Costs of a professional stager. Is it worth it?

[Gregory Montalto]

We are about to put a historic 1919 home renovation flip on the market next month, and we want the house to show especially well in order to highlight the type of renovation work our company is capable of (and to get top market price on the house)

For a complete staging on a 1,500 sq ft house I've been quoted $1,500. This includes furniture rental, all set up and take down, and "professional quality interior design."

To compare, I looked into rental furniture for doing the staging set up ourselves. The quote was around $1,500 for 3 months (minimum) of full room furniture and furnishings for each room in the house - though I think we could get by less items as recommended by the rental store and get it down closer to a thousand dollars.

Option C is spending ~2-3K to purchase furniture/furnishings and store it in a garage we already own and have ample space in.

The AVR of the house is ~175K, so we're looking at 1% of the price of the house.

Given we plan on flipping several houses a year, and we are creative types with a some limited background in interior design, we'll likely go with Option C and do it ourselves.

I'd be curious as to people's experiences with professional stagers, and whether you felt you got proper value and return on your investment at the end of the deal.

(and also to see how the rate of $1,500 for staging services compares in other parts of the country)