To Charge For Local Consults or Not

Welcome to AR Tarenia.  You have come to the right place and you have asked a great question. If it is an occupied, then I would charge for sure.  Don't let the other client dictate your fees.  No more freebies.  Now, you may want to do discounts for REAs though, so that they use you again and again.  Anytime that I am sharing my expertice and I have to pick up a pencil and write... there is a fee.  You may want to sit down and do a business plan for yourself right now so that you are positioned to accept clients for next year.  This will have you develop policies for your biz.  Best of luck and you should get some great advice ;)

Hi Tarenia,

I also charge for my consultations. and offer discounts for Agents. And on occasion i have credited back part of my consult fee, because an investor wanted me to stage two identical vacant homes. I didn't even need to look that thoroughly in the second home so i gave him a discount on my consult fee in hopes that he'll think of me for his next project. BUt his is just my veiw.

Tarenia- LOVE your name! This came up at a dinner I had with three other stagers. I think we all use different terminology. To me, there are previews and consultations. A preview involves going to a vacant home, taking photos, maybe some measurements, and writing a proposal. I don't charge for that. I choose to do it this way, because I am not comfortable doing proposals without seeing the home. Plus (and this is an exaggerated example) I don't want any surprises like a huge crack that travels up the center of the home!

Anytime I meet with a seller at the home they are still living in, I call that a consultation, and I charge an hourly fee. I will send them a report, if they want, to highlight what we went over, give them a priority list, a resource list if the home needs something, and a reminder that if they want ME to do the staging, this is how long I think it will take and my fees. More often than not, an agent pays me for this service, and if the seller chooses to have me do the staging, they pick up the cost.

Hi Tarenia, I don't charge for vacants (although, with the gas prices, I'd love to reconsider that one...) because I'm only providing a proposal;  if there is something that needs to get done, I think, before any kind of vacant staging can take place, I let them know I'm offering the suggestions 'complementary'.  I prefer not to stage a house who's bones aren't right.

For any occupied home, I charge for a full consultation.  Expect me to be there minimum of an hour, expect me to tour the home room by room, expect me to tell you what can stay, what can go, what needs to come in.  I've learned that in an occupied setting, they want to know right then and there what they need to do, which costs money because you don't want to give away the info for free and what you doing there if they aren't going to get any info?  Just something I learned from people I've dealt with...doesn't mean other stagers aren't successful doing free 'estimates',  I just found that it was something that wasn't worth it for me to offer.