Is It Worth It to Stage a Home in Winnipeg?
We were recently asked by a prospective client what the estimated return on investment (ROI) is for home staging. In simple terms, what they were asking was is staging a home worth it?
Based on published real estate industry research and statistics, assuming you have hired a appropriately qualified professional home stager, there is always a positive financial pay-back when you stage your home. BankRate.com reports that the average ROI on the cost of home staging is 586%*. And in fact, our own company has frequently exceeded that figure for our clients, so we know from our own experience that these figures are reliable. Similar results were published in another report by Home Gain, based on survey results of more than 2000 Realtors, showing that investing in home staging can generate up to 556% returns. (We recently got a 777% return on staging investment for a client – as always, we have the record to substantiate every statement we make about our track record. Its all verifiable! The National Association of Realtors states that for every $100 you invest in professional staging for your home, your potential return is $400.
In another study conducted within the Real estate industry, it was demonstrated that for every $100 invested in home staging the potential return is $400.
We have many Realtors we work with regularly who make it standard practice to recommend home staging to all of their sellers. Its a great compliment that we are the one and only staging company they recommend to their sellers. It should be stated for the record, that Realtors who refer us to their sellers receive absolutely no compensation from us for doing so. The do it because they know that it is in their client’s best interest to stage their home with us. When we stage their clients homes their sellers get better offers, faster sales, and higher selling prices. That’s good for the home seller, and its good for the Realtor. One of our regular Realtors
has shared with us that asks every one of his vendors, “Would you spend $4000 to get a return of $20,000?”. That is the return he feels we consistently get for his clients (but to be clear, our staging fee is usually significantly less than $4,000 unless it is a high end luxury home.
So, based on those statistics, what do you think? Is staging a home worth it?
Absolutely it is, and our own performance track record is very consistent with the statistics cited above.
We can tell you quite confidently, that we’ve never had a client lose money by investing in our home staging services. Even reluctant clients who are being urged by their Realtors to invest in home staging end up being happy converts when all is said and done – we see it happen frequently. The agent insists that they need to call us in to stage their home. At first they resist, but the agent persists, and ultimately the client engages us – yet at this point they are sometimes still not convinced it is necessary, but they have a well respected agent so they wisely they follow what their agent is telling them to do. Inevitably the home sells quickly, most often in just a day or two, or on offers day if there is one. There are multiple offers, and the house sells above ask, and for a higher price than the home owner was expecting. When all is said and done, they credit the role of the staging for the success rate of sale, and they are grateful for the Realtor’s expertise is making the recommendation to them. After we’ve staged a property, most home sellers are overwhelmed by how dramatically we are able transform their homes and add value to them in just a few short hours. As a result, buyers perceive the home as having higher value, which motivates them to make higher offers. Higher selling prices allow the homeowner to take more equity out of the sale.
*According to statistics compiled by BankRate.com
Consider this: if you had a financial planner who could get you a return on an investment (ROI) of say, 5%, 10%, or if the stars were all in perfect alignment as much as 20%, wouldn’t you be extremely pleased? That’s what we do for our clients when we stage their homes.
Real estate industry statistics indicate that staging a home increases the selling price by a minimum of 8 up to 20% on average. So on a typical $350,000 home, that’s an extra profit of between $17,500 and $35,000 for the seller. The staging fee is a small fraction of that amount.
As one of our regular Realtors tells his clients when they say they can’t afford to stage their home, “You cant afford NOT to stage your home”. Staging is not expensive. It is not staging that is actually expensive. Sophisticated sellers understand that skipping the staging in fact will cost them money. This is not hyperbole – this is backed by real estate industry data, collected and published well recognized sources within the real estate industry.
Our own performance data is entirely consistent with the published data as well. The research is borne out in the real world results.
Why Does Home Staging Work?
Well executed home staging is a form of visual merchandising for real estate that draws on the fundamentals of interior design. With our formal design training and a two decade marketing background to draw upon, we are very effective at implementing strategies that lead buyers to visualize themselves happily living in the home. We call those “lifestyle moments”, and we are very skilled at creating them, based on our training and knowledge in behaviuoral science and consumer behaviour.Those lifestyle moments trigger buys to develop an emotional connection to the home. That is what leads to desire-driven offers on the home.
We play up all of the homes best features, downplay its flaws (yet without ever “hiding” anything, as that is simply not ethical or honest). We turn weird, challenging spaces into usable, desirable spaces. We stage spaces to create “good vibes” in the home that buyers respond to as they walk through the house (we refer to this as “emotional” staging). And finally, we ensure that the home looks not just good, but AMAZING in listing photos. That’s important because according to a National Association of Realtors (NAR) report, 93% of home buyers go online to look at listing photos in deciding whether or not they will take the time to book a viewing of the home. That means that your home had better show really well online AND in person. Our home Staging and pre-lisiting photo styling makes that happen.
Today it is fairly commonplace for homes for sale in Winnipeg to be professionally staged, just as it is in other cities all across North America as well as the UK. 20 years ago home staging was almost unheard of, and certainly not something the average home owner did when selling. Today home staging is an important part of any serious real estate marketing strategy. More and more realtors now advise their clients to have their homes professionally staged because experienced realtors understand better than anyone the power of well executed home staging to get a home sold quickly at the maximum possible selling price. It is highly likely that your property will be competing with homes that have been professionally staged. Therefore, when buyers compare your home to those competing properties, you are at a major disadvantage if you haven’t staged your home.
So, is home staging worth it?
Only if you’re interested in getting the most money possible for your home, and expediting the sale. Feel free to give us a call at 204-390-8979 for a free initial home staging consultation to find out what we can do to help you get the most equity out of your home and prepare for a highly successful sale.