What’s an Accredited Staging Professional® Home Stager Anyway?
A stagehand is a person who works behind the scenes in theater, film, television, or location performance. Their work includes setting up the scenery, lights, sound, props, rigging, and special effects for many different types of productions or live performances. To me, selling a home (or trying to) is quite a production for many. There may not be a live audience per se, but many folks come through to look around, kick the tires and try to imagine daily life in a new space. How does it look? How do they feel when they’re in it? Can they imagine living there…
This is where I come in as your ASP
What’s an ASP? A Special Person? Well, maybe, but professionally speaking, the term simply means Accredited Staging Professional. It’s the ‘gold standard’ diploma of sorts and the industry’s most recognized leader in staging education — soup to nuts. The program spoke to me. I was a real estate agent who wanted to build a staging business. I knew I could turn my passion and my skill sets into a bona fide booming business. So that’s what I did. And when I did, I wanted to own the positioning of affordable home staging — that was important to me and still is.
About the ASP Course
The ASP Home Staging Training Course is intense. The curriculum is personally written by Barbara Schwarz, ASP®, ASPM®, IAHSP®, The Creator of Home Staging® and the Home Staging Industry. She’s also the President and CEO of Stagedhomes.com, Founder/Chairwoman of The International Association of Home Staging Professionals®, IAHSP.
As an ASP pupil, I received expert instruction from a curriculum based on Barbara’s staging methodology and techniques refined and reimagined over decades of time-tested research. My class was led by a StagedHomes.com certified instructor. I learned state-of-the-art Staging techniques from the top pros in the field. I was immersed in a real case study staging project and ascertained valuable, hands-on information (tips and tricks) from others who have perfected the art of staging and design. They shared best practices for catering to clients who need assistance on curb appeal improvement, de-cluttering solutions as well as editing and rearranging possessions.
When I graduated from the program, I made a commitment to launch a small business that could help people. I knew I had a “designer’s eye” (talent) but I also wanted to be able to educate sellers and agents to understand the value of staging…good staging.
The ROI of Hiring an ASP
In a recent Home Gain Survey of over 2,000 realtors, it was discovered that home staging typically provides a 586% return on investment. Whoa! Furthermore, it’s estimated that only 10% of home buyers can visualize the potential of a home. That means 90% are not going to be able to look past dirt, clutter, and imperfections. That’s where I can lend a hand…a stagehand.
Sell Your Home…Faster
Selling a home doesn’t have to be a huge production. With the right support in place and the right eye, your home will sell faster. That means that dropping your price isn’t in the plans and that nominal investment earmarked for staging services at pre-sell will make all the difference come closing.
From front yard landscaping (a.k.a lawn staging) to closets reimagined, home staging is essential to selling a home quickly. Whether it’s basic home staging, re-styling and interior design or specific developer services, painting and color consultations, long/short term furniture rental, storage logistics, and “filler” shopping, I do it all and I love it all.