Just days before Christmas, she staged a 2,100-square-foot Moorpark home listed at $790,000. It sold for close to asking price in about two months. Staging cost: $3,000.
Vacant homes are the hardest to sell, stager Tebyani said, because would-be buyers don't have a frame of reference. "They can't envision their furniture, their couches in the living room, and if there's an awkward floor plan, they can't see ways around it," Tebyani said.
Staging shows them the potential, she said. Empty houses also feel cold and are off-putting to buyers, she said.
Tebyani charges $250 for a two-hour written consultation. De-cluttering is definitely part of most jobs, she said. Her company changes $450 for a half-day and $850 for a full day. A crew of workers comes out to the house, de-clutters, rearranges furniture and provides accessories where needed.
"We do everything . . . paint, whatever needs to be done," she said. "We can do a full overhaul if needed."
"It just makes all the difference in the world," said Lana Ng, broker with Prudential California Realty, San Marino, who regularly recommends it to sellers. "Staging helps a buyer visualize a home's potential."
But not all realty agents give a carte blanche stamp of approval to staged homes.
The National Assn. of Exclusive Buyer Agents in August issued a report, "How to Not Get Tricked by Staging," at www.naeba.org/staging. The report outlines some common staging practices and how they could influence a buyer to purchase a home that might be hiding serious defects.
"We represent buyers and we want them to see past the staging of a home," said Jon Boyd, 2007 president of the buyer agents' association.
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"A well-staged home isn't always the same as a well-maintained home," he said. "Remember, you are not buying the pretty furnishings; you are buying the house."
Stager Minch rejects the idea that buyers are being misled by staged homes. "My job as a stager is not to hide structural flaws or defects. We always suggest that the homeowner repair any flaws or structural defects before putting the home on the market," she said. And prudent buyers should have a home inspected as a contingency of the sale offer.
A consumer-beware twist for the seller is that not all stagers are created equal. Although the staging industry has ballooned in recent years, it lacks a national accrediting or licensing board, so there is a certain "hang up a shingle and earn as you learn" element to it -- making choosing the right stager extremely important.
