How to Choose the Right Home Staging Course for YOU

Since home staging as a career has gained additional exposure over the last several years, there are now more options than ever for home staging training. With so many options available, it can be difficult to choose which one is the “best” one to take. The answer to this question will depend greatly on what your goals and expectations are. There are several factors to consider in selecting the course that is right for you:

-       How long do you hope to work in this new career for?

o   Regardless of what your answer is to this question, what sort of skills will your training program provide you with?

§  Will they be there for you through the various stages of your business? What sort of support will they provide?

§  If you plan to be in and out of the business in a short time-frame, will they help you with the exit-strategy?

§  If you plan to make this your career for the next couple of decades, will they keep you up-to-date and current as trends and techniques change and evolve?

-       Are you interested in expanding your services beyond home staging (i.e. home organizing, colour consultations, redesign services, and more)?

o   If yes, you’ll want to review what additional training they will provide you to ensure that you are properly equipped to provide these to your clients. Many courses offer advanced options in the areas of design, through continuing education, and others incorporate it into the home stager training course.

-       Do you have any experience running a business?

o   If not, what sort of training will they provide you for managing the business, including registration, day-to-day operations, outlining your services and pricing, marketing, expansion, and more?

-       What vendors are offered?

o   Are they teamed up with resources that will help you to build and grow your business? Any reputable home staging program will have affiliates that they work with to provide you with valuable information, supplies, and discounts.

-       How much time will the course take?

o   The answer you’re looking for for this question might not be what you think! The longer that the course takes to complete, the more comprehensive it likely is. Whether it’s an in-class or online training program, you’ll want to identify the time commitment before registering, to ensure that you are ready to make the commitment that it needs.

-       What does the course content cover?

o   What value will you get for your investment into your training? Review the type of information that you will learn, from home staging techniques, to design theory, to creating your systems and processes, and running the day-to-day business.

o   Will they offer you templates and cheat sheets for starting your business, or will you be creating these yourself from scratch?

-       What direction do you wish to take the business?

o   Do you plan to own your own home staging inventory, or rent it? Do they teach you the differences, and help you to decide which is best for you?

o   Is there a particular niche that you hope to specialize in? If so, what training do they provide in that area?

o   Do you hope to add staffing to your business, or keep it a solo operation? How will they help with whichever direction you choose?

-       What additional support do they offer following completion?

o This may include, but is not limited to: coaching, mastermind groups, continuing education training courses, and networking.

-       What certification do you receive?

o   While this should not be a deciding factor, you will want to consider what your “title” will be once you have completed the course.

-       How do their members interact?

o   Do members offer members support?

o  Do you have an opportunity to connect with and collaborate with others within your designation?

-       What will it cost you to keep your certification and training up to date?

o   Some courses will charge you a membership fee in order to keep your designation title, whereas others will charge you a fee to maintain your access to your training material. Be sure to clearly understand these fees upfront before investing, and ensure that you are prepared to pay them over the coming years.

-       Who will be your training instructor, and what is their experience with home staging?

o   Are they currently operating a home staging business, or have they operated one in the past?

o   If they are not currently operating a home staging business, when was the last time that they worked hands-on with clients?

You’ll notice that price was not mentioned as a factor here, but in truth it should be mentioned. The reason that it was not outlined as a deciding factor is that most reputable training programs will be comparable in price, and therefore this shouldn’t be a deciding factor. If a program is listed significantly lower than the others that you have researched, the chances are that the training provided will be sub-par (you’ve heard the saying that “you get what you pay for”, right?).

At the end of the day, choose the one that best fits your needs and your expectations. If you have questions, don’t be afraid to reach out to them and contact them directly to ask your questions. Heading down any new career path is a big decision, and one that you want to make carefully and purposefully.

Happy staging!

www.StyledListedSold.com

A Day in the Life of a Stager: How My Week Went “Kaboom” in a Matter of Hours, and I LOVED it!

