How Much Does Home Staging Cost?
/How Much Does Home Staging Cost?
Transcription:
Hi, I am Elisha of Modern Interior Staging Company, and today I will talk about: How Much Does Home Staging Cost? So, when you are going to get your home ready for market, one of the things you are thinking about is how much money you invest in getting that home to list. You are considering things like the repairs you have to do, painting, some landscaping, cleaning obviously, and then there is also the time involved. The decluttering and the packing is also part of the cost. This means time and money. One of the things which you are going to come across your plate is home staging. These days home staging is one of the givens when it comes to listing a house and putting it in the market because it is a proven method of merchandising or marketing your home so that it sells faster for more money. What are the costs involved when it comes to home staging?
Home staging costs vary because there are a variety of homes in the market with different needs. Typically, a home stager will be offering three different types of services on three different levels. There is going to be a consultation type of service where a stager will come in, evaluate the home, do a walk and talk to the homeowner, write notes, walk around the property and give them tips on what they need to do. It might also involve consultation in home staging, probably a report which is what we do in a report, and then there is the leveling up in an occupied home where the seller is going to be living there in the whole process with their things there. You can do some occupied staging packages. The first level of that would be, a stager comes in and will take all of your things and make your place look the best it can with the stuff you have. Cost for a service like that is going to involve more time and more of an hourly cost of how long someone needs to spend in your home to make it look its best. You can also have an occupied service that brings in some rental items. What we like to do is some art and décor package where it's going to be things on the wall or maybe a centerpiece that are more hard items and not soft goods that a homeowner can rent and spice things up. Such things are placed in important rooms like the first room that buyers see when they walk in, maybe a living room, a dining room with a centerpiece.
Art and décor can make a difference. That can be an add-on cost to a staging package. The next element may be the need for soft goods. You would be amazed at what pillows can do to sell your house and how it can make a bedroom or living room feel inviting, fresh, new, and desirable, which is your goal. We recommend the soft goods you need to purchase like some clean white towels or a comforter to put on your bed for soft goods. Throw pillows are probably the most common ones I am recommending, and maybe a shower curtain. Those items will be purchased. A service like that may involve shopping time, delivery, and placement, depending on who you are working with. There is a wide variety with an occupied home itself, as far as service types. Costs are determinant with the number of things that you are bringing in, but even in a small art and décor package, what that could look like is an initial visit so the stager can get an idea of what your home looks like and what we are working with. A second visit will involve coming back and hanging those pictures, placing a décor, and making sure we are designing what your home requires, pulling, packing, and delivering. When the house sells, we go back, pick up everything, pack, and bring it back to the warehouse where the things are unpacked and put away.
There is a lot behind the scene to staging that often gets forgotten or overlooked. It seems like a fun job where we come and decorate your house, which is a fun thing where we come and decorate your home. There are just a lot of layers that lead to the finished result. The last level of staging that is going to involve even more steps is a vacant staging. The vacant stage is where you have a vacant home, or at least part of your home is empty and not lived in, and we can bring in full furniture. The living room with the sofa, the chairs, the rugs, the coffee tables, lamps, and all the soft goods because no one is going to be living in that space. It's vacant. That is going to involve another level of service. Usually, that includes an initial visit because we have to see the space so we can make a design plan. Then, there is designing, coming up with the plan, estimating the cost, and providing that quote, invoice, contract, and such elements. Before the stage, we go to the warehouse, pull, wrap, and pack everything like foam, blankets, where we have the moving team and truck. All those costs are involved. They put everything in the truck, hoping not to break anything, and being careful by taking the drive time to the location, where they unpack, unwrap, and get all the packing supplies out of there and then the staging begins. The staging team comes in and starts hanging those pictures. The pictures could take a while because of the measuring process.
