Seeking A New Career? Consider Home Staging!

By Joanne O'Donnell

Getting a home ready for sale is a precise process that takes a professional's expertise to get right. A pro-fessional stager can look at your home through the buyers' spectacles instead of the rose-colored ones through which we tend to view our own home. As an objective outsider, a home stager can look past how we live to see how potential buyers would view your home and make the changes, additions and deletions that will bring in multiple offers. A common misconception is that staging is simply decorating your home. Staging is not decorating. Staging is a marketing tool used to broaden the home's appeal to the largest possible buying demographic. Decorating is a reflection of your personal taste, while staging creates broad appeal. Nor is staging as simple as de-cluttering, adding some flowers and turning on lights.

	Master bedroom before staging.

Staging has become the norm here in the Bay Area, the nation's most expensive real estate market, where bidding wars are a common part of the landscape. Eager to get top dollar, homeowners are paying $1500 to $10,000+ to stagers who use lifestyle-selling techniques to bring multiple buyers to the table. A potential buyer is more likely to make an offer on a home that they can envision themselves living in. Staging makes your home attractive and memorable to a larger percentage of buyers, giving your home the upper hand in the market.

Nowadays most buyers begin their search on the internet and beautiful staged photos will put your home on the list of "must sees." However, if your home doesn't have curb appeal all you will get is a drive-by and we all know that isn't good. That is why the staging process begins outside, across the street, and works its way through the house, room by room, following the path your real estate agent would use while showing your home. First impressions are key. If your house is not beckoning from the outside, your beautifully staged, warm and inviting interior will not have a chance to shine. Your home should stand out as one of the nicest on the street. A tidy garden, clean windows with lighted interiors showing through, freshly painted front door, polished door hardware and an attractive, clean welcome mat will invite buyers to "step inside.''

	Master bedroom after staging.

Once inside you must keep the buyer's interest that began on the internet throughout the viewing. Remember the typical buyer walks through in a matter of minutes. They will move on to the next property if every part of the home does not continue to build their interest and feeling of home. That is what Certified Staging Professionals™ are trained to create – memorable moments around every corner. They use lifestyle-selling techniques to create the emotional attachment necessary to move buyers to make solid offers.

People who attend the CSP™ home staging training program learn how to start and build a home staging business – they already have an eye for design – usually they have been doing it for years – they just need a vehicle to turn their skills into a business. Professional stagers who know exactly what it takes to make your dream of making a living as a stager a reality developed the program. The growth of the CSP™ network (almost 500 in one year) necessitated the evolution of standards, policies and procedures, which will pave the way for the industry as a whole to follow. Graduates of the CSP™ program have attended an intensive immersion program, studied extensively and passed examinations with 75% or more and as they build their own business they agree to adhere to a professional code of conduct. Therefore, whether you are looking for someone to stage your home or seeking a great new career, Certified Staging Professionals™ will take you where you want to go.