I’ve enjoyed being involved with home staging since I got started back in about ’04-’05. There wasn’t a clear road map to becoming a home stager back then, and even now with so many established home staging courses and programs, you can still go about it any number of ways. Let’s talk about how to get into home staging.
The main takeaway here is going to be just start doing it, and there are a few options for that.
How to Get Into Home Staging
Learn Home Staging on Your Own
This is what I did and it’s what many others have done. You can learn home staging on our own and go on to be extremely successful. Depending on how much interior design knowledge you already have, this may be the most logical path. You just have to adapt your interior design knowledge to work for staging.
Even if you have no prior knowledge (maybe a knack for decor), you can immerse yourself in the subject and become a home staging expert without a formal program. The drawbacks are that it can take longer, and you won’t have the benefit of having an instructor give you feedback so you can get even better.
Buy a Home Staging Business
I’ll be honest, I hadn’t thought too much about getting into home staging by purchasing a business until just recently. A local business was on the market and I took a look at the details, out of curiosity. It included inventory, contacts, a website, and a very solid reputation. This is definitely one route to look at if you have the budget.
Business sales usually involve some type of owner training period, or you can negotiate that into the deal. If you find the right opportunity this could be a good way to go. Be careful though, make sure you do your research.
Take a Home Staging Course
You have plenty of home staging courses to choose from these days, which is nice. I’ve mentioned before that back when I started out, it was the early days of the home staging training world and options were scarce compared to now.
You can choose an in-person program or an online course. In-person training usually runs from three to five days. Programs are offered at various locations throughout the US and Canada so you can probably find one that’s fairly close to you.
Online classes and certification programs are available in a range of prices, which you can read about in our list of home staging course reviews.
Practice
No matter which way to decide to learn home staging, you need to just start doing it. Course or no course, you should be getting your hands-on practice by staging different rooms. Stage rooms in your own home. Stage your mom’s home. Keep going until you run out of people who will let you use their homes.
Take before and after photos. Study your after photos, as this is often one of the ways you can improve. Sometimes you notice things in photos that you didn’t notice in person, such as something that could have been placed differently, or whether you achieved the overall effect you were going for.
Get the Word Out
Save your best before and after photos to use for your portfolio. Once you have a portfolio of at least five sets of before and after photos, you can start telling people you are a home stager. Tell your friends. Put it on your Instagram and your Facebook. Come up with a business name. Set your fees.
I hope this overview of how to get into home staging has been helpful. Get started! Have fun.
-C.M.