The center point of the pictures must be the same. We do it because there is a 60-inch midline in every picture or grouping, so you have to measure; otherwise, it doesn't give a same-like experience. You want a lovely calming experience, so hanging pictures on the same height makes that difference. That is probably a big chunk of our time there, placing everything, making sure it's centered well to make sure everything is placed correctly. We also have a perfecting process. Moving blankets are fuzzy, so we need to check all furniture to ensure it's in good condition. This means we need to steam all the bedding because no one wants a wrinkled bed that doesn't look fresh and inviting. Steaming needs to be done, cleaning, wiping everything like glass to make sure it's not smudgy when you are hanging them, so we need to wipe those down. That's the perfection process. We also need to pack all those stuff and leave so that it's ready and perfect for picture day and your showing. That's the staging day.
On the back end of a service like that, the home sells, we schedule a de-stage, we line everything up and what we are doing is, pulling and packing again. A lot of packing is involved in staging, such as loading things on the truck, bringing them back to the warehouse, unloading, unpacking, unwrapping, and putting everything back to be ready to use another time. Repairs are also made where necessary and taking out inventory that may have been damaged. The damage that happens on delivery includes pictures getting hit a bit, which might take an extra shift to make sure everything is perfect. Quality control is an essential part of our job, which involves bringing in pieces that look great. That's a vacant stage. There is a lot involved that you might not see on your staging day when we are in and out and getting everything placed. I will go over the numbers of other things like the staging cost on a national level so you can get an idea. If you are watching this, you will relate to it, which is an element of running a business just like realtors.
Marketing is a significant cost of our business, running the business in general, warehouse, space, storage, cleaning that warehouse space, and inventory purchases. A lot of inventory goes into homes, and that is another cost. You will be amazed at how many little things add up to make a house look like it needs to sell. That is an overview of the services. I want to give you a rundown of national averages to have some prices in your mind when you think about the cost of home staging. The national average of a 2,500 square foot home that consult level l was talking about can range from $245 to $750, depending on the home's size, meaning time spent in the home can affect that and any work involved. An occupied home staging can range from $1,000 on a national level to $3,500. Again each home varies, so a lot of times include a much- customized process because everyone has a different amount of stuff that we are working with. Vacants on a national level, you can expect to spend from $3,000 to $5,000 on a vacant stage. Obviously, that's quite a range. We are also talking about different cities because things in New York City are going to be more expensive. I would say those are low on prices for someplace like New York City because this is an average. Colorado Springs staging is probably going to be on the lower range for some of the lower-priced houses, but when you start getting into the million-dollar homes, you are going to start seeing comparable prices there.
For bigger homes you need bigger art, bigger scale furniture, you need higher-end looking furniture. It's going to get different items than a smaller condo would get, and obviously, the volume would also change. Those things factor in an estimate or a quote, so all of that factors in a lot if something is out of our service area a little bit, which might add to the cost because it adds to our employee prices on the payroll. That gives you all of that, an overview, if you are interested because it's nice to know how much home staging costs, how much work is involved in providing that level of service that is going to do a great job. Possibly that is what you want. You don't want to invest in something that doesn't get your home sold. If you make the right investment at the right level, the results should be a faster home sale and more money, better price offers, and higher price offers. Ultimately, the good news is that staging ends up typically not costing you a dime because it shortens the time in the market when you think about carrying costs, holding a house that's not selling and you are still repaying the mortgage, the utilities, you have insurance, all that stuff is your carrying cost. If you stage a home and work with a great realtor who markets your property, you get the home sold faster, your overall cost gets lowered so that investment means much more.
Additionally, there was a survey done. It was a home gain survey for 2,000 realtors, and the return of investment for the aspects of home staging within a home for a selling process was 399%. Obviously, with an investment in, you get a lot more out of it, and you can see the value of what a service like staging can bring to the sale of your home.
If you have any questions about home staging costs in the Colorado Springs area, the information is more specific about the services that I and our company offer. Feel free to give us a call or shoot me an email, and I'd love to talk about your listing. Have a great day.