The benefits of staging a home

IS staging a magic bullet that moves a house into the sold column?

Professional stagers -- the people who come into a home and make it look like Martha Stewart lives there -- are growing in ranks, in no small part thanks to the stagnation of the real estate market.

Sellers today are ready to try pretty much anything to defrost a frozen-on-the-sidelines buyer. Five years ago, there were only a few hundred professionally trained stagers, says Shell Brodnax, owner and chief executive of the Real Estate Staging Assn. Now, there are more than 20,000 in North America.

On the most elementary level, staggers de-clutter, rearrange furniture and accessorize a house. To those more prone to hyperbole, they set an emotional tone for a home, one that suggests a lifestyle and perhaps "speaks" to potential buyers in a way that a kid's roller blades left in the middle of the living room just can't.

Stagers aren't maids or house cleaners. But they understand why a couch's backside shouldn't face the entrance to a room. And they can create a living space that is, in general, far better than the one the homeowner occupied.

What stagers charge depends on the services rendered. For about $150, a stager will do a walk-through, giving a written report -- or expecting the owner to take notes -- on what needs to be done. If it's an empty house, furniture may need to be rented and the price could go up significantly.

But each month that a home languishes on the market is also costly, Brodnax notes.

Does staging work?

Though the National Assn. of Realtors has not done market research on the effect of staging homes for sale, NAR spokesman Walter Molony acknowledges that the topic frequently comes up. In a 2005 study -- at about the peak of the market -- Coldwell Banker tracked 2,772 properties, ranging in price from $229,000 to $4.8 million, in eight major U.S. cities. It found that while the average home was on the market for 31 days at that time, the typical staged home sold in just under 14 days. And while the average unstaged home sold for 1.6% above the asking price, staged homes went for 6.3% more.