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Home staging or apartment makeover is an activity that is practiced all over the globe. This activity consists of revamping (enhancing) an apartment or a house in order to facilitate or accelerate its resale.

The term “home staging” means the professional preparation of a property in order to be able to sell the property faster and at a higher price. The main aim is to give prospective buyers a good impression of how they could furnish the rooms and to give them the feeling that this could become their home.

Since 2009 real estate agents and prospective home stagers have been learning how to present properties for sale in such a way that they appeal to a larger group of buyers.

What does home staging bring? The property sells faster and the purchase price rises. By 15 percent, says our experience. The art of staging a property is a learnable craft. For you that means: Faster to success with your independence.

Most homeowners understand that it is important to keep their homes clean and free of clutter when putting it on the market. That alone however, may not be enough to guarantee a sale. If they really want to improve on a buyer’s first impressions and have them instantly fall in love with the property, they enlist the services of a home stager to change how buyers value it, and the price they can get for it.

Home staging is an effective way to make your property more attractive to prospective buyers.

What are the keys to getting started in this activity?

In Summary:

1. Profile of a Home Stager
2. Why is it worth it?
3. How to Start
4. Success Tips

Profile of a Home Stager

Home-staging is a common activity in the USA, made popular in France especially by television. It consists of the interior decoration of a home in order to prepare it for sale under the best conditions.

This creative profession is done out of passion, and requires certain qualities such as:

• Artistic sense
• A sense of relationship
• A vivid imagination
• A sense of management
• Canvassing capacity
• Ability to understand customer needs,
• Creativity and artistic sense,
• Imagination and ingenuity,
• Ability to manage a budget,
• Ability to trigger
• Know the properties, the design styles;
• Appreciate interior photography;
• Know the real estate market;
• Know the world of sales;
• Be communicative, empathetic, know how to solve problems;
• Know how to use the computer;
• Have knowledge of printing;
• Have style and taste;
• Be able to manage logistics and costs;
• Have notions of marketing.

Why is it worth it?

Home staging is a proven way of selling real estate successfully and for profit. Three reasons home staging could pay off for you:

• Advantages immediately recognizable: The first impression counts when buying a property. With home staging you get the most out of your property.
• Faster sales: Experience shows that sales time is reduced by an average of 30 to 50 percent. This means that fewer viewing appointments are necessary and you can significantly reduce your time expenditure.
• Higher sales price: The optimized presentation of the property enables up to 15 percent higher sales prices to be achieved.

How to Start Home Staging Business

1. Validate your idea

Before you start, make sure your idea is the right one. What are your motivations? Are you starting out as a fad or is it the result of real strategic thinking?

2. Refine your concept

You are probably not the only home stager in your city or region. What is your strength? What is the particularity of your offer of your concept? Only your style will make the difference in a tough competitive world. It can be original communication, the layout of your premises, your ethical commitment, etc. Offer a value proposition that is part of a global concept and that will constitute “your trademark”.

3. Conduct market research

Before you open your home staging business, take a look at your competition.

Who are the most popular home stagers in your area? Are they good? Spy on their prices, and if you’re lucky enough, visit the houses they’ve arranged.

Understand the demand for the local staging of the house. Do local brokers hire agents to help with their homes for sale?

If there is no market in your city, are you willing to explore other housing markets? Which?

4. Select a niche

The Home Staging business is one where the agent needs to be creative and have the proper certification to stand out. The industry has seen a large number of sellers adopt home staging to sell their homes quickly enough.

The home staging business is expected to be one of the driving forces in the real estate industry for years to come. However, to gain a large share of the target market, more home staging business are beginning to offer niche services to stand out from their competitors in the industry. While large-scale staging companies can afford to offer more than two niches, small-scale staging companies can only afford to offer one or two niche ideas.

Choosing a market niche is imperative, because the home staging business is huge, the same size (gigantic) as your competition. It is better not to try to embrace the world, wanting to reach every niche, especially at the beginning of your work.

To segment and customize is to specialize.

