Home Staging is the preparation of a property for sale or rental so as to attract potential buyers or tenants. It may seem counterintuitive at first glance: why spend money on a property if you are moving out? Simple answer: because home staging can bring you a lot more money from the sale of your home.
If your real estate agent has suggested home staging to you, it is because experience shows that such a treatment is usually worth the effort. Properties after home staging on average sell 40% faster and 88% for the offer price or higher. But how much does home staging really cost?
Here’s what you need to know about the cost of home staging so you can decide whether paying a professional home stager is worth the investment for you.
How much does home staging a flat cost?
It goes without saying – the more expensive and larger the property, the higher the potential preparation costs. Usually, a consultation, during which recommendations will be made as to what can be changed in the property and how, costs several hundred zlotys. The price of a comprehensive implementation depends on its scope and the amount of work required. However, you should expect to pay several thousand zlotys.
Home staging therefore can seem expensive. However, it’s worth remembering that as the owner of an empty house, you pay a lot of bills each month while your home sits empty. If a home stager can help buyers imagine how great your living room looks with a bit of elegant furniture and tasteful decor, the cost of home staging will quickly be recouped in a higher transaction price and the saved costs that a house waiting for buyers would generate, and can even be a good investment.
What affects the price of home staging?
Most home stagers work with items and decorations that the homeowner already owns. But sometimes home stagers need to buy new accessories, fresh towels, flowers and/or fruit because these small touches make a big difference. This is especially true for an empty house. Such home stager purchases will increase the total cost of the project.
The layout of a property can also add to the cost of home staging. Home stagers often use lightweight versions of basic furniture. However, residential work that requires lifting heavy items in a multi-storey building usually means hiring extra help to move furniture.
If, for example, you inherit a lot of antiques, the home stager may recommend that you de-clutter by putting the excess trinkets into storage, adding the monthly rent to the overall cost of completion. He or she may also suggest that the seller remove unusual items of a religious or political nature, and personal items, getting rid of clutter and depersonalising the property so that buyers can more easily imagine themselves in the house.
Last but not least, the price of painting a room is an important expense that can ensure the success of home staging. To have a sample room of about 20m2 painted by a professional is an expense of about 2 thousand zlotys.
How to save money on home staging
You don’t need to pay a home stager to transform the decor of your entire home, from the basement laundry room to the attic storage room. A great way to save money when staging is to focus only on the main areas of your home.
These are the rooms where potential buyers would spend the most time – the kitchen, living room, and bedroom. Pay attention to what buyers see when they first walk through the front door. This first impression, whether it’s a bare house with no home staging or an inviting, well-appointed home, can influence whether they decide to buy and how much they are willing to pay for your property.
Another option to save on home staging is to limit yourself to consulting a home stager, rather than opting for a comprehensive service.
You can ask your real estate agent if he or she thinks your property would benefit from home staging. Your realtor may also recommend a home staging service and even offer other money-saving tips beyond home staging, based on their experience in showing properties to buyers. For example, your agent may recommend that you start by tidying up the house yourself, rather than hiring a professional home stager.
Is it worth it?
Finally, let us turn to some specific figures. In order to realise the profitability of such a procedure, it is worth comparing the costs with the potential benefits. As we have indicated, the cost of comprehensive home staging ranges from several hundred to several thousand zlotys. What return does this investment bring?
On average, flats after home staging sell 40% faster, at a better price (even 10-15% more) and without months of expenses. It is easy to calculate that the value of an average flat valued at several hundred thousand PLN will increase on average by several dozen thousand PLN. Even after deducting the costs of home staging procedures, we gain from several to several dozen thousand zlotys of profit.
Contact us to discuss how we can also help you sell your property efficiently. Looking for a home stager? Use our network of contacts and we’ll recommend someone in your area.
