Since starting our business, the question of “what is home staging?” or “how long does it take to stage a home?” is one that comes our way often. Home staging is the act of preparing a private residence for sale in the real estate marketplace. The goal of staging is to make a home appealing to the highest number of potential buyers, thereby selling a property more swiftly and for more money. Now, how long it takes varies depending on the size of the home and the amount of work needed to be done prior to the actual staging. Usually, this is determined during the In-Home Consultation or “Walk and Talk”, which we discussed in a previous blog post here.

THE STAGING PROCESS. WHAT DOES IT REALLY TAKE TO STAGE A HOME?There’re two types of home staging. Vacant Home Staging for when the home is completely or mostly empty, and Occupied Home Staging for when the home is being listed while the owners are still living in it.

Let’s start with the occupied home, since it’s often a bit more complex than vacant staging.

Step 1: The consultation.

Every home is different from one another, even when the home is in the same neighborhood and shares the same floor plan. The reason is because, the people living inside have different needs, different styles/taste and different uses for each room (e.g. a couple without kids vs. a family with kids; pets vs. no pets; smokers vs. non-smokers). Every home has different needs before being “market ready”. With a properly executed consultation, we can assess the situation and come up with an action plan.

After you have contacted our team and answered a few questions about the home, we will schedule you for a consultation or what’s referred in the industry as a Walk and Talk consult.  Depending on the size of the home, this usually takes about an hour and a half to two, though it may be shorter or longer based on a variety of factors. During the consultation, our HSR Certified Home Stager will be taking notes as we go through the home in order to create a report specific to your property that will provide you with room by room recommendations to make your home as “market ready” as possible.

The report will contain enough information to allow you to do all the work by yourself, without any further assistance from our team. If, however, you would like to keep us engaged in the process with you, we can provide services for that as well. We will typically provide a list of items and accessories we recommend for the homeowners to purchase to enhance the overall finished product. We can also provide accessory rentals on a case by case which we will quote you for if needed.

So, what’s the cost?

• • Walk and Talk Staging Consultations start at $250 and go up based on sqft.

• • Power Staging Package (Up to 4 Hours) is $799,

• • Ultimate Power Staging Package (Up to 7 hours) is $1200

• • Accessory Rentals Packages – Vary depending on needs

• Power Shopping – $75/hr – We’ll create a budget and shop for those accessories that serve as investments in the sale of your home.

Step 2: Staging Day.

On staging day, if you have elected to hire us for our services, we’ll have one of our stagers arrive at your house, with any necessary accessories or furnishings, that were already agreed upon from the consultation and have been quoted and approved by you. Within the agreed upon time frame, the stager will begin working with you (homeowner) on getting the home market ready. We will help de-clutter and rearrange your belongings as needed in a way that maximizes the home appeal. If we ask you to remove any of your belongings from the house, it will be because we believe that possible buyers would pay more or be more interested in the property without certain pieces in it.

The time between consultation and staging day varies based on many factors, which may include, scope of work needing to be done, market timing, calendar availability, etc.

BUT WHAT ABOUT VACANT HOMES?

Depending on the needs of the home we can quote a vacant staging over the phone or we may need to do a consultation. With fully vacant homes, we may need to take at least two days to fully stage but our goal is always to completely stage each project in the shortest amount of time.

Step 1: The Consult

If the home needs some TLC – you can schedule a consultation with us, which usually takes about an hour, where we will go through the home and address any issues we see with paint, carpet cleaning, and any other recommendations on updates or repairs that will maximize return of investment.  After that, a formal proposal will be submitted with a Staging Agreement. Once we have a signed agreement, we will add your project to our schedule. Typically, we can stage each property within one to two weeks.

Step 2: The Preview. 

If a consult was not done, we will need to preview the property so that we can take measurements and properly plan how much furniture and accessories will be needed for the project. The staging plan involves a thorough research of the neighborhood and the potential buyer demographics that will help us optimize the staging and maximize the appeal to the potential buyers of the home. Whether you prefer the whole home Staged or just key rooms, our beautiful furniture, art, and accessories will get your home SOLD for top dollar!

Step 3: Staging and De-staging

Maison de Campagne schedules the work to take at least two days for full house staging, however for smaller homes or for a smaller scale staging, we will start and finish the staging on the same day. For de-staging, we require a 10-day notice and we typically take the same amount of time for the de-stage as we did for staging.

The cost?

We charge a Vacant Staging Consultation of $99.00 – If Maison de Campagne is selected to stage the home, we will apply a $99 credit towards your final bill, making the consultation FREE!

The cost of our vacant staging varies depending on the scale of the project. For typical homes listed up to $300,000 our basic vacant home staging packages start at $2200. Our service agreement covers 60 days and includes staging and de-staging fees.

Remember home staging is a necessity when it comes to showcasing your home properly. Stand out among your competition on the market and schedule a home staging consultation with us today. If you want to read additional tips on the value of Home Staging, check out this article by Porch.com here.

If you have any questions about any of our processes, what we use, or how we help you market your property, or if you’d like a quote for our staging services please contact us here or call us at 281-588-0096.