What's Better : Home Stager of Home Designer?

[Jason Kim]

What's Better : Home Stager OR Home Designer?

If my budget is tight on flipping, I'd like to know which way is better to spend money on. I've talked to Home Stager and they said staging is more important I don't need a designer to design the house. And at the same time the Home Designer is saying that the actual color of the cabinet, floor, wall, window treatments are more important(having professionals to help can make things different) than just deorating house with furnitures.

Home Stager - They make the house look nicer when it's all staged. And the designs through out the house was done by me not by the professional.

Home Designer - They have the talent to make house look better than what normal people can do and it might help to sell the house quicker. But the house will not be staged.

I'm trying to just choose one to stay whinin the budget and still make the house look beautiful to sell. Please let me know what you think of it.

Thank you in advance!

[J Scott]

Bring in a home designer (or a friend who is good at that sort of stuff) ONE time. Use that one time consultation to define:

- An interior paint color scheme (walls, trim, ceiling);
- A cabinet/countertop color and type;
- Flooring types/styles/colors (carpet, vinyl, hardwood, tile)
- Specific finishes (lights, fans, plumbing fixtures, etc)
- Appliances

Once you've defined all these things (I call them all "finishings"), you can use the same ones in *EVERY* house. This does several things:

1. Saves costs on future design consultation (you won't need any)
2. Saves time buying materials in the future
3. Ensures that you can use the same staging furniture in each house, as the color schemes are the same.

In terms of staging, if you're planning to continue flipping houses, I highly recommend buying a set of furniture and just move it from house to house. Even if you pay someone to stage (and they can help you pick out the initial furniture), owning the furniture will save you a lot of money in the long run.

In fact, we've found that owning our own staging furniture actually makes money for us. When buyers put in offers, they often ask for some/all of the furniture to be included; we generally negotiate prices for the furniture that are more than what we paid (and more than what it will cost to replace).

Lastly, see if you can find a stage who will work on commission -- in other words, will charge you a set fee or percentage of the sale price AFTER THE HOUSE SELLS. There aren't too many stagers who will do this, but this is one of the things my wife does with her staging business that gets her a LOT of potential customers.