If you’re looking for the best way to talk yourself out of becoming a home stager, immediately get on the phone and call 
a dozen real estate agents in your market. After a few “No one will ever pay for it around here” or “It will never work in this market” or “There’s no need for staging, if a house is priced right it will sell” responses you’ll be almost embarrassed with yourself for ever thinking up such a silly idea.
If I listened to everyone who told me home staging wouldn’t work in my city 9 years ago, there would be no Staging Diva today.
Of course there are agents who understand that if they have a more attractive product to sell, that it will sell faster. There are also many real estate agents who insist that all their listings be staged, you just have to find them! These agents who “get it” are the 20% of real estate agents who likely make 80% of real estate commissions.
In your hunt for real estate agents to discuss the potential of home staging with, more often you’ll run into the 80% who do the remaining 20% of the business. Many of them only work part time or for their friends. But there are others (and sadly, you’ll have no trouble finding them) who are just plain ignorant, lazy or both. I realize I’ll get hate mail for saying this, but so be it. The truly professional real estate agents who are always looking for ways to get the most for their clients know who they are and I’m sure they’re not fond of that other group either because it reflects on them as part of the same industry.
Recently I talked to the owner of a vacant condo that she’s about to put on the market for $895,000. It will be the most expensive unit in the building and one of four that’s for sale on her floor. The agent recommended the listing price (likely too high) and suggested that she put tape on the hardwood floors to indicate where furniture might go to give prospective buyers a sense of how big the rooms are!
Imagine expecting home buyers to be inspired by tape on the floor and fall in love with an empty condo that’s priced well above anything else in the building. Imagine also how lovely her real estate listing photos will be with all those white walls and boxy empty rooms! Does this agent not realize that 90% of home buyers in her market search for a property online before ever even calling an agent to go see it?
Fortunately this home seller is smart enough not to take this bad advice and went online to search for a home stager. So while her agent made no mention of the possibility of staging her vacant property, she’s now prepared to invest at least $5,000 in having me stage it for her.
A lot of agents are shell-shocked right now because they got into real estate thinking they could make a quick, easy buck. All those years of only having to put a for sale on the lawn and wait for offers led to a ton of complacent agents who took their incomes for granted.
In most markets, real estate agents are depressed because their listings are sitting on the market forever, and they’re not making any money. They don’t want to spend money on their listings because they don’t make their money until the home sells and these days that can take a long time (especially when the house isn’t staged). Many of them got in way over their own heads too with easy credit and homes they couldn’t afford once the market slowed and those commissions stopped rolling in.
This puts real estate agents in a scarcity mindset and I’m not surprised that they’re telling you home staging won’t work. But when they’re saying, “Oh, nobody will ever pay for that here,” what they really mean is they won’t pay for it. They haven’t talked to all of their clients about whether or not they would pay for staging, they just know they don’t want to.
Plus, if they’re sitting with an inventory of non-selling listings that show badly, it’s mighty awkward for them to go back to their clients now to say that the problem is they don’t show well. Any client would rightly ask, “Why didn’t you tell me that 12 months ago when you took the listing?”
Talking to real estate agents will be very discouraging. It’s not just you.
With home sellers, it’s a whole other story and that’s why I teach in the Staging Diva Home Staging Training Program that real estate agents are only one of the four major target markets for a home stager.
Instead of focusing all of your energy on what real estate agents think, put some energy into educating the home sellers about the benefits of home staging and you’ll be much better off.
Home stagers, what’s your favorite real estate agent story? If an agent tried to discourage you and you went ahead and found success anyway, we’d love to hear it. You might give someone the boost of confidence they need to follow their dream. Please leave a comment below.
Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging
Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager and she developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love while helping others at the same time.
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31 Comments on Why Real Estate Agents Discourage Home Stagers
While I love many of the agents who have me as part of their "team"....and I AGREE they are the 20%ers....I am also looking for ways to attract more & more sellers directly. Maureen has had lots of success with this in Portland and we can all learn from her....I welcome all ideas on how to attract those sellers DIRECTLY.
And....tape on the floor OMG new one for how to "show" a listing!
