Home Staging Best Practices

If you’re getting ready to sell your home, and are starting to wonder, “how can I get help staging my home for sale?'', you might have contacted a professional home stager like Heidi Ross Design in the greater Memphis area—and if you did, you’ve made a great decision. While it is possible to stage a home yourself, a professional has the skills, training, and experience in staging houses for real estate that can help get your home sold fast and for your ideal terms.
 
You might have some questions about the professional practices that stagers use in home stage design and marketing. If staging is new to you, you may have some concerns about the ethics of home staging, and wonder if it’s more smoke and mirrors than anything else. But you’ll be relieved to find that this isn’t the case at all – home stagers have many skills, and among them is the know-how to stage a home so it looks its best, but also doesn’t present anything deceiving or untrue. 
 
How can you know if you’re working with a stager who uses the best staging practices (and best virtual staging practices)? A good first sign is when your stager—like Heidi Ross at Heidi Ross Design—is a certified Professional Real Estate Stager with a RESA-PRO (Real Estate Staging Association Professional) designation. This accreditation involves education in the best practices of staging—professionals are committed to a high level of ethics and to continuing their knowledge of the field.
 
What are some of the practices important to a professional stager? 

Here, we’ll break down just some of them—and how you will see them at work when staging your home.
 
1.     Act with Integrity
 
Professional stagers act with integrity and respect—for coworkers, competitors, clients, and others. That can mean a range of things, from treating others with courtesy to using ethical business practices. A professional won’t make promises they can’t follow through on—such as guarantees about outcomes—won’t take on a project they won’t be able to complete, and will commit to being up-front with the clients and providing them with all the information they need to make the best choices.  
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But most importantly, staging is not a “bait and switch” strategy.  While the goal of staging is to minimize the negative and maximize the positive features in a home, staging is NOT a plan to hide problems or issues with a home (such as excessive wear and tear, maintenance issues, or neglect) that may be present. These items should be tended to PRIOR to staging, and it is dishonest to stage over them in attempts to disguise their existence. More on that topic later...
 
2.     Educate Clients and Get Them Involved  
 
Being up-front with clients necessitates getting them involved—and that might mean some education on the staging process. A professional keeps clients in the loop and works closely with them—this can range from offering information about staging to emphasizing the importance of depersonalizing and deep-cleaning the home.
 
While it might not be a client’s favorite thing to hear that a beloved bright-colored room should to be painted before it can be staged, or that a clean house needs an even more thorough cleaning, but that’s part of the integrity and commitment to client education that staging professionals bring to the table along with their practical experience and know-how.
 
3.     Use Interior Design Best Practices to Help the Space and Clients
 
A professional stagers practical experience and know-how can take the form of knowledge of interior design best practices, such as the use of strategic mirrors when staging a small house to show off beautiful light, or using carefully chosen furniture and accessories to showcase how an awkward space could become a breakfast nook, small library, or a small home office. This can apply to virtual staging, too—a professional will know how to take photos that show off the full power of a room.
 
A professional’s best practices when staging continue to involve integrity and client education, too. The stager will recommend you which repairs or updates should be made to help your home appeal to the right target market. And a pro won’t hide, disguise, or try to cover up any remaining issues with the house. Painting over damage from an unrepaired leak isn’t what staging is about—a stager will help a potential buyer to see the great potential in a home but also remain honest with the seller about potential downfalls of deferred maintenance.
 
How can Heidi Ross Design help me?
 
At Heidi Ross Design, our professionals help clients in the Greater Memphis area (including Germantown, Collierville, Olive Branch, and more) stage luxury homes while supporting them to sell for the best terms bearable in their specific market location. We know the best practices that will help your home sell—and promote peace of mind for you and for your potential buyers.
 
Best of all, we offer a no-commitment FREE quote that helps you gather the information you need before you make a choice about which professional stagers you will work with. If you have contacted a Real Estate Professional to sell your home, it's also time to contact Heidi Ross Design for your Free Home Staging Consultation and quote. Use our online form or give us a call today (901) 361-7419.

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