The challenges will always exist, no matter if the choice is for the residential, commercial or corporate area. Choosing a niche among those areas and dedicating yourself to a specialization can make your name a good reference more quickly.

So some of the niche areas that a home staging business might specialize in are:

• Staging business
• Property administration
• Property auctions
• Sale of land properties
• Sale of fully furnished properties

5. Target audience

You already know that it is important to define which target audience you want to reach. But why? Because the choice of a specific audience is not only about identifying the people for whom you want to work, but also about knowing your needs, your desires.

That choice also depends on good research. Who are these people? What they do? What is the age group and its geographical location? What do they like? What problems do they bring? All of these responses are important for defining the target you want to work with.

The professional who works with a well-defined target audience can better direct their actions. As in the areas of marketing and advertising. Thus, the chances of consolidation in the market increase.

In the future, when it is established, then it will be more appropriate to expand knowledge and seek to reach other niches – and other audiences.

6. Location

The home staging business is a business that will need you to physically meet with all parties to the home sale transaction, so it is not one located anywhere.

There are two options available to you when starting your home staging business and that is to run your business from home or to lease or rent a property and run your business professionally. Whichever option you choose will have an impact on your business, so you need to be careful when deciding where to locate your business.

If you intend to start your small-scale staging business, then you may need to run your business from home. You will need to obtain a website that allows you to participate in promoting and marketing your services to your intended target market. If, however, you study everyone who is making waves in the industry, you will notice that they rent or leased a facility, no matter how small it is so that you can professionally run your business. If you are going to rent or lease a facility, you need to make sure that be in a location that is highly visible and within your demographic location.

7. Business plan

Unmissable step, the business will have to be carried out in several versions. As mentioned above, the particularity of real estate lies in the fact that it is a sector which is constantly evolving. Integrating its fluctuations into your business plan will be a guarantee of seriousness: “you will have thought of everything!”

The business plan is a fundamental step to be carried out before opening your home staging business.

It allows for concrete reflection on the project while reporting on its future profitability.

It is an important document for outsiders, who will learn about your project (accountant, business angels, banks, etc.). These interlocutors may agree to finance or support the project.

An efficient business plan should contain the answers to the following questions:

• What is the (detailed) description of your brand?
• What products or services will be offered?
• What is your target audience?
• What is your organizational structure?
• What will your marketing strategies be?
• What will your operational plans look like?

In addition to these questions, your business plan must have a well-defined capitalization structure and financial plan . A great research before filling all this is essential. Your plan’s answers will help you make the best choices.

8. Market your business

Learn how to promote your business both online and offline.

Online:

• Learn how to optimize your website for local search. Use keywords that local runners can use to find stages just like you.
• Create a brand and stick with it.
• Bring your online presence to life: Open basic social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Take advantage of Instagram’s image-centric platform – it would be helpful for your business.

Offline:

• Prepare business cards and flyers to hand out
• Advertise in community newspapers, bulletin boards, or other similar resources.
• Print a copy of your portfolio, which will come in handy when throwing yourself out at people.

9. Network

Your greatest asset, now and going forward, is your network of contacts. Everyone you know has their own networks of contacts, who also have their networks of contacts … and so on … it’s an almost infinite cycle.

The Personal Network (your personal connection with people) will allow you to quickly build strong relationships that can last for many years. Get involved with your local business groups, attend business events in your niche, your customers’ niche, your church or your children’s school. (Some of your best projects may come from parents of your children’s friends.)

Share your plans with everyone you know. You will be surprised at the connections that lead to new projects.

Use Digital Networking, using social media and comments on your blog, quickly creating large networks of connections.

Share your plans on your personal page on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Share your blog articles and publish your own, exclusive content on a consistent schedule.

Your digital network will grow and your chances of finding your first customer will become even more likely.

Networking gives you access to all the advantages that it entails:

• Pooling of certain means of communication
• Business contribution
• Training
• Exchange of good practices
• Moments of conviviality (seminars, informal meetings, etc.)

 

10. Build your business continuously

Never stop improving your business on all fronts.

