Careers That Don’t Suck Profile: Real Estate Stager

Job Title: Real Estate Stager
AKA: Home Stager, Interior Decorator

What is it?

A real estate/home stager is basically an interior decorator that decorates homes or businesses in order to help home or business owners fetch a better price when they are trying to sell their homes.

What does a Real Estate/Home Stager do?
If you’ve never sold a home in a fast-moving market, chances are you’ve never used a stager. But, if you live in California and you’ve sold a home or even attended an open house, you’ve seen the work of a stager.

Anyone selling his/her home wants to get as much as possible. That means showing your home in its best light so that potential buyers will fall in love with it and make an offer. Unfortunately, our I-can’t-believe-they-just-left-this-outside furniture and our stacks of junk and mismatched dishes don’t exactly help with this.

Enter the stager. The stager is usually referred to the home seller by the selle’s realtor. Prior to the home’s open house or being listed on the Multi-listing Service (MLS), the stager visits the home to look around and figure out what type of decor will show off or highlight the home’s best features, and which pieces of the homeowner’s stuff detract from the home’s highlights.

The stager will come up with a concept or theme that s/he will use to figure out where to put everything. The concept might include changing a bonus room into a third bedroom instead of a game room to attract families looking for a larger home with more bedrooms. The stager will determine whether or not the homeowner has enough furniture and decor items to complete the concept, or if s/he will need to supplement the homeowners stuff with additional items. The stager will provide a contract that details the services and furniture and other items the stager will provide and the fee for those services.

Then, the stager will usually tag (with sticky notes or tape) the furniture and other items to be removed by the homeowner, make notes on items that need to be better organized or moved to another location in the house. The stager might also decide that rooms must be painted, art and/or plants and other decor items must be added.

After the homeowner carries out the directions left by the stager, the stager will bring in the supplemental pieces of furniture, art, plants and decor items. These items are usually from the stager’s own inventory. Items that the stager brings in belong to the stager, not the homeowner, unless otherwise agreed upon. The stager will usually set a rental rate for the items that collectively comprise the concept. So, if the stager puts in his/her own sofa, plants, Pop Art, decorative plates and patio furniture to complete a concept, the stager’s contract will state that s/he is providing these items for a certain period of time (1-4 weeks usually) for a certain rate.

In addition to staging individual homes for sale, stagers stage model homes in new developments, apartments and offices for rent, furniture and department store windows and other display areas.

Stagers who work with commercial realtors do the same thing for commercial properties owners. They stage business properties as if a prospective buyer could simply hang a shingle and start serving customers immediately. Commercial real estate stagers also stage businesses for occasions other than sales. They stage them for holidays or promotions or events. Of course, businesses require different concepts (no bedrooms), but everything else is essentially that same as with home stagers.

Who might like this job?

Anyone who has dreamed of being an interior decorator
Anyone who has a knack for determining the best features of a property and figuring out ways to accentuate them
Anyone who has a talent for creating interesting design concepts that appeal to different audiences (parents, singles, entrepreneurs, creatives, etc.)
Anyone who loves to collect stylish and eclectic pieces of furniture and decor
Anyone who wants to be a part of the fast-paced and lucrative real estate industry

What does this pay?
Stagers are paid via contract. Contracts include a description of services (touch-up painting, painting rooms, rearranging furniture, bringing in supplemental furniture and decor items) and a rental rate and term for any supplemental items (for 1-4 weeks of use). Contract amounts range from $2000 to $5000 on average. Most stagers will also include a rate for extra days beyond the original rental period, a clause stating what will happen if any of their items are lost, damaged or not returned, and a clause stating what will happen if there is a dispute about anything in the contract.

Some stagers will accept hourly rates for decorating a store window or an event venue. These stagers will also collect fees for the rental of their furniture and decor items.

To break in you’ll need…

Ask a homeowner or realtor to let you stage a home or two for free or below-market rates. This is a great way to start to create a portfolio and, more importantly, to get your skills in front of dozens of realtors during open houses, by-appointment showings, and brokers tours, and in real estate web pages and newspaper ads.

Put together great concepts that make homes look amazingly attractive to prospective buyers and realtors and you’ll likely be hired

Be professional and quick, offer competitive rates (or a real reason you deserve more) and own a great inventory of quality furniture and decor pieces and you’ll be hired repeatedly.

Many stagers also create showrooms or retail stores to display their furniture and decor items, and of course, their skills at displaying them. Having a showroom that is divided into distinct display areas that mimic rooms in a home or areas within a commercial property is a great way of creating a portfolio. Owning a retail store or showroom also provides a way to sell items that are outdated or damaged, and to generate cash that gets the stager through slow times and allows him/her to purchase more inventory.

If you have no idea how to run a business and have never designed and executed a design concept, consider becoming an employee or an apprentice of an established stager. Some real estate listings and property fliers will read “Staged by (stager’s name or company)”. Otherwise, you can attend open houses and brokers tours where you’ll usually find a little tabletop sign that lists the name of the stager. Finally, you can contact realtors to find out who they are using.

Most homeowners and business owners will only hire licensed or certified decorators or designers to decorate their homes or businesses. However, stagers generally don’t need to be because they are considerably less expensive than interior decorators and their work is being used only temporarily.

Note: There are organizations that offer stager training and certifications, but most have little or no weight with realtors or homeowners because they are only known within the stager community. I’ve viewed some of the sites, including stagingdiva.com, stagedhomes.com and iahsp.com. Staging Diva’s training materials seems to be more professional and credible, though she is using them as a way of selling franchises. Stagedhomes.com and iahsp.com are owned by the same company. The company claims to be the certifying body of the industry offering the ASP (Accredited Staging Professional) and ASPM (Accredited Staging Professional Master) certifications. The programs are a little suspect since it only takes 3 days and an undisclosed fee to get the certificate. The company also runs an association for stagers (International Association of Home Staging Professionals).

So, who would you work for?

Stagers are generally independent business owners who contract with real estate agents and/or home or business owners
Real estate agents or agencies that want to have an in-house stager
Property management companies
Event planners
Staging companies

To find current openings…

Home Stager jobs
Call realtors in your local market
Approach homeowners directly
Partner with For Sale By Owner franchisees and home sellers

More information?
Books on Home Staging

What about this career doesn’t suck?
Low-cost business to start (only costs are the costs of furniture and decor items that should be collected over time as the stager stages more homes), potentially lucrative, no certification or education requirements and great lifestyle (low stress, autonomy, creative outlet, variety of work, helping people buy and sell their dream homes) make this a dream job.

The home stager job scored 89% on WorkYourWay Index.

Still want more?