As a home stager who does lots of staging consultations, I often see sellers who are undecided as to making a commitment to professionally stage their homes. Often, it’s a matter of cost that causes the hesitation. However, according to the Real Estate Staging Association (RESA), if you take into consideration the expenses you incur in owning your home for a longer period of time, staging can actually save you money. For instance, in RESA’s recent staging study, 126 homeowners had their homes on the market for an average of 263 days before they decided to stage them. 263 days = 9 months. Those same homes were staged and sold in 60 days, on average, after staging. This represents 78% less time on the market.
Let’s take a look at how staging saves a homeowner money. If your mortgage is $1800 a month and your monthly expenses are $300, your total carrying cost per month is $2,100.00. If that home were on the market for 9 months, ($2,100 X 9 months) you would incur $18,900 in expenses. If you staged your home first and it sold in 2 months instead of 9 months, that’s a savings of 7 months’ expenses, (7 months X $2,100) $14,700 in savings. Of course, these numbers are all relative to individual mortgages and expenses. You can use this formula to assist you in calculating how much you will save by having your home professionally staged. If you have a price reduction, you can also add that into the loss you are taking by listing a property unstaged. Furthermore, your home staging expenses may be tax deductible.
(Courtesy of RESA)
~ " A penny wise is often a pound foolish! " ~ French Proverb
