Change or Career - Becoming a Home Staging Professional

The career of a professional home stager might seem pretty inviting. No long university education is necessary, and you can become your own boss with your own time management and income limited only by your own limits. There is huge market potential in this business, as there have been nearly 10,000 sold houses and condos in Toronto only in July. Everything sounds so wonderful, doesn’t it? The administrative part of becoming a stager is not too difficult. You just have to get a certificate from a staging course so that you have something to present yourself to your clients. With options to rent furniture, you need only a small capital for the beginning. And all the rest is up to your real skills. But before you start, it's crucial that you know what home staging is and what it is not.

First - home staging is NOT the same as home decoration, but actually the contrary! Home decorators have to understand their client's personality and then make the home to suit his/her traits the best. Home stagers, on the other hand, should make the home free of any client's personality traits. Since you can never know who the potential buyer will be - maybe a young professional? A couple of elderly people? A student of philosophy? You should emphasize the strong sides of the property, but also the buyer should have some room left for his/her own imagination.

A good house staging professional should be empatic enough to be able to get along with all kinds of people - apart from having a great visual imagination and creativity, of course. You will have to create one harmonic entity out of many pieces of furniture, art and decoration. You absolutely need to have is the proper eye for detail, which will tell you whether a combination of a candle, a bowl of fruits or a book with a pair of glasses will emphasize or destroy the specific atmosphere of the place. If you look closely, at each property you will find some pros and cons, asking to be pointed out or suppressed.

First you will need to get some practice. Why don't you try to work with your own home first, then maybe your parents' home or your son's condo? Always ask someone for his/her opinion when you are done. And as soon as you get enough confidence, start on the open market! Leave a few business cards with the local real estate agents, get some newspaper adverts and check for furniture rental places around. In the upcoming days, weeks and months, you will have to try very hard. However, if you manage to hold on and keep up good quality of your work, you can soon get a few referrals and this will help you further. If you endure some time, home staging business will for sure reward your creativity and determination.