Home Staging: Backstage Expenses

This is an awesome post. Just now I am sitting here revising quotes for clients that think the fee is too high.

I told them that I can shave some dollars off the AMOUNT and QUALITY of the items- less furniture, less high end look, but I cannot take money off my fee.

They look at a quote and think wow she is making a thousand dollars a pop on these jobs- the truth is I have overhead, marketing, and time that needs to be paid for and people do not see that.

I lost a job to another stager that charges much less but in the end it is a different service altogether. She puts things in a home that merely serve as space fillers whereas I create a story to market a home to a certain group of buyers. It is a very different service and therefor the fee is very different.

The public needs to realize that we are professionals and command a professional rate.

I was about to log off when I saw Kate's post.  I'm so happy to be having this discussion.  Many stagers are putting rooms in a box or "POD".  Many properties can benefit from this, but many require more high end or custom accessories.  We economize and try to provide cost effective solutions wherever we can, but not all situations or properties benefit from this.  Selling Home Staging is not always easy, but having these discussions with clients is necessary. Sure we can sometimes mix and match and most of us do, but I continue to focus on cost effective creative solutions that showcase the best features of the house.  The HGTV shows are great for this and now we have to do consumer education about the true cost of professional services.  We need both staging in a box and custom solutions that address the market and target audience.

Staging in a box. Hmmmm... hadn't thought about that. Each job I do is like Kate's. A custom look to market the feature of that  individual property.

When I do a consultation and leave a written report with the client it is phrased as their "personal action plan" to marktet their property. This helps to brand my services with the public.

hi Kristina,  Nicely put.  There is a lot that home owners don't see unless we point it out to them.

We also have the staging shows, like The Stagers", show that a staging an empty 800 sq. home will cost $10,000 and take 4 days, the other extreme.  Somewhere in the middle is where most of us regular stagers fit in!  It is still all about educating and getting the word out there.  It is coming, people will beleive what they beleive unless we prove to them otherwise.

I once had a customer asked about my fee, and if I would lower it.  I wanted to say would you ask your doctor, electrician, or plumber to lower their fee.  I doubt it.

Kristina - HGTV and others that show reno's, flipping, staging and other real estate related programs have been both good and bad for the industry. It is hard to put all the information into the time frame allotted for the show and they seldom do follow ups for a reality check. The ones I get the biggest kick out of are the filppers having been involved in a few renovations my self the costs they quote seem ridiculously low at times.

They do get exposure  for the staging industry but the prices are ridiculous.

I find myself often having to explain that to clients.

Excellent post Kristina.  The public should be made aware of the additional costs that are involved. 

So true. If someone wants to discuss my price I am happy to sit down with them and explain in detail what it really costs and what they are really getting. Works every time. Kym

Kristina ~ I have blogged about this myself. They are not doing us any favors with those prices. Most of the time when we are staging we are not knocking down walls and putting in new bathrooms. And if we are it sure would be more then $2,000.

In New Jersey you could never do something like that in 2 or 3 days you have to wait for inspectors to come and ok every step of it,

Kristina--The public has gotten the message that staging works but the pricing has not been a part of the message. Good for you to explain not only what you can do but how much it will cost. The benefits are obvious.

Wow all those expenses.  Why do we do what we do because we love it.  The consumer is not aware of everything we do behind the scenes.  They see the finished product and say that looks easy.  The seller never gets to see us how much work it is just to unload the first items off the truck.  I am glad Designed to Sell now says and this  doesn't include labor.  It was really had to explain to cliients that it wasn't realistic that price.  I have to explain it doesn't include labor and they get the items at cost.  

The Stagers at the end are showing what the staging cost is but not what the rental is.

Kristina- I could agree with you more!Saturday mornings I am glued to Sell This House, and I shake my head when they can completely renovate 3 rooms, in 2 days, for under $1000.00. Although, I dont use bed sheets for curtains, or curtains for bedsheets, maybe thats the glitch ;)

Heather

Alot of times I do feel that consumers fail to see the labor cost in most cases. The false expectations of HGTV of spending $2000 (again no labor costs, just materials only) could help transform a house and sell it with multiple bids really do not happen everyday.... I'm also featuring this in the best business practices group! Thanks for the insights.

Hi Kristina, I missed this post until now.. Excellent information.. I wish that we could pipe this to the world and HGTV, let's get realistic here.   Thanks for the great post, God bless,

Great Post.

I too have the problem of the high cost of vacant home staging. I found that forming a relationship with the furniture rental company you use really can help keep the cost down .Let them know the budget and ask to bring down the cost as much as possible. You never know!!! I am currently staging a vacant 1500 square foot home and I am staging 2 bedrooms,dining room. office and Living room for $ 500/month. This is not including artwork or accessories. I am charging $ 25/month for the home owner to rent my things. I will post pics of it some time next week. Which is not nearly enough to cover my costs. I guess I need to come up with a different system that will make vacant staging profitable for me and affordable for the client. 

Great post. Thanks, I couldn't agree more with everyones comments.

great post, everyone needs to know the reality, oh ya and all things do not happen in 30 minutes, and another by the time everything is said and done, you do not look like you just came out of the salon.

Shobha

So I guess everyone agrees that more education and maybe an industry standard would help. You can't walk into a doctors office without paying to just turn the door handle. So why shouldn't we charge for every second we put into each client. I have decided that I would rather be known for being expensive but the best, rather than the cheapest home stager in Atlanta. Yes, that means in the beginning I am loosing some clients to other companies that stage a whole house for $ 350 dollars, including furniture rental? I don't even know how that is possible but I can't offer my time for that low of a price. People pay for our expertise and knowledge and experience. And it is worth a lot more than most people seem to think. I have had many calls about people thinking about getting into the industry or even joining my company and I tell them all that I work alone. So no payroll, no workman's comp and all the other stuff that comes with having employees. If I need help, I call on my Interior Designer friend and we just split the profit. Yes, it means me lugging everything into and out of the home alone, but I get to keep all the profit. I know this much, I couldn't feed my family with my staging business. I am doing this strictly because I enjoy it!! The money will come later........well, that is what I keep telling myself! I have only been a stager for 5 month and have staged several homes already, so I guess all in all it is going OK.

I am a member of the Metro Atlanta chapter of ASHSR and we are pulling our resources together by coming up with a system that allows us to rent things from other stagers. Which is a lot cheaper that renting from a furniture rental company. Just an Idea I would like to pass on to the rest of you.