We have encountered the attitude you're describing from many different agents over the years. Some claim to 'do their own staging' and others simply don't see any merit in staging in general. Those agent's listings are quite often the worst and we just shake our heads that they would be okay with selling properties with no appeal. It's like being given the offer to sell a porche versus a clunker and without even finding out what the investment is to be able to sell that porche (which will obviously sell faster and for a lot more money) those agents just 'make do' with the clunkers.
We had a very memorable experience with a local realtor early in our career and it really made us question the services we offer. This realtor initially encouraged us, wanting to work with us and then after some great consultations with clients who loved us, this agent abruptly cut all communication with us and told us that due to the terrible job we did that 'it was obvious we would never make it in this business'. Years later we are not only still around but we are one of the most respected home staging companies in our area. This agent still does not work with a stager and we still can't fathom the reasoning behind the attack. Regardless, its easy to get discouraged by feedback like this and very important to learn from it (as much as you can) and keep doing what you love.
Thanks for this Debra!
I hope it's ok to post your article on my FB page...
it makes so much sense to me the Stager, now to get the RE Agents on board...!
Thank you Debra for having the courage to say what I've been thinking for a while now. In central CA most real estate agents, the 80% group, think that having their clients clean and put a few things away is staging. Their favorite comment is "It shows well." Well, usually it is either 80's decor, still too cluttered or just plain boring.
I have had great experiences with the 20%, actually it seems more like 5%, however. Hopefully this article will increase that percentage.
Janet, Kathy, Heather, thanks for sharing your experiences!
Betsy, I'd love for you to share a link to this story from your Facebook page! By the way, if you want to connect with me there, I'm at: http://www.facebook.com/TheStagingDiva There's a free report for you there on juggling a home staging business with family demands. Just give my page a "like" and it's yours :)
Linda, you're welcome. Actually I think it's closer to 5% too. I was being conservative going with 20%!
Debra
I think that marketing directly to sellers is important, as well as building relationships with brokers. Part of my presentation to clients includes the importance of positioning their homes in the market which includes pricing and preparation. I remember the time when staging was not even on the map, and, now the market is flooded. Everyone needs to build relationships together so that brokers can see the importance of staging which I think many have done. You now have a lot of ASP Realtors who can speak with sellers from a more educated position and help them see the benefits of staging.
Debra- I would love to hear from more Realtors on this ongoing and never-ending topic. While I continue to network with Realtors via my local Board and WCR..I write outside blogs targeting the sellers. I love working with the Realtors I've met. A recent staging involved a vacant renovated condo... priced right but no view whatsoever. After Staging it sold in 5 weeks and the Realtor told me that he really didn't think staging would work but now was a believer.
We just have to keep focusing on those who believe in Staging and continue to try to educate the other 80%.
Debra - Great blog. I actually just logged into AR to post one of those stories. I'll cite your blog when I write it and then come back and give you the link. While my business deals about 95% with vacants and almost all of that is repeat business from those 80% agents you mentioned, it is very important that you do what you can to educate homeowners. Often they have become repeat business as well... just not as frequently.
Debra - Here is my most recent story Home Staging is only for High End properties - What one Charleston, SC agent told my client.
Barb, It's great that you are presenting the importance of preparing a home to sell in your real estate presentations. I'm curious what market you think is flooded with home stagers. I've yet to hear of a geographic area that has even a tenth of the number of real estate agents for the same region. Thanks for sharing your comments, great to hear from a REALTOR®.
Kathy, thanks for sharing that example of the difference home staging makes and the ways you are targetting sellers.
Melissa, interesting that your business is 95% vacants. Personally, I like having more clients in my mix that are selling the home they're living in. Lots of them want a home staging consultation so they can do the rest of the work themselves. I charge a premium for this so it's not hard to make money quickly without having to deal with all the complications that come with moving a whole household full of stuff in and out. I enjoy doing vacants too, I just wouldn't want all my business from those.
Isn't it great how many different ways there are to organize a profitable home staging business around one's personal preferences, schedule, etc?!
Debra.. oh yeah, you hit the nail on the head and can I hit a couple of REAs on the head too? For my area there seems to be some double dipping going on and strategies that I feel are totally unacceptable. Trying to move on from that. As far as areas being flooded by home stagers. Yes, 4 years ago we had 250+ stagers in my area. They were slicing and dicing fees, sipping the Kool aid and having fun dreams. Well, it went from 250 to 5 of us now. What differentiates us is our services, our change with the market, to work with investors, and territories. Interestingly, we are all friends. I have great respect for anyone who has found a niche to continue their biz. Thank you for the post!
