Home staging: a service that all real estate agencies should offer

Do your clients often need to sell homes in record time? So, you can’t not know about home staging! Generally, sellers who put this technique into practice are able to sell their properties much faster than average, resulting in lucrative and profitable economic deals.

But what is home staging? How does this real estate sales technique come directly from the United States? How can it bring value to your services as a real estate agent? Let’s find out in the next paragraphs!

What is home staging?

Home staging is a process put in place by professional home stagers, or sometimes even the real estate agent himself if he has the necessary skills, to change, enrich, and improve the interior atmosphere of a home.

This is a technique that does not require, on the part of the homeowner, who knows what expense or investment, because through home staging it is possible to literally change the face of a property even if only by reviewing the arrangement of furniture and furnishings, or by integrating inexpensive accessories into the environment, but able to make a great scene.

Home staging should be viewed as if it were a marketing technique. Experienced home stagers know the tastes and needs of buyers who might be interested in the property and know how to decorate it in a way that captures their attention and tickles their interest. All of this clearly makes it possible to reach the sale more quickly and to have to haggle less over the final price.

Most potential buyers want to imagine themselves in a nice, furnished space-not in an empty house, but also not in a property where the imprint of the previous owners is still too present and strong, due to personal items, decorations, trinkets, and photographs. Thus, home staging is concerned on the one hand with giving warmth and personality to homes – in case they are empty, for example – and on the other hand with making properties that are still inhabited as appealing, cozy and neutral as possible, through wise arrangements.

How does home staging work?

Real estate agencies that provide this service offer an ad hoc consultation before proceeding with the actual home staging. During this consultation, the staging professional or real estate agent visits the client’s property, assessing what to do, the condition of the house, its potential, the retailer’s willingness to do minor maintenance or cleaning work, and then determining what the target audience might be.

All of this must be done before taking real estate photographs of the house and, of course, before showcasing the property.

For each property, the home staging process might be different, depending on the unique situation of the home. For example, in some cases it may be enough to rearrange the arrangement of furniture and make the best use of the space, in others the work may be more complicated and it will be necessary to work on the state of the walls, carry out major cleaning work or furnish entire rooms from scratch.

Some examples of home staging

Home staging does not have a pre-packaged recipe for all homes-it is up to the home stager or real estate agent to figure out what may be the most suitable solution to propose.

In some cases, as we said, the property is already in sufficiently attractive and neutral condition, and all that is needed is to make a few improvements to the decor or reposition furniture so that the interior spaces can stand out.

In others, especially if the house is still inhabited or has a few years on its shoulders, it may be necessary to ask the owners for their willingness to carry out deep cleaning work, as well as to have the walls repainted, remove certain items or accessories from the view of potential buyers, revise the furnishings, and supplement the room with ad hoc additions.

Be careful, however: this is not about proposing that sellers make large investments or renovations. Home staging is never invasive, nor does it have to be overly expensive: it will be the professional’s responsibility to come up with solutions that are effective and, at the same time, perfectly within the client’s budget.

5 reasons why you should integrate home staging into your agency’s services

1. The house will be sold faster

The price of a house decreases the longer it stays on the market. When supporting a client in selling a property, the goal is always to sell it as soon as possible and at the highest possible price.

Home staging, both real and virtual, is a powerful tool in the hands of real estate agents to achieve this goal.

The whole point of home staging, first and foremost, is to present the house in the best possible light-this is because buyers are more likely to make an offer on an attractive house than on a less attractive one, as they should.

2. Salespeople struggle to be objective

Many sellers have difficulty being objective when they put their house on the market. It is completely understandable, but this may make it difficult for the seller to market their home effectively.

With good home staging, one makes sure that the property is viewed objectively and packaged in a way that is attractive to others. In fact, the goal of home staging is to make the home interesting to the public and to help potential buyers imagine themselves inside it.

3. Buyers need help visualizing the house

Home staging helps buyers visualize the property as a potential future home. Rearranging the environment, moving furniture, deep cleaning, removing too-personal or unsightly accessories, inserting eye-catching decorations-these are all actions that improve the appearance of a property and help visitors envision their future within it.

When home staging is proposed in a house, the goal is essentially to “remove” the footprints of the previous owner so that a potential new owner can visualize himself or herself in it. All this leads to the same result: increasing the probability of sales.

4. Makes the customer feel pampered and supported

Home staging is a premium service that not all real estate agencies make available to their clients. Yet, it is a great way to make clients feel pampered, listened to and supported, during the process of selling the property.

Thanks to this valuable consulting and interior design service, they will be assured that they are doing everything necessary to sell their home in the shortest time and at the highest price. In addition, they will really be able to touch upon the agency’s professionalism and expertise.

5. Help customers earn more from the sale

Recent studies show that homes staged with home staging sell for 6 percent more than the asking price for unstaged homes. They also spend much less time in the market, which is obviously good.

So, in general, home staging is a good investment for sellers. Studies show that an investment of 1-3% in home staging leads to a return of 8-10%: thus, a good deal!

Integrating home staging into real estate strategy

Originating in the United States, this discipline is also becoming very popular here: home staging not only represents a small “revolution” for real estate, but is also a career opportunity. Yet, why do Italian real estate agents still not trust this possibility?

Unfortunately, home staging is still perceived as a cost, both financial and commitment, and not as an investment. “Why commit to something new when I can continue to work the old way?”

Because not only are the benefits of home staging increasingly proven and tangible, but also because it is a differentiating skill!

Even today, real estate agents prefer to proceed step by step, initially investing very little energy, and then eventually committing a little more, “I’ll try to sell it without working too hard and without furnishing it, see how it goes.” Which leads to little or nothing: if you get lucky you sell it, but you don’t distinguish yourself in any way as an agency and continue to float. If you have no luck, you are wasting time and money.

The problem, then, is also due to Italian real estate agents’ misperception of home staging: they see it as “cheap,” because they are fooled by cardboard furniture. Real home staging is quite different, and anyone who interfaces with a/an industry professional knows this very well.