Updated for 2023: So your realtor told you that professional home staging will help you get more equity out of the sale of your home, but you’ve got one big question, “What does home staging cost in Winnipeg?”
You’ve heard real estate industry experts, Realtors and property investors insist that staging sells houses faster and for more money. You’ve seen the statistics that support that. You’re convinced. But now you want to know what is it going to cost for us to work this magic for you.
We’ll give you some general guidelines momentarily for you to base your preliminary budget on, but first here are a few things you’ll need to know: Different home stagers in Winnipeg have different ways of setting their fees. Some have a typical cost per square foot, others may charge a percentage of the listing price. But generally speaking, professional stagers in Winnipeg will fall within a similar price range of one another for any given property. So if you get a couple of different quotes, you’ll notice that they’re within range of one another. If someone comes along with a price that sticks out like a sore thumb, red flags should go up. Professional stagers have a lot of fixed costs (moving for example) and overhead (warehousing, inventory, insurance, etc), and these costs influence what staging costs, so there isn’t usually a ton of pricing variation among home staging companies who are legitimate businesses. For instance, if you’ve talked to 2 stagers who say it will cost around $1800 to stage your property, but someone comes along offering to do it for $900, remember that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. There are numerous reasons why you should be wary of “cheap staging” (in short, it usually will not pull the same strong offers,and that’s the whole point of staging in the first place). But that’s a lengthy topic of its own, so we’ll save that for a future post.
Also know that you need to make sure you are being given a firm quote. If its not a quote (which should clearly indicate when the price expires), you may end up facing extra costs. So keep this in mind when comparing prices. At our staging company, we always identify in writing whether we are providing a quote. A quote is binding for the time period indicated on it. An estimate is not really binding, so keep this in mind if comparing prices. A site visit or photos is required to provide a firm quote because while general guidelines can be used to come up with a ball park estimate, there are a lot of variables that can affect the cost of staging a particular home. Factors such as accessibility and parking for movers, or the distance movers will have to carry furniture, and flights of stairs for both movers and stagers can impact cost. Then there are factors pertaining to the style and type of home itself which dictate the level and type of staging required which also influence price. The location of the home may need to be considered – a home outside the city may entail travel charges, for instance. You get the idea.
In addition to staging properties for home owners, we work with a lot of property investors – (some call themselves “flippers”) as well as home builders, property managers and realtors who hire us again and again to stage thehomes they are selling. They do this because they know that when their homes are staged by us, they typically see a very substantial return on their staging investment and based on experience they know their home will sell for significantly more than if left un-staged. We bring the home to life in a way that causes buyers to fall in love.
Listings for houses we stage tend to attract a lot of views, and that results in high numbers of in person showings, because we stage in a way that takes camera angles into consideration and plays to the camera so that listing photos look amazing and draw the buyer in to take a closer look. Real estate statistics demonstrate that buyers spend longer periods of time looking at listings that are well staged, as opposed to listings for unstaged homes. Statistics also show that the longer a buyer spends looking at a listing, the more likely it is they will book a viewing. Its so important to have great (not just good, but GREAT) listing photos because this is what attracts showings. A large part of the challenge when selling a home is to get buyers through the door, and great staging in the photos will do this. But we also strategically stage the home in such a way that when buyers actually tour the home it instantly methodically leads them into forming an emotional connection to the home and communicates an ideal lifestyle they find very desirable. The staging helps them to start picturing themselves living that lifestyle in that home. This is where they form an emotional connection to the home, and that’s what brings offers.
The loyal agents we work with tell their clients that having their home staged by us will typically get them an additional 20 percent more on their selling price versus leaving it unstaged (this is our personal performance track record), based on the consistent results they have seen in working with us on many properties, versus homes they list that are not staged.
How do we do it? We have strategies to systematically lead prospects to the “buy” decision as they tour the home , combined with many years of experience in visual merchandising, marketing, buyer psychology, and two decades of design experience that all began with design training at the university level.
