condos are painted sterile white, which does nothing to enhance the environment.

Look at the drama achieved in this typical condo. I used Benjamin Moore Huntington Beige (HC-21) because the living room faced south and was flooded with light from floor to ceiling windows.

One of the gratifying things about home staging is the real difference you can make in people’s lives, here’s what my client wrote me today:

“I would like to thank you for your help in staging our condo. Everyone that has passed through our home, be it friends, family, or prospective buyers, absolutely loved it. Most importantly, we were able to distinguish our condo unit from the several other comparable ones in our building and, as a result, were able to sell it in only six days, at 98% of our asking price!

We will continue to mention your name whenever we share our experiences of selling our place.

Thanks again!”

Roman Rozanec

I have to say it’s really nice starting my day reading an email like that! When I was working in the corporate sector it was rare to receive such heartfelt appreciation.

By the way, if you’re worried about recommending the right wall colors, you should check out the “Staging Diva Ultimate Color Guide: the easy way to pick colors for home staging projects.” With 30 tips on choosing colors for home staging and my favorite home staging tested color picks and palettes, you’ll find picking colors much easier.

The goal of any home staging project is to create an environment where the greatest number of potential buyers will fall in love with a home and imagine themselves living there.

It’s important to remove diplomas, wedding and baby photos and religious items from all walls. These distract buyers and remind them they are walking through someone else’s personal space.

Many homes, regardless of price range, don’t have any art to speak of. As a home stager I bring in art to help showcase the property. The art should complete the look, making a room feel comfortable, open and inviting, not become a focal point or distraction to home buyers.

I stick to pretty “safe” or traditional art that enhances a room while staying somewhat in the background. Landscapes, still life, botanicals and some more contemporary abstracts. Depending on the house, I sometimes use reproductions of Van Gough, Kandinsky, Monet, Miro, Matisse, Warhol, Rothko, O’Keeffe, Seurat, Klee, Wyeth. Black and white photos in dark black frames also work well.

I avoid religious art, most nudes, and edgy contemporary art with subjects that might upset home buyers. In most cases, the art is there as a backdrop to support the beauty of the house itself.

A really high-end modern home with tons of walls and high ceilings might call for more original and interesting art, but average homes do not. For these I would go to galleries or directly to artists to arrange rentals of original works or giclee prints on canvas.

Most homeowners hang art too high, place groupings too far apart, put small pieces on large walls and vice versa, creating a sense of imbalance. A good home stager will know how to fix these problems.

By the way, the photo above is from the very first home I ever staged. I remember rehanging their art (and deciding where to put the 10 other paintings I rented) was one of my favorite things about the whole project.

Discover the ONLY Home Staging Business Training Program taught by a seasoned entrepreneur who has successfully grown her own home staging business (not as a side-line to selling real estate) — The Staging Diva Training Program. With an MBA and hundreds of home staging clients, internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould, The Staging Diva, is uniquely qualified to train others how to start and grow a profitable home staging business.

Read full Staging Diva Home Staging Training course descriptions and schedule

Only 15 students can take the Staging Diva Training Courses live and I’m not taking any more enrollments for September.

If you don’t want to wait until October to take the home staging business training courses live with me, you can order course recordings instead. Given that we’re heading into the busy fall real estate season, it’s really better to get through the material now so you can get your staging business up and running on time to catch the season.

My August students are already getting project referrals from me since I hear from homeowners and agents all over the US and Canada looking for home stagers.

The advantage to recordings is that you can listen to them again and again. How you hear the information will change as you get more involved in your business. I share a lot of information with you in the 10 hours of recordings, plus you have full course notes to follow along. Recordings are of actual classes, so you’ll hear the questions of past students and my discussions with them.

I’ve specially selected the recordings from the many courses offered over the past year. You can save $100 now if you order all five, or take them one at a time, whatever works better for you.

It’s a bit of a stereotype that only women are home stagers. There are men in this business too and a number of them are also graduates of The Staging Diva™ Home Staging Training Program.