• Collect testimonials: If you land a gig at home, be sure to get customer feedback, ask permission if you can post it online, and continue to do so even if you are overwhelmed by new customers.
• Build your furniture inventory: If you want to expand your business, you must invest in furniture and decor. Do it gradually and only if the income can support it.
• Share your knowledge: One way to build buzz for your business is to start blogging about your home concerts. Talk about your projects, show before and after photos, and give helpful advice to those who can’t afford your service and would love to organize their homes themselves. Doing this makes you an authority in the field. Enter a few keywords in your blog posts and Google would love that too!
• Advertise your business: You’ve created a great website and are ready to welcome new clients. Remember, customers cannot accidentally find your site on search engines (at least at first). You will have to promote your site and services, and do it quite actively. For this:
• Be active on social media.
• Use paid ads (within your budget).
• Make business cards.
• Ask your friends and family to talk about you and share the site.
• Attend exhibitions and conferences.
• Keep an interior design blog: Once your website is set up and you’ve started promoting your services, you should start building a blog. Even if you are not a writer, everything will work out. Write posts about design tips, design trends – anything design-related.

When you write a message, there are certain things you must remember:

• Does this have to do with interior design?
• It is interesting?
• Is this information helpful to readers?
• Is it SEO optimized?

If you are going to start a blog, you must be prepared to post regularly. Don’t start a blog if you’re only going to publish content every 3 months, because potential customers who visit your site will see that you are inconsistent.

11. Invest in customer service and relationships

Good service and relationships are fundamental aspects for any entrepreneur to delight and retain customers to his brand. The service with excellence may be the competitive edge for you in the market.

Customers who are well served, who can see the importance they present to the company, are more likely to return to buy from you.

Some are even willing to pay a little more for the service (which obviously needs to be of quality) if they are well attended and their demands have the right solutions.

Draw the client’s profile when creating projects, always have a good conversation with him and try to listen to him with due attention. Be helpful, listen to your questions and clarify in the best possible way. And under no circumstances impose your point of view. Every project needs to be designed and built together.

This relationship will certainly yield positive results for you. This is because a satisfied customer acts as a promoter of your company through “word of mouth” marketing. It is quite possible that new potential customers will knock on your door just for good indications.

Some tips for developing your clientele:

• it may be interesting to develop a network of prescribers likely to redirect customers to you, for example decoration stores or architects,
• a reference book must be created (electronic or paper),
• it will also be necessary to create a quality brochure presenting the services and prices, rather than a flyer which could prove to be disappointing in terms of returns,
• don’t hesitate to offer training or coaching , it’s very fashionable.

The most important thing during this phase is not to be discouraged: canvassing does not immediately bear fruit, but that does not mean that you should not persevere!

Success Tips

Home staging is essentially about giving prospective customers a good feeling and a positive impression of the living situation in the property to be sold. With these simple tips you can create a feel-good atmosphere in your home.

1. Clear out and clean thoroughly.
   Dispose of things that are just standing around uselessly. This creates space and your property appears larger and more inviting. Also, keep things tidy and clean the floors and all surfaces so that they are shiny and no dust can be seen.
2. Remove personal items
   Photos, certificates, political and religious symbols, old decorative items, children’s toys or pet paraphernalia should disappear from the field of view of the potential buyer for the viewing. Also clear the window sills.
3. Cosmetic repairs
   from the wallpaper that has detached at one point or another, to the leaky faucet in the bathroom: Patch of minor damage before the first appointment. If necessary, paint the walls in light colors, such as gray, cream tones or white.
4. Light
   make sure that the property looks bright and friendly when you view it. All blinds, shutters, drapes or drapes should be open. If necessary, add additional light accents with floor lamps.
5. Ensure cosines
   with pillows on the couch and flowers on the table you create a homely atmosphere. Also, make sure it smells nice. Take out the rubbish before the viewing and don’t cook anything that is odorous a day or two beforehand. Use scented candles and incense sticks sparingly.

Did you like the content? We hope it has been enlightening and that you can be very successful along this journey. Good luck!

Real Estate

Tags: Business ideas, Home staging, Real Estate Business Ideas