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We are getting our house ready to sell in Northern Mississippi, a suburb of Memphis. The home is in an upscale neighborhood and will list for $329,000. Our realtor had a home decorator give us a consultation on staging the downstairs of our home. Since I have no idea what the cost of staging a home is, I am asking for feedback from you.
Total cost - includes 3 month rental of furniture and accessories is $2,700.
Rooms to be staged and items needed include:
Dining room - dining room table, 4 chairs, simple drapes for 1 set of 3 windows, several accessory pieces.
Living room - one couch, 2 chairs, a coffee table, and simple drapes for 2 single windows, several accessory pieces.
Keeping room - several accessory pieces and a 9x12 rug.
Bedrooms - 4 table lamps, several accessory pieces.
She also provided good information on how to stage all the other rooms with our own furniture. Our stager gave us advice on a color to paint 3 rooms so the counter tops and flooring will look better. She has arranged a painter to do the needed painting.
I know nothing about this except what I've seen on tv and I don't recall how much (if they mention it at all) they charge to stage a home. I do know that I would try to hire someone myself. It's too cozy to hire someone that the real estate agent recommended. This smacks of..kick-back to me....
Also, if my math is correct, isn't this about one per cent of the asking price of your house, more or less?
See if someone else can do it for less.
Last edited by Southern Star; 02-03-2015 at 01:53 PM..
I know nothing about this except what I've seen on tv and I don't recall how much (if they mention it at all) they charge to stage a home. I do know that I would try to hire someone myself. It's too cozy to hire someone that the real estate agent recommended. This smacks of..kick-back to me....
Also, if my math is correct, isn't this about ten per cent of the asking price of your house, more or less?
See if someone else can do it for less.
It's less than 1% of the price of the house.
If you feel it is too cozy a deal, kick-backs and all, call in others and get bids to compare.
High. I think. Ours in Denver was less.
On the other hand, on "Flip or Flop" in greater Los Angeles, they pay $3-4K for staging that appears to be less than a month.
Does that price includes the painting? And what is the rate if its longer than the months? Does it include insurance against damage?
The painting cost of $1,100 is in addition to the $2,700 for staging. I need to find out what additional months of staging would cost as well as what happens if an item gets damaged.
The real estate agent has not used staging in the past.
"The average professional home staging costs between three and five thousand dollars. Professionally staged homes sell in an average of 35 days (compared to 175 days for non-staged homes), according to StagedHomes.com. Most homeowners who are selling their home reduce the price of their home after about a month on the market, and the first price reduction is on the order of ten percent. So on a $200,000 home, the first price reduction is $20,000. If the home had been professionally staged for five thousand dollars and sold within its first month on the market, the homeowner would have been $15,000 in the black. Certainly a good return on investment!"
Out here that would be high for what you are describing, but it might be the going rate for your area. Out here I'd say you'd be in the $1200 range for that.
We live in a pretty low cost area of the country. Our 3,550 home that is 9 years old on a acre lot should sell for $325,000. I guess the cost of the staging has me hesitating.
We consulted with a stager. Fortunately she liked most of our furniture (in fact the new buyers asked to keep some of it), and we took every single piece of her advice and staged the place ourselves. Our costs were:
stager consultation - $300
storage unit for two months - $200
paint - $200 (yes, I used the good stuff)
furniture rental - $90
crisp new bedding/pillows - $200
misc art, mirrors, accent pieces - $500
new curtains for one area - $100
So - right around $1700. We also spent $1500 on landscaping repairs/beautification/junk removal. I will note though that it was very stressful getting everything done ourselves on a deadline. If I knew then what I know now - I might have hired it all done and considered it money well spent. In the end it really paid off. Our house sold in record time when other houses were sitting on the market for months.
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