There are lots of men in interior design and real estate, so why would home staging be any different?

Gary Baugher of An Eye 4 Change in Nashville, TN just wrote to me to say:

“I only completed one Staging Diva course so far but wanted to share my news. I staged my first house on Saturday. It hit the market at noon on Monday, with the first showing at 1:00. They came back at 4:00 and wrote a contract. The next day the agent received two backup offers! The agent had never used a stager before so she was impressed and the seller gave me a great testimonial. I have another consultation this evening. I used your pricing strategy from course 2 to set my fee and the Client had no problem at all. Thanks for your encouragement and knowledge. I intend to take a few other Staging Diva courses to continue my education with you. You were correct in saying, “if you didn’t have the talent you wouldn’t be doing this. It’s the marketing knowledge that makes or breaks the business.”

One of the things I love about what Gary wrote is that he went out there and “learned in action”. Getting the first project is always the hardest. With each home staging success story it becomes easier to convince the next homeowner or agent about the significant benefits that come with decorating a house to sell!

Discover the ONLY Home Staging Business Training Program taught by a seasoned entrepreneur who has successfully grown her own home staging business (not as a side-line to selling real estate) — The Staging Diva Training Program. With an MBA and hundreds of home staging clients, internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould, The Staging Diva, is uniquely qualified to train others how to start and grow a profitable home staging business.>

Read full Staging Diva Home Staging Training course descriptions and schedule

I keep reading articles about real estate agents pulling back on advertising and recommending price reductions because the market has slowed. Consider that an agent is financially motivated to give this advice by their commission structure. This advice may not always be in their client’s best interest.

If the seller’s agent is only getting 3 percent of the selling price and he/she has to give half of that to the broker, when the client drops his price $10,000 it only means a cut of $150 in the agent’s commission! Of course it’s costing the homeowner $9,400!

That’s why many agents will suggest a price drop before introducing the subject of home staging. It’s a quick/easy solution for the agent, but in most cases home staging will cost the homeowner far less than the $10,000 price cut, and dramatically increase his chance of selling at the original price.

Real estate agents are important to us as Home Stagers. But, don’t make the mistake of relying exclusively on them to promote your home staging business. I discuss this at length, and how to market smarter, in course 4 of The Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program.

Listen to a free sample of “Staging Diva Sales & Marketing Secrets to Boost your Home Staging Business”

For the last 5 years San Diego County lead the US housing boom. But, as most people forget during the good times, everything that goes up can come down.

In June, San Diego County became the first major real estate market in California to see annual median prices for houses and condos drop (1%). But more shocking, sales plummeted 24%, according to real estate tracking statistics.

As the slowdown spreads, watch for greater interest in the services of Home Staging Professionals. In fact Les Christie of CNNMoney interviewed me last January on how home staging is one of the top five strategies a homeowner can use as the real estate market slows down.

Read Debra Gould’s interview with CNNMoney on selling a house when the market has turned south

One San Diego Staging Diva Graduate writes:

“My business is really picking up. The San Diego market was the highest to appreciate in the country, but is now falling the fastest. Everything is sitting, and the Realtors are finally seeing the benefits of staging. Your Staging Diva training has really prepared me to respond to Realtor’s objections. It was definitely money well spent, thank you!” (Margaret Baxter, Turnkey Staging)

And why shouldn’t real estate agents see the benefits of staging? Margaret took a waterfront home with a best offer of $1.9 million and staged it, and it sold for $2.45 million!

Discover the ONLY Home Staging Business Training Program taught by a seasoned entrepreneur who has successfully grown her own home staging business (not as a side-line to selling real estate) — The Staging Diva Training Program. With an MBA and hundreds of home staging clients, internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould, The Staging Diva, is uniquely qualified to train others how to start and grow a profitable home staging business.

Read full Staging Diva Home Staging Training course descriptions and schedule