Home staging can be a very profitable sustainable business, if it lays the right foundation. The opportunities are myriad if the home staging professional applies the right strategic approach, promotes themselves well, prices right, and maximizes their network.
Now is a good time to start your home improvement business if you are serious about creating a profitable, recession-proof business. While training, certification, or licensing is not needed to be a home stager, the right credentials when you’re just starting out have value.
Home stagers can earn $500 to $5,000 per project depending on factors like square footage, number of rooms staged, and amount of work. As a rule of thumb, fees average $300-$600 for an initial consultation and $500-$600 per staged room monthly.
With housing market competition, sellers employ home stagers to increase profits $10,000 to $75,000. Realtors also see offering staging as a useful service for their listings.
Challenges of a home staging business include finding homeowners who see the financial value in hiring a stager, and getting first clients to build your portfolio. Assessing potential success and challenges requires a comprehensive business plan. Reasonable goals ensure hard work pays off.
This step-by-step guide has the insight needed to start a successful home staging business. A limited liability company (LLC) is the best structure because it’s fast and simple.
Home staging prepares a property for sale. Talking to the owner learns about existing decor and guides which personal items to remove. Workshops provide hands-on staging training, teach market principles, and maximize appeal. Specializing in rapid staging for resale or rental meets demand for quick flips.
Increased Demand for Home Staging Professionals
The need for a home staging professional is growing. Realtors and homeowners now appreciate the value added by home staging professionals. Becoming a home stager can be a completely fulfilling and profitable way to do what you love. But be prepared for a lot of hard work.
You won’t make a profit overnight. The average price to stage a home ranges from $300 to $600 for an initial design consultation, and $500 to $600 per month per room as long as the house is on the market. In your first year or two, you could work from home and stage five homes per month, charging $400 for the initial consultation and $500 per month for an average of 2 months. This would bring you $84,000 in annual revenue and $67,200 in profit, assuming that 80% margin.
As your brand gains recognition, sales could climb to 20 houses per month. Therefore becoming a home stager is a wide-open career and business opportunity if the individual can assure any homeowner or real estate agent that they are capable of performing the needed staging professionally and pleasingly.
A professional home stager has the design talent, knowledge of local trends, and resources to ensure all areas of the home are presented in a manner that showcases the greatest value and appeal. The average salary for home stagers is $49,616, with some earning as much as $80,500 annually. The majority of lead stagers make over $20 an hour, while the majority of staging assistants make $10-$25 an hour, according to RESA’s 2021 State of the Industry Report.