10 Important Things to Ask Before Hiring a Home Stager — The House Whisperers Home Staging + Interiors (2024)

Do you own your own inventory?Pricing of stagers that don’t own their own inventory is driven by high furniture rental prices or retail furniture costs. Find a stager that purchases everything new from wholesale vendors, as they generally canoffera more superior product fortheprice.

Are you a trained interior designer? Many stagers took an on-line weekend class and hung up a staging shingle. You’re not going to want second-rate staging and there are different levels of staging, just as there is fast food, fine dining, and everything in between! Be sure you check out photos and, if possible, actual staging projects so you know what you’re signing up for and don’t have any unpleasant surprises later. A hefty percentage of homes staged by budget stagers get restaged after the owner and agent realize that the bargain staging is totally inappropriate and out-of-scale for the property—and it could actually cheapen the home rather than elevate it. A confident home staging company will graciously offer a tour of their warehouse so you can inspect their inventory and operation before signing on the dotted line. A stager who’s an interior designer is ideal because they'll be able to better blur the line between typical staging and interior design to make your home look magazine-ready and stand out above the rest.

Do you stage the kitchens and baths?Many stagers don’t or they put a small potted plant in the kitchen and consider it staged. The kitchen is arguably the most important area of the house, so a good stager will make sure it gets as much attention as the other rooms. Bathrooms are important also and can feel cold when they’re not staged, so make sure the company you choose does all the bathrooms in the home.

Do you coordinate the colors, style, and decor throughout the home?Many stagers don’t and they'll use varying colors and random styles throughout so there ends up being a disconnect and very little consistency in design. Ideally the home should lookpulled together. Make sure your stager is expert at making the look current and cohesive, like a model home.

Do you coordinate the staging with the architectural style of the house?Make sure your stager doesn’tjust put generic furniture in every home, but custom stages each one to work with the finishes, the style of the house, and the price point in the area. Top stagers will have sales statistics and awards to prove it, and understand the psychographics for staging each individual home to appeal to the widest majority of buyers.

How many housefuls of staging do you have inyour inventory and how many houses do you stage per month?Knowing these numbers will give you a clue as to how much experience and business a stager actually has. At any given time, a full-time staging company—experts with daily staging projects—will have a customer service/logistics department, in-house delivery team, moving trucks, and stock inventory for 100 homes. Someone who stages only one or two projects a month—which comprises 95% of stagers—may not have the inventory nor experience your clients deserve for their properties.

Do you have electronic lockbox access through the local board of realtors?If not, someone will need to meet the stagers over the course of the project to let them in and out of the house. Some stagers have licensed agents or affiliates on staff with electronic access to make access more convenient for clients.

Do you take credit cards or accept ACH?Some stagers don’t and if not, as the agent or seller, you may end up having to deliver checks to them. An established staging business will take all major credit cards, checks, or ACH transfers through a secure network.

Do you have liability and workman’s comp insurance?Although it’s a legal requirement, few stagers carry liability and workman’s comp insurance because it’s very expensive. But, if you are an agent, you or your clients have a lot invested in their properties, so you should make sure whoever’s working on them is adequately insured with at least a $1M policy. Using a vendor without insurance is like an agent without errors and omissions insurance! Additionally, without workman’s comp, homeowners or agents could be liable if anyone were to become injured on the property or if the property were to be damaged. Make sure the staging company you chose is completely covered by liability and workmen's comp insurance and ask for the paperwork to prove it.

Are you affiliated with and have you been recognized by staging industry organizations for excellence in your work?The best-run staging companies will have won multiple awards and be affiliated with a trade organization such as RESA (Real Estate Staging Association) or HSRA (Home Staging & Redesign Association) that will hold them to the highest standards of business, ethics and integrity.