If you’re looking for home staging in Florida, please take your time and make sure you research the company well before you sign a contract and hand over a check. When staging homes for sale in Florida, you can boost your sale price substantially by making a relatively small investment.
You can also reduce your time on the market, because staged homes usually fly right off the shelves! This reduces your carrying costs associated with the home, such as mortgage, HOA, and other fees.
So with staging you have two ways to increase your profit margin — first, by boosting your sale price, potentially by tens of thousands, and secondly by reducing your monthly cash outlay for the home by helping shorten your time on market.
There are several factors to consider when looking for home staging in Florida so let’s get right into it.
Choosing the Best Company for Home Staging in Florida (No Matter Where in the State You Live)
Home staging has become an extremely popular business to start. You often find it on lists of “best businesses to start” because the barriers to entry are relatively low and the pay is high. This makes it especially important for you to take the time to research the staging companies that you’re considering hiring.
What to Avoid When Searching for Home Staging in Florida
- You want to avoid companies without a verifiable track record, and you want to avoid the “hobbyist”-type companies where the person is only running it part-time and may therefore become difficult to reach when you really need to do so. You might not think this will matter because it’s not like there are a lot of emergency situations in staging. trust me, you never know what may happen!
- Don’t hire a company without photos of their actual work for you to check out. Some training programs have been known to give their students before and after photos to use for their portfolio that were not actually projects that the student worked on. Make sure you can see photos of the company’s actual work in local homes. (Check our home staging course reviews here.)
- Don’t hire a company that doesn’t respond promptly to your calls and emails. This is more common than you might think. We are all busy, but if a company can’t get back to you when you are trying to PAY THEM for a service, that is not a good sign for how you will be treated overall.
- Don’t hire a company that does not give you a contract with clear terms. You want to know exactly what your upfront charges are, what the monthly rental fee is (for the furniture and accessories), what their policy is for any damage that may occur and what your financial liability would be in that event, what the terms are for terminating service if you decide to do so, what date you will be billed for the next month of your rental, etc. ALL of these details should be spelled out clearly.
- Don’t hire a company for any home staging in Florida without seeing that they carry an appropriate insurance policy — verify this.
How to Get the Best Home Staging in Florida
In Florida, you will have some areas that are more geared toward a coastal or beachy vibe, and some areas where that isn’t the case.
Is your stager going to come in and deck your house out like the cover of Coastal Living? Is that appropriate for your area? Make sure your stager understands what aspect of Florida life your home represents.
In Florida we have all types of decorating styles, just like any other area. Staging decor is meant to appeal to the broadest range of buyers that you possibly can, so if you find a stager who is coral and seahorse obsessed and your Miami property happens to be a slick Brickell condo, that’s not a good fit.
So this goes back to making sure you see the stager’s actual work. Make sure they understand who your buyer is going to be. Not all Florida buyers are into this.
Choose a company that shows you a decor style that is designed for broad appeal, not for their own particular vision or aesthetic. Part of staging is removing the current owners’ personality so that buyers can more easily envision living in the home.
You don’t want a stager to come in and put their own unique decor style into the space. This is where you need to make sure you have a stager, not just a decorator or designer. Stagers understand that the goal is not to impart a personality into the property.
Make sure your stager is pricing appropriately for the area. If you’re in Miami your prices will be higher than if you’re in Pensacola. Prices for home staging in Florida will vary.
One thing I love to do is to ask the stager if there are any open houses coming up where you can see their work in person before you decide on which company you’re using. You can see the quality of the furniture, the attention to detail, the effectiveness and appeal of their work so much better than you can in photos. Make sure the furniture is clean and in great condition. This is more difficult if your searching for home staging in Florida but you’re in Michigan at the time.
Don’t use a company who keeps furnishings in the rotation when they are no longer in pristine condition. No buyer ever said “I want to live in the house on Oak with the dingy loveseat.” We are going for aspirational here, so make sure the items are in excellent shape.
Find Reputable Home Staging in Florida by Checking for Certification
Home staging certification is one way you may be able to verify that a stager has the proper skills. However, certification alone is not enough and you should still make sure you see their portfolio and if possible, see their work in person before you hire.
If you are using a Realtor and they refer you to the staging company, you still want to check them out on your own.
Realtors and stagers get to know each other and may have some arrangements going on between them that facilitate their relationship, ie: referrals, discounts, etc, which is fine because that is common in business, but that is between them and does not benefit you as the seller.
So just because your Realtor has someone for your home staging in Florida or anywhere else does not mean that you shouldn’t do your own due diligence. After all it can be a hefty upfront investment.
I hope this helps you decide on the right company, and I hope you sell your property faster and for a higher price!