Today I thought that I would tell you about my week (or at least my week so far, as it’s only Tuesday as I write this). Monday started like a typical day. In my morning meeting with my assistant we discussed our expectations of the week. The books were looking pretty light over the next few days (for home staging clients), with only a couple of bookings that day, and pretty much nothing the rest of the week. This is not surprising, since kids return to school in just a few weeks. This is something to keep in mind when you’re starting your home staging business – the real estate industry has peaks and valleys, and most regions are affected by these real estate “seasons”. In our home staging company, we always bump up our design availability for this time of year to help to compensate for the slower selling season and maintain a steady cash flow through to the fall market boom.

So here I am Tuesday (early) afternoon now, and reviewing our fully booked calendar, and wondering how we’re going to make it all work! In addition, there are likely still changes to be made before the week is done. So I have cancelled the plans that I had with a friend for Thursday night, and we’re all pulling up our boots and getting to work.

So what happened?

Well, one of my home stagers met with a client yesterday for a vacant home staging consultation. Though we don’t usually “hold” home staging dates until we have received proper confirmation (signed contract; down-payment; credit card authorization) from the client, we understood the urgency of this particular project, and their insistence that they would be moving forward with the home staging (even though they had no idea yet what it would cost), so we tentatively booked them in for Thursday when we booked their consultation appointment, with hope and a prayer that they would hold true to their word.

In the meantime, we received notice that another staged property had sold (yay) so we needed to arrange for destaging that now. Both projects require movers, and the destage is in a condo, which requires the scheduling of the elevator as well. While all of this is happening, my assistant speaks to a new agent that has heard wonderful things about our company (naturally), and needs a consultation, then staging for a client of his in one of the rural areas that we service.

So we think that we can prep the staging on wed, destage the condo on Thursday, finish the prep on Friday, and stage the large house on Monday (and Tuesday morning since it’s a large house). After a little arm-twisting, we secure the movers for this, but the condo management can’t get us the elevator until Tuesday. Ok, so prep the staging on Wednesday now, stage Thursday and Friday morning, and pack our destage on Monday for the movers to arrive on Tuesday morning at 8am, the only time we were able to secure the elevator for! While my other stager is managing the large vacant home staging on Thursday, I will meet with the new client so that he can get started with prepping his house for staging.

Now remember the part where I said that we bump up our design availability? I have 3 other appointments already booked for design clients this week, on top of everything you’re seeing here. Needless to say, we’re rolling with the punches!

The moral of this story is that this industry is unpredictable, and you need to be willing to have some flexibility, shuffle things on occasion, and make compromises to be successful. Yes, our policy states that we need 5 days notice for destaging, and 5 days notice for staging, but if we can work a miracle or two when we need to, it keeps everyone (including my accountant) very happy. The home staging industry is fast-paced and ever-changing – be up to the challenge and roll with it. I love that my day seldom goes as expected – it keeps life interesting!

Want to see more stories like this? Join our FREE Facebook Group, To Be a Home Stager

www.StyledListedSold.com

10 Things Stagers DO NOT Learn From TV

We get it, you've watched all of the home renovation and home sale shows, read all of the online articles and tips regarding setting up your home to sell, and you have found every home selling checklist available online, so why would you need to take a home staging course? I have often heard future home stagers say that they shop for home decor all the time, they have decorated and redecorated their home a gazillion times, and my favourite, “I don’t need to take a course, I watch HGTV all the time, and I know that home staging is all about removing clutter and personal items.”

These reality shows have really put the home staging industry in the spotlight over the last few years, and have helped homeowners to better understand the importance of preparing their home prior to listing it for sale. But, while these shows provide the basics of what this preparation involves, they don’t provide the full picture of what it really takes to properly style and STAGE your home in order to evoke the emotional connection that your prospective buyers are looking for.


Every home is one of a kind, and it should be treated as such! You as a home stager are providing a value to your clients, so you need to show them that you are a trained expert, qualified to assist them with their home. Each home deserves the right attention with specific recommendations, geared towards their home, from an expert that specializes in doing just that, in order to highlight the home’s greatest features.

