Sometimes home staging won't work

If a home is staged well it will sell faster and for more money than one that isn't staged. This assumes:

• the stager did a good job
• the home is priced and marketed properly

• the homeowner follows through on the recommendations of both the agent and stager
  

I've seen some very badly staged homes and I've seen beautifully staged homes priced $100,000 above where they should be. This may be the fault of the stager, the agent, the homeowner or any combination thereof. 

As with any profession, there are people at the top of their game and others who aren't. That's why the top 20% usually do 80% of the business. This applies to real estate agents and home stagers alike.

Another thing to keep in mind is that home staging is a completely unregulated field. There are no controls over whether someone is professional or not and there are no independently accredited programs. Before hiring any stager, you should consider a number of factors which you can read about at How To Hire a Home Stager.

As with most things:

• hiring the right person for the job can make all the difference between success and failure
• often you get what you pay for
• professional advice is great but if it isn't followed, it becomes irrelevant

Home staging expert Debra Gould, also known as The Staging Diva is president of home staging firm Six Elements Inc. and has been featured on HGTV, CBS Radio, GlobalTV, CityTV, CNNMoney, MoneySense, Entrepreneur Magazine, Reader's Digest, Woman's Day, Style at Home, House & Home and more. She has staged hundreds of homes in the $190,000 to $1.5 million price range and taught close to 400 women and men all over North America and in Australia, England, Wales, The Philippines and South Africa to start and grow their own home staging businesses.