Home Stagers Can be a Voice of Reason

I have the highest respect for Realtors. Because I have so many of them in my family, I have spent a good part of my adult life watching them work tirelessly on behalf of home buyers and sellers (and often, myself). Yes, there commissions can be good, but many times they do a lot of work and don't get paid a dime. Buying or selling a home can be one of the most stressful transactions an individual ever undertakes and having someone alongside you who knows what they are doing helps alleviate a lot of that stress.

One of the responsibilities of professional home stagers is to assist Realtors by helping to prepare their listings to be seen by the public. Realtors can refer us to clients, but educating home sellers on the staging process and why it will benefit them is up to us. It is at this point that home stagers can assist Realtors in another valuable way. I talk to sellers about the three things that are most important in marketing a home:

1. Prepare the home to be put on the market (staging).

2. Present the home to the public in the best possible light (high-quality real estate photography).

3. Price it right.

It is the third point that enables the home stager to assist Realtors by being another voice of reason to sometimes unreasonable sellers, who choose a figure that they want for their house, not based on its real market value, but on what they owe or what profit they want to get from the sale. Home Stagers can reinforce to sellers that they need to listen to their Realtor about where to set the listing price, because their Realtor has the experience and training to perform CMA's (Comparative Market Analysis) and to know what is reasonable to expect to receive from the sale.