Halifax Home Staging: Is It a Good Investment?

Interiors Working For You has been providing professional Halifax home staging services in the Metro Halifax area since 2004. In that time we have been instrumental in the change in public response from no awareness, to cautious interest, to excitement, to embracing, to a belief that it is a valid part of the selling process. Meanwhile our business has grown from providing consultations on a part time basis to full staging services, including rentals, for anything from a one hour consult to the management of a renovation project. As my daughter likes to say, I know a little sump’n sump’n about staging and I am a firm believer in its value.

There are still nay sayers of course. Sellers who don’t really care if they sell or not, for instance, may say “they can go somewhere else if they don’t like what’s here”. Well yes, they will go and buy somewhere else. The goal of staging is to maximize the number of people who will like what’s there, because the more people interested in a product, the better the sale.

Some sellers and real estate agents say that business has been done a certain way for years so why change now. The reason is because the market has changed. Buyers have changed. Expectations have changed. The typical buyer no longer looks for a simple, sturdy home that they can make their own over time to grow old in. Buyers today want instant gratification with little or no effort involved because their lives are already busy enough. People now tend to own their homes for a brief number of years before moving up or moving away, and want to be able to sell it well in turn.

Sellers and agents sometimes make the mistake of assuming that a decorated house is a staged house. The goals of staging and decorating are very different, even though a strong knowledge of decor is required for both.  While a decorated home is dressed to suit the home owner, a Staged home is dressed to appeal to as broad a target market as possible. Staging addresses the flow of the home; ways to show off its best features while showing solutions for its challenges; and ensures its function, colours, and style are appealing to the likely buyer. Thus, even a beautifully decorated home should be assessed by a professional Stager before hitting the market for sale.

We have often met with people who were initially afraid that the staging would be too expensive or that we would insult them, as the staging shows on television depict. There is no insult involved because our attention is directed towards the buyer and not towards the way people live in their homes. Some clients are surprised by how approachable we are and most are amazed by how affordable the process is. Staging is about protecting the seller’s equity. Finding cost effective solutions is what we pride ourselves on.

Professional Halifax home staging results in a better sale. Time and time again we have stepped in where a home has been on the market with no offers, and then once staged has sold right away. Many homes we have staged have sold from the first few showings. Our staged homes have generated multiple offers which push the sale price up above the asking price. Many times we have staged homes that the seller or a well meaning friend or an unqualified but well intentioned stager has already set up for selling, unsuccessfully. Staging is not as simple as decluttering and depersonalizing. A professional Stager understands what buyers will see and experience as they view the property. A professional knows the balance required between too much and too little in the home, and what improvements will bring a return in any particular property. Our clients consistently express gratitude for their success in selling and the ease with which it all happened.

Melanie Orr is the owner and operator of Interiors Working For You which provides full staging and redecorating services.