We are also long-time property investors ourselves, so we understand the needs of investors extremely well, which benefits all of our clients, including those who are selling their personal homes. Investors are business people, and every dollar they spend has to make them money, or its simply not worth doing. We get that. We absolutely must keep the home owner’s bottom line in mind at all times. The whole point of home staging is to ensure that the home owner comes ahead with more money after the sale of their home than they’d have had if they hadn’t had us stage it.
We understand that if the money you spend on home staging doesn’t make you money in the end, there is no point in staging your home. We’ve got a solid track record for consistently making our clients money – whether that means higher offers, a faster sale which reduces your carrying costs, or most often both.
So, we’ll explain what home staging in Winnipeg typically costs, however, keep in mind that the only way to know for certain what it will cost to stage your specific home is to have us do a site visit (no charge) in order to to give you a quotation.
That said, the going rate Winnipeg home stagers charge for vacant home staging in Winnipeg for the average home is generally around $2 per square foot. It may go a little higher, it may be a bit lower (remember, we talked about the variables earlier). So, if you are looking to stage a 1000 square foot home, you’re looking at paying about $2000 with a professional staging company in Winnipeg. It could be as low as $1500 if its a very simple, straightforward stage, easy access for movers, etc/ Keep in mind, its important to make sure you are dealing with an actual home staging company – a licensed and insured business as opposed to just someone who dabbles in home staging for a hobby. There are numerous reasons for this, but one very important reason has to do with liability. Make sure your home stager carries liability insurance. We, for instance, carry 1 million dollars in liability insurance. This is important because you want to know you are protected if your property becomes damaged during the staging process (it has never happened for us, but we know of instances with other companies were damages have occurred). If for instance, a glass door gets broken, you want to know it will be covered by your home stager’s liability insurance (we also only work with moving companies who carry liability insurance, in case damage occurs during moving). Stagers insurance is expensive – the typical small-scale stager who dabbles in staging on the side is highly unlikely to have invested in insurance. Even some of the more well recognized staging companies may try to trim their expenses by skipping the insurance. That opens you, as the homeowner, up to risk. So keep this in mind if someone quotes you a atypically low fee for staging – they probably aren’t actual pros (therefore they likely dont have the skills to get you the maximum possible price on your home), nor insured. You should ask your home stager to see their certificate of liability insurance to ensure they have the correct coverage before proceeding.
If you want to include a basement, you’ll need to add that additional square footage. Also, a higher end home may need a higher end stage, so that could impact price. A home that has particular challenges or problem areas may require more time or specialized inventory to address its issues, and that could impact price as well. Ease of access, a lot of stairs to climb… these types of factors also impact pricing for home staging. Most home stagers charge ongoing monthly furniture rental fees if you’re home is still on the market after 30 days or 45 days, which is often about half of the initial cost, but how exactly the ongoing fees are calculated can vary among stagers. Some will also charge an initial consultation to do a site visit at the home and assess your needs, a design fee, additional fees for moving, set-up, and de-staging. So when you are getting a price quotation from a home staging service, be sure to know the right questions to ask so that you aren’t met with any unanticipated charges or extra fees at the last minute that you hadn’t budgeted for. When we quote a home staging fee there are no hidden costs or surprises – your total cost will be right there in black and white on our written quotation.
Another pricing model used among Winnipeg Home Stagers is to charge a percentage of the value of the home. This is typically around 1%. This is another very logical pricing model, because effective home staging will always get you more on the selling price than marketing the same home un-staged, and done correctly the staging should be tailored to the type, style and value of the home. The percentage model provides a very accurate guideline of the level of staging that should go into the home to support a successful sale.
So that gives you a good general idea of the typical home staging cost in Winnipeg among the various staging companies. We’d be happy to let you know exactly what we would charge to stage your home and provide you with a free quotation. Like all of our clients, we think you’ll be very impressed and excited by what we are able to do for you. Again, we understand that the entire reason you hire us is to make money so we’re completely on board in watching out for your bottom line. Call us to find out what it would cost for us to stage your home: 204-390-8979.
Give us a call now at 204-390-8979
See also “Is Staging Your Home Worth It?”