So what are these articles and lists NOT telling you? These are just a few of the things that a trained home stager will learn, through our professional home stager training program, and many years of experience:

      1.      Where to place YOUR furniture so that the room remains open and inviting, while maintaining function and flow

This does not mean simply moving all of your furniture to the edges of the room. This means understanding proper traffic flow, as well as the latest furniture styling trends. We help you to evaluate what should stay, what should be removed, and where to properly position furniture to optimize flow, eliminate awkward spaces, and highlight the best features of the room.

      2.      Shelf Styling

By far one of the trickiest decorating techniques to master, this is the art of filling the shelves to catch your eye, without diverting attention from the room. This means selecting the right size and style of pieces to compliment the space and the shelving unit, and understanding the balance between too little and too much.

    3.     Paint Colour selection

Just because a colour is popular or trendy, does not mean that it’s the best one to use when selling a home. Colours should be selected based on lighting, home style, and the colour of the finishes of the home. Sure, we all have our favourites, but each colour is selected to best suit the home.

      4.     How to find the best local trades to provide your clients with the best services, at the best value prices

A successful home stager will spend time forging valued relationships with highly skilled trades to ensure that all clients receive quality work, every time. Working with professionals will also allow you to build a reputation within the industry for your designs.

      5.     Where to shop for the final touches and accessories that your home needs

Home Stagers spend more time than anyone shopping for home décor items and finding the best deals. This is valuable information for your clients, regardless of whether or not they're selling their home. Of course, the easiest solution for your clients would be to simply hire you to provide them with the accessories and accent pieces that their home needs. We'll show you how to build and maintain your inventory so that it continues to bring in profits.

      6.     Which updates/upgrades will most benefit YOUR house in YOUR market, neighbourhood, and price range

Home Stagers not only evaluate what upgrades and repairs would add to the value of your home, but we look at what will help to increase it’s overall sell-ability – upgrades are not worth much if they’re not the right ones to entice the specific buyers of the home you're working in. I once consulted on a home that spent a great deal of money replacing their kitchen, but for their target market, their funds would have been better spent doing other repairs to the home and minor updates to the kitchen. Understanding the value of each of these recommendations for every type of home, and the return on the investment into these, is critical to the success of any home stager.

      7.     How to make a bed

Forget what your mother taught you – making your bed before work, and styling a bed to sell a home are completely different! I can’t tell you how often we see this common mistake in listing photos.

    8.     How to utilize a piece of furniture for an alternate purpose

This does not mean putting an end table in an office and calling it a desk. It’s about thinking outside of the box when it comes to finding the right piece, often within your home already, to fulfill a purpose for a room and help to clearly define the space. A quality home stager provides solutions to their clients, especially when replacing all furniture with rental items is not an option.

      9.     How to enhance curb appeal

Yes, cut the grass, trim the trees, and mulch the gardens, we know that you have that covered. But there is so much more to exterior styling. If buyers are not engaged with the home before they get to the front door, your sellers could potentially lose out on that sale. We are property stylists, and we want to be sure to create an inviting space, inside and out.

      10.    How to maintain function and daily life, while living in a staged home

      We understand that it’s not easy to maintain a show-ready home! Experience stagers have seen it all and are prepared to provide clients with easily implementable solutions to help them to get through the day-to-day. Of course the best part is, in a professionally staged home, your clients won’t have to maintain it for long before it’s SOLD!

A Professional Home Stager provides the specific recommendations that will help to bring in the buyers and sell their clients home. Learn everything you need to know to be successful in a home staging career. You won't just learn WHAT you need to be successful, but you'll learn how to build on your experience, your knowledge, and provide quality service every time.

What Most Home Staging Courses Won't Tell You

A glimpse at Shauna Lynn's upcoming book! The following is an excerpt from the only home staging book of it's kind - learn the truth about the home staging industry!

