Once primarily a luxury for the rich when selling their mansions, home staging is becoming popular with average homeowners seeking to get their properties off the market faster and earn more money.

The proliferation of television programs on staging a home - often providing tips on how to do it yourself - has made it a fast-growing trend at all levels of home sales.

"It has always been done at high-end properties, but now the notion has gone mass market," said Lea Katsanis, chair and associate professor of the marketing department at Concordia University's John Molson School of Business.

"The phenomenon emerged the past five years or so, and you know it's become pervasive when TV picks up on it," Katsanis said yesterday in reference to programs like Sell This House, Designed to Sell and the new series The Stagers launched last week on