Home Based Business Idea: Home Staging Professional
Have you had trouble selling your house? I am sure you know of many people who have put their home on the market only for it still not to be sold several months later. They get frustrated and may decide to drop the price further and further – but why should that be the case?
The good news for you is that there is now a service which can help sell houses quicker and that is Home Staging.
What is Home Staging?
Put simply Home Staging is making the property very appealing to new buyers. This is arranged by a team of Interior Designers who will complete the overall look of the property. The aim is to make the intended buyer feel at home immediately they view the property.
Home Staging will give the prospective buyer an indication of how furniture can be placed and how much room will then be available when fully furnished. Often the Interior Designers bring in their own furniture and accessories to complement the staging but on a much bigger scale. Why not visit one of the Ideal Home Shows or even visit your local furniture store to see how they display all the household furniture and additional items?
If you have been to the Ideal Home Show at any time and you wander round the homes on display they include all relevant furniture and accessories – this is simply Home Staging.
Although I have mentioned Interior Designers you do not need to have the skills of a designer to get this business started (I will expand further in this report).
Why this service is needed
- Sellers want their home sold quickly. Viewers have exceptional high demands and have choice of numerous viewings of different types of properties.
- If a house has been on the market for a few months there is a chance that the seller may be slightly less keen than at the start of the process and so their home may not be shown in the best light to potential buyers.
- It is a competitive market and people are not paying the full market value for property. A House seller needs to show viewers of their property the wow factor.
Research your chosen area
Before you even consider starting this business you need to research into the area of residence you are thinking of offering home staging.
If you live in an area full of affluent people then you will need to make sure that you (or the team you have to assist) have items that are in a high value price point.
On the other hand if you are targeting a more general area then you need to make sure you have items that will make that home more appealing to potential buyers without spending a large amount of money.
So you can see it is a fine balancing act.
Find local places to rent/store furniture – Below are a few websites that offer this service
Room Service By Cort
https://www.roomservicebycort.com
Furniture Hire UK
https://www.furniturehireuk.com
Places to store your items
Safe Store
https://www.safestore.co.uk
Big Yellow
https://www.bigyellow.co.uk
But I do not have the experience of Home Staging?
Consider getting hired help.
There are many Interior Designers who would love to help you with your business. You could work on a 50:50 split for each project (make sure you have a good contract in place).
Contact local Colleges or Universities as they may have students doing interior design who would love the ‘work’ experience. When interviewing the students make sure that the students have a good eye for detail and can cater for all tastes. Ask for examples of their work. With the students you could offer them a small commission or a smaller percentage say 25% for the work. By offering them a percentage they would do the work well rather than if you offered a flat hourly rate.
You could place an advert on a Student website – below are some sites that could be useful. Please note there may be a cost for your advert.
Student Job
https://www.studentjob.co.uk
e4s
https://www.e4s.co.uk
You could also put a ‘shout out’ on social media as well. Good social media sites would be Twitter and Facebook
Market your business
You will need to have some ‘before ‘and ‘after’ photos which shows that you fully understand this market. Of course you need clients before you can stage photos however, why not ask family and friends if you can take some ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos of their homes as part of your Home Staging strategy. They may even keep some of your ideas. Do you know anyone moving home? You could offer a free Home Staging in return for a good review.
Local Estate Agents
It is worth visiting your local estate agents to offer your skills to home sellers. The estate agent could recommend your service as part of their seller package.
Ask them if they have any homes that are not selling and ask the estate agent if they would contact the seller on your behalf and they may convince them to use your service (you could offer a reduced rate if you are just starting out).
Property Auction Houses
Many people sell their homes via Auction houses so it would be worth contacting a few in your area. They have a vast contact of estate agents, private sellers even property investors with many properties. Consider offering them a finder’s fee of around £75 for every introduction for anyone interested in home staging – after all they are very keen to sell their home – hence why they are selling via auction houses. Below are a few Property Auction companies. Also check out the local estate agent websites as they often have homes for sale via auction
Auction House
https://www.auctionhouse.co.uk
Property Auctions
https://www.propertyauctionaction.co.uk
Speaking to your target audience
Contact several local organisations and offer to speak at one of their meetings.
You can show your skills with before and after pictures by offering a simple Power Point Presentation.
Places worth considering are our local DIY stores, your local library and local networking groups. You can present a talk which could cover an array of topics such as how to maximum your living space with furniture. Simple DIY tips and colour enhancement.
Make sure you have plenty of flyers and business cards to hand out. Of course there is no guarantee that they will immediately pick up your service but later down the line when they are having trouble selling their home they may well bear you in mind.
https://www.pinterest.com
This is a visual platform and ideal for a home staging presence. You should place your image on this site. You can also get many great ideas from this site to help you with your business.
People like this site as there are good quality listings. It is smaller than the other social media platforms but over 85% of users are female so this would be the target audience for the home staging business. Also 50% of user’s people on this site earn over £40000 pa so they will have the money to use your service.
You must show high quality images and you can even use services such as Canva to enhance the settings. Canva website https://www.canva.com
Pinterest is known as the world’s catalogue of ideas which is exactly right for a home staging business. Why not check Pinterest out for companies that are in a similar area to you and get some good ideas from there.
Other marketing tips
- Leaflet drop – get some good quality leaflets printed and do a leaflet drop in 5 mile radius on homes that have a ‘For Sale’ sign on display. Consider dropping a leaflet into homes that have ‘Sold’ on them as well – maybe the sale could fall through.
- Send photographs of your ‘before and ‘after’ staging to magazines – they may want to do a feature on you. Also contact your local newspaper as this would be a very niche article for them to use – remember most local newspapers advertise a lot of homes for sale from local estate agents so a home staging feature would complement this.
- Check out the competition – what are they doing well? What could replicate? More important what are they doing wrong?
- Use Video to show a virtual tour of your staging and share all these on social media including Instagam, Twitter, Facebook and You Tube. Full details on how to benefit from these social media sites is at the end of this book.
- Blog about your service. This is great as it will show off your skills and convey to potential clients that you really understand the business. You can blog about many home staging services including photos of your properties you are working on, videos of latest projects, short how to videos and expert tips and time saving advice.
Research
- Do a case study on each project you have completed. How you went about it, what you had to purchase, how long it took etc.
What to charge
You will be dealing with several different properties from a one bedroom flat up to a large house with perhaps 5 plus bedrooms.
A one bedroom flat in London (United Kingdom) can cost around £250,000 and a large house with 4 bedrooms can be around £700,000 – while in another part of the UK the value of home could be much lower.
Typically the larger the house the more likely the owner is going to be spending more.
It may be worth offering 3 levels of service such as Gold Standard, Platinum and Double Platinum.
Gold Standard – Could over the initial consultant and a full report
Platinum – All of Gold Standard plus detailed drawings, several visits and video coverage
Double Platinum – All of Gold and Platinum plus regular updates, telephone calls, close supervision and visit with your client to your interior designers.
It is up to you how to charge but consider 1% of the value of the sale for Gold Standard, 1.5% for Platinum and 3% for Double Platinum.
Of course you may wish to go with a standard fee for each so you may need to test the water.
Good tip would be to act as a prospective client for a home staging company and get a feel for what they charge. There could be things you might want to do differently.
If your client is thinking your fees are little high mention that with your service the property will sell much faster and in fact with the staging you arrange the property may even sell for a higher price. Also sellers must have a USP to get the potential buyers attention.
Good Trade Association
Home Staging Association UK and Ireland
https://www.homestaging.org.uk
Final thought
This home based business is ideal if you have a good eye for detail and with houses not selling as fast as people would like it is an ideal opportunity to start now.