Expected release date: Fall 2016

Most home staging courses will sell you on the big picture, selling you on the opportunity to put your creative style to great use by transforming homes and producing magical masterpieces, but the truth is that there is a lot more to it than that. While I list the following as the “cons” of the business, the truth is that they can actually be the best part of the business; they’re simply not the part that gets most new home stagers excited. I can remember the first time I booked multiple consultations on the same day – I had truly arrived! My business was really picking up, and I was getting more and more comfortable with each client meeting. I still wasn’t doing a great deal of larger projects, but I was enjoying watching these houses transformed, and I knew that I was providing a valuable service to these homeowners. I was establishing myself as an expert in my field, and homeowners and agents were taking my recommendations as intransigent. I was enjoying meeting the homeowners, learning their stories, and assisting them with preparing their homes, regardless of the scale that I was doing this on.

The Cons (Things you may not be expecting as a home stager)

Consultations are your bread and butter

We all want the dramatic transformations, but every large staging job starts with a single consultation. Your main bookings when first starting out are generally owner-occupied home staging consultations. This means that the homeowners live in the house, and will continue to live there for the duration of the listing until the house sells, and it is your responsibility to advise them of the areas that they should address in order to increase the value and sell-ability of their home. In these cases, it is generally not practical to remove all of their current furnishings and accent pieces to replace them with the pieces of your choice. Ideally, it is best to work with what they have where you can, and replace only what is necessary. This means that walking into every consultation your end sale may only be the price charged for that consultation (depending on your location, this can range from approximately $150 to $400). In a consultation, you are simply advising the homeowner on what they should do, but you are generally not actually implementing the recommendations on their behalf. You may offer this additional service, but most will choose to simply do this work themselves.

In cases such as these, it’s easy to feel like you’re not a part of the process the way that you had hoped to be. You’ll need to ensure that you provide the homeowners with clear direction for your vision, and some will interpret this information better than others. In most cases, you likely will not have a return visit prior to the formal listing of the house, so your opportunity to review the changes made will be through the online listing photos only. As your business grows, you may find that you are selling more and more additional services that will allow you to return to assist with the final preparations, but if it is not cost-effective for the client, they will choose to simply go it alone.

Not every house is clean

This was actually incredibly shocking to me, though it seems like such an obvious expectation in this business. I had been in some not-so-clean houses growing up, but nothing prepared me for what I would see. I’m not talking about the houses that have too much clutter and piles of stuff everywhere, I’m talking about absolute filth. Socks are a part of my company’s dress code and must be worn for every client meeting. While my stagers may not always understand and appreciate this, they certainly do when they find themselves standing in a pile of dirt, beside the dirty diapers left on the floor, and whatever the dog has left behind. The most amazing part to me is that all-too-often the homeowners in these cases really don’t realize that this is not an acceptable standard of clean to their potential buyers. This requires a firm but sensitive hand, to help them to understand the importance of cleaning, what that standard of clean is, and how to get their home to a higher level of clean. An effective stager is one that is respected by their clients, while they proceed to tell them everything that is wrong with their house. If you can leave the home on your terms without having the clients toss you out, and still manage to get your point across as to what is needed to be done, you can consider your efforts a success. In my bartending days, I was known for getting the highest tip average from the guests that I cut off. It is not a skill that everyone can master, but those that do will find the most success.

...to read more, you'll have to wait for the release of the book! Stay tuned for details!

Top 10 Home Staging Myths

What exactly is home staging? Which house should be staged? How do you know if it's the right move for a house? If you've seen home staging featured on all of the great real estate television shows, you're probably thinking that all home staging projects are expensive, and intended only for high-end homes, or homes that are in a serious need of decluttering. But you would be WRONG! Home Staging actually refers to the entire process of preparing a home for sale, ANY home for sale, and professional home stagers are working with every type of homeowner every day. Here we dispel the top 10 myths about Home Staging:

1. Home Staging is Expensive

Absolutely not! A trained professional stager is skilled at maximizing their client's budget, whatever it is. When preparing a home for sale, it’s likely that the homeowners will need to plan to spend some money to get it to move-in ready, but with the recommendations of a professional home stager, often the largest investment is their time. Accessory packages and other staging packages vary by stager, but all will generally start with a full-home evaluation, providing a list of recommendations for preparing the home.

