Agents and Home Sellers: How do you decide which home stager to hire?

Since home staging is a completely unregulated field without official qualifications, it's difficult to know who to hire and whether they are "qualified." This difficulty is compounded by the fact that it is possible for home stagers to acquire a ready-made home staging portfolio to present as their own work, since some training programs offer this.

When reviewing a home staging portfolio, ask questions about the photos to satisfy yourself that these are the stager's own work.

If the stager can't tell you anything about the home or client, why they made the changes they did, or where the house was, these are warning signs that you're looking at a fake portfolio. If it turns out the photos are from the stager's own home, that is fine as long as the before and after shots demonstrate their ability to decorate a house to sell.

There should be an obvious transformation between the before and after photos in a portfolio. If all the stager has done is turn on the lights and clean off the kitchen counters, this does not communicate an ability to actually stage a home.

Conduct a telephone interview with any Home Stager before deciding to hire them.

Here are some things you should be listening for during the interview:

• Do I feel comfortable speaking with this person?

• Does the stager seem to understand my needs? A good stager will listen well and respond appropriately. If there are obvious difficulties in both of you understanding each other, this will only get worse once you are actually working together.

• Does the Home Stager sound confident and interested in my project? If the stager is obviously insecure or sounds distracted or bored, do not expect this to improve once you are a paying client.

• Does the Home Stager come well-recommended or does the staging portfolio suggest that he or she knows what to do?

• Does the stager speak confidently and knowledgeably about real estate? Home staging is about decorating a house to sell on the real estate market, if they know nothing about real estate this is a problem.

• Is the stager clear when explaining how he or she works and what the fees are? If the stager is unable to explain this clearly this suggest a lack of experience and confidence.

• Do the fees make sense and suggest someone who is astute about money and your potential return on an investment in staging? If the rates are too cheap or worse, if they work for free, don't expect much value. Also do not be lured in by promises of a certain selling price for your home. This is not the stager's proper role.

• Is the Home Stager available when I need them?

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould, is the author of Staging Diva® Ultimate Portfolio Guide: Winning Clients With The Perfect Home Staging Portfolio and creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. She has staged millions of dollars worth of real estate, including seven of her own homes. She is president of home staging firm Six Elements Inc. and has trained over 1000 home stagers to start and grow their own businesses. Debra offers a Directory of Home Stagers to help homeowners and real estate agents locate home stagers who will decorate homes to sell quickly and for more money.