Aspiring home stagers, and even established ones, worry what will happen if a home they staged does not sell. Is it their fault, and will they be the ones who will have to answer to the disappointed home seller?
The first thing to remember is the person the client will be upset with when their home isn’t selling is the real estate agent not the home stager.
Yes, you’re decorating the house to sell, but you’re not in control of:
- overall market conditions, natural disasters, interest rate changes or news events that interfere with the market at that point in time
- pricing the property correctly for the location it is in
- photographing the home well and making those shots widely available
- running ads
- hosting open houses
- booking showings
- marketing it to other real estate agents
Aside from my first bullet point, these things are all the job of the real estate agent not the home stager.
A home stager packages a product for the real estate agent to sell, but after that, it’s up to them.
You can do an awesome staging job, but you have no idea what shape it’s in after you leave when people come for showings.
The sellers might be stuck on getting a certain price and impossible to negotiate with. For all you know, there might be 3 offers but they’re all rejected or the deals fall through because of financing.
I once staged a 4 bedroom home that by the time I was done looked great for what it was. But I couldn’t change the fact that the kitchen was 30 years out of date and it was located on a busy corner that would be dangerous for children. There was nothing I could do about the fact that it was a 1970s house on a street where everything else had been torn down and replaced with modern homes. I had repairs done, repainted in appealing colors, furnished it, added accessories, artwork and bedding. But, the inherent drawbacks of the location and age of the house, relative to its neighbors, needed to be factored into the asking price to create an appealing package for potential buyers. Unfortunately, the homeowner thought because all the other houses on her street were selling for millions of dollars, hers should be priced $100,000 over what it was worth.
Guess what?
It didn’t sell because no amount of staging could fix the fundamental problems with this overpriced home.
While home stagers are an important piece of the real estate puzzle by ensuring a house is decorated to appeal to potential buyers, we are still only one piece of a large puzzle.
I doubt that you would ever get the blame from a home owner if their home does not sell, but if that should happen, I hope this article will give you some confidence that there are many more factors at work than your staging.
Any established home stagers reading this post, I'd love it if you would comment on this by sharing your stories of staged homes that didn't sell and why you thought that was the case.
Real estate agents, how do you cope with the factors that are beyond your control, like a seller who stubbornly clings to an inappropriate price? Please share your comments below.
Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging
Debra Gould is the author of four books including Home Stager's Guide to Twitter and Staging Diva Ultimate Design Guide: Home Staging Tips, Tricks and Floor Plans. She developed the Staging Diva Training Program to create opportunities for others to grow their own profitable home staging businesses, with over 4000 home stagers worldwide.
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