Did you know? Buyers are actively looking for a move-in ready home, and 63% of home buyers are willing to pay more for this!

2. A home stagers job is to remove everything in a home and replace with new stuff

A professional home stager will not recommend adding or removing anything unless they believe that it will contribute positively towards the sale of the house, and they will do their best to work with a homeowner's items, wherever possible, to achieve the desired results. Often, a little re-arranging of what they already have can work wonders for improving the flow, and overall appeal of a house to potential buyers! The truth is, sometimes it’s just not in the budget to invest in a large staging package.

3. All rooms should be painted builder’s beige

When selling a home, neutrals tones are best for showing off the space, but your typical “builder’s beige” is not recommended. In fact, today’s buyers are drawn to grey tones more than browns, giving the home a more modern look and feel. Whatever you choose, ensure that you select a neutral shade, and avoid colours that are too light. By choosing a colour a little further down the colour chip you’ll add warmth and a cozy, welcoming feel to a room.

4. Home staging is only for vacant homes or homes with ugly carpet and wallpaper

Certainly some homes can use updating more than others, but the truth is that every home can benefit from home staging, and often a few subtle changes can make a significant difference, whether it’s simply re-arranging some furniture, or more dramatic updates and repairs, every home is unique and requires a unique home staging plan. Vacant homes can tend to sit on the market longer than occupied and furnished homes, since with these properties buyers will struggle to make the necessary emotional connection to the home, and the same can be true for occupied homes that are not styled to suit the target buyer market. Home staging will help to improve the overall flow of the home, and provide the final touches that buyers will be drawn to. 

5. Home staging is a way to fool buyers

Absolutely not! In fact, it’s the complete opposite! Our goal is to provide buyers with the home that they are looking for. Homeowners are still required to disclose any major flaws of the home that they are aware of, however home staging will help to minimize minor flaws by drawing the focus to the features of the home. 

6. Home Staging is just removing personal photos and de-cluttering

We all know that we need to declutter and remove personal items from a home before listing, but home staging helps to address so much more. A professional home stager will help to create a style plan for your home, and address where to invest your money in repairs and updates. Home staging focuses on maximizing a home’s space, lighting, flow, design and best features, not just decorating the space.

7. It’s best to list a property first, and address home staging when it doesn't sell

Home staging should always, always, always be considered BEFORE listing the home for sale! Cliché as it may sound, you really do only get one chance to make a first impression. When a home is listed, it should be ready to show at it’s best, both in pictures and for showings. Any Realtor® will tell you that you get the most attention for a property listing during the first couple of weeks that it is listed – these are key buyers! Home Staging is an investment with proven results for selling a home in less time, and for the most amount of money possible.

8. Staging is just the latest real estate trend

Home Staging has actually been around since the 1970s, and is a real estate service that is as common today as home inspections!  Showing buyers that the home offers good value is always in style. 

9. Buyers should be able to see past the updates that are needed and the homeowner's "stuff"

Here’s a fun fact for you - only 10% of buyers have the ability to visualize a space! This means that only 1 in every 10 people that view a home will be able to look past things, and see the home’s true potential. If you're considering a career in home staging, you clearly fall within the 10%, which means that you can help 90% of potential buyers to see a home's true value! Show them the best way to live in the home by showing optimal furniture placement, and eliminating anything that might distract them from seeing the features of the home.

10. Home Staging means living in a show home, and that’s just not realistic to expect clients to do

A professional home stager provides options and solutions to allow their clients to maintain the function that they need while the home is listed. It's not easy to live in a show home, but by providing the right recommendations for preparing their home, they won’t have to do so for long! As their home stager, you will help to provide them with tips and creative solutions for the things they need every day.