Why is home staging in Jacksonville, FL so expensive?

Speaking with a Jacksonville, FL homeowner today, during a home staging consultation, we began the discussion about pricing. Most people have an idea in their head, whether from actual research or numbers given on popular television shows, and it’s always difficult to determine what number they’ve imagined. Typically, prior to a consultation we try to give a ballpark number to potential customers so that they understand what’s realistic, so that neither party wastes their time. For whatever reason that didn’t happen this time.

Discussing the price of staging a vacant home…

Rave Home Staging offers packages for both occupied and vacant homes, but we specialize in vacant homes. We’ve worked on both modular and single detached homes that sold for less than $100,000, we’ve worked on luxury 8500 sqft homes that sold for approximately $2M, and everywhere in between. Somehow, and it never ceases to amaze me, those with luxury properties think that staging should cost about the same as much less expensive ones.

Consider what goes into a staging a home, any home. There are the easily thought of items such as sofas, chairs, lighting, art, consoles, and mattresses. Then there are less thought of items like pillows (so many pillows), linens, bed skirts, towels, and soaps. Finally there are the small details that no one considers like light bulbs, extension cords, nails, picture hooks, and cleaning supplies.

They say that the devil is in the details.

This is where cost typically comes from. The details. The “expense of staging”, especially in luxury properties lies in the quality and quantity of each of those details. Sure, light bulbs and extension cords cost the same in every price point. Sofas, art, consoles, lighting, linens, and so forth definitely do not.  The more expensive a home, the more expensive the cost of the items, generally speaking.

Because we use a staging process called demographic staging, we set the home based on the anticipated buyer. The ones most likely to purchase the home. Regardless of size of the home or the location, it’s our job to determine what that specific buyer is most likely to relate to in the purchase of a new home and set that stage.

For instance, we once staged a $275,000 home that was just a couple of blocks from the beach. The house wasn’t actually all that amazing. It was equivalent in appearance to a $150,000 home across town. The value was all in the location, not the four walls and floors. Still, we didn’t stage based on the overall size and condition of the home. We staged based on the home buyer. In this case, a home buyer that can afford $275,000.  These particular home buyers are willing to take less of a home to be blocks from the beach.

The furnishings chosen for any home need to be suitable for a family that has the income to support the purchase price. The style should also represent the lifestyle of the most likely buyer.

The cost of staging a vacant home

Now that I’ve danced around the entire basis for why professional home stagers charge what they charge, let’s break down tshe actual cost. It’s really much more of a simple calculation than you might think.

Rave Home Staging charges 1% of list price for all home staging, with a minimum of $2000 (whichever is greater). We stage all interior spaces. We also provide professional photographs for the use of marketing the property.

Stay tuned for our next blog: Perception vs Reality. How home staging turns houses into homes.

Also take a look at this blast from the past: Home Staging, an investment in equity preservation.