So Who Does Pay for the Staging?
Will Hamm asked in the Q&A section “If a client asks you to stage their home, who pays for it?”
Of course, I have my own opinion on the subject, as did the agents who 
responded to the question.
When I started staging in 2007, the market was already turning towards a buyer’s market. I was in Northern VA and one of the agents I met was offering to pay $150 towards a staging consultation for his listings. He viewed it as a marketing expense, which when you look at it, it was.
However, I always felt it better when the home seller paid for the staging consultation and any staging inventory and resulting fees themselves.
First...when the seller pays for the staging consultation, they are more likely to buy into what the stager says.
I have been on a handful of consultations where the agent paid for the consultation and for the most part, the sellers were just going through the motions. They listened and nodded their heads, but I could tell that I would not be there had the agent not paid for the consultation.
Second...the agent could find themselves in a losing situation where they have paid for a staging consultation only to find that their seller cancels the listing agreement or the house does not sell and they are going with another agent.
Trust me, this happened to an agent I know. They paid for my consultation fee and another agent ended up with the listing. Long story.
It’s your decision whether or not you choose to pay for your client’s staging fee. Some brokers have built it into their policies, marketing and budgets to pay for a client’s staging fee.
This is just one stager’s opinion.
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