Debra, thanks for a great post. When our RESA chapter gets together each month, the topic of trying to help real sstate agents understand the value of staging always comes up because so many stagers are frustrated (I'll repost this on our website to give them a little encouragement).
I've got dozens of agents as contacts, and occasionally, I'll get calls from them asking about the cost to rent furniture for a vacant staging or they'll mention that they recommended a client contact me, but they've not yet adopted staging as their go-to strategy for selling their clients' homes.
All of the serious staging inquiries I've gotten have been from homeowners who see the shows on HGTV and hear about staging in the media, and decide to check out staging for themselves, whether their agent has recommended it or not.
I think it's the homeowners, moreso than stagers, who will be the ones to convince real estate agents that staging is worthwhile. The more homeowners know about it and see the results that their friends and neghbors who've staged their homes have gotten, the more they'll demand staging from the agents they work with, and then we stagers will be taking the calls from real estate agents instead of making them!
Lori, Wow thanks for sharing that. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. When I started my staging company in 2002 the local KoolAid company was spitting out 40 home stagers every 3 months. I didn't let that bother me and went about setting up my business in a way that made sense to me and marketing myself in a professional way. Over all these years, I've never stopped hearing about how it's difficult to find stagers in my city.
It's great that the 5 of you are all friends and co-exisiting in the same market unthreatened by each other's success. Last June when I went to New York I had dinner with 3 Staging Diva Graduates (Donna Dazzo, Jodi Whalen, and Susan Atwell) and I was really struck by how they had all been supporting each other, sharing info as they grew their respective staging businesses, etc., despite being "competitors."
Thanks for sharing your comments and experience!
Jill, I totally agree with you.
For me the pattern was set 9 years ago when I was contacted for my very first staging project. The initial inquiry was from a real estate agent but only because her client had asked her to find a home stager. She had never worked with one before, went on Google and then found my home staging website. I don't even think she bothered to contact anyone else, because when I called her the next day and said I could "squeeze them in", I was hired by her client. Little did they know it was my first project!
Since that time, I've of course had projects through real estate agents, but 90% of my revenue has come from home sellers searching me out on their own (often before they've even hired an agent).
Thanks for sharing your experiences.
I Love, love, love this blog. I'm finding that we have to educate one customer at a time, and because there are so many myths about pricing and what we do as stagers, REAs can permeate fears into a seller's mind. It's an unfortunate hazzard in our business.
This has given me the inspiration however to send out a newsletter this week to several realtors just to remind them and educate them.
Hey Liz,
Thanks for your feedback and I'm so glad I could inspire you to take action in marketing your home staging business. Since you "love, love, love this blog" (I love you for saying so!), you might want to check out my more regular blog, Home Staging Business Report. I post 2 to 3 articles per week to help home stagers succeed and there are great comments and ideas in there from my community of home stagers. If you subscribe, you'll get an email notification with the headline and opening paragraph whenever I post something new, along with a link to read more. There are job postings, articles about marketing, how to stage a house and more.
Thanks again for visiting here and sharing your feedback, very much appreciated!
Debra, I can totally vouch for what Jill is saying, since I'm a member of the same RESA chapter here in NJ. I also find that virtually all of the staging jobs I've gotten are from home owners themselves who call me either before (for the most part) or during a listing period when their home isn't getting offers. On the other hand, almost all of the calls I get to do CONSULTS are from a handful of agents who pay for them. When other agents call me, it's because their clients have asked them to find a stager. So I agree with everything being said about most agents not looking kindly on stagers and not valuing our services. I know we all keep hoping this will change . . . unfortunately, I tend to find when agents pay for me to do consults, the owners often don't seem to be as wiling to listen to my advice as those sellers who hire me directly :>(
Amy,
I absolutely agree with you that when the real estate agent is paying for the consultation you usually have a much lower commitment from the home seller to act on your suggestions. These are the ones who will balk at any idea that might cost them money, like repainting a bathroom that hasn't been done since the 1980s, never mind actually doing any staging!
That's the other reason I prefer clients to hire me directly. When they are personally investing in my advice, they are psychologically invested in what I say. So they take action! Much more satisfying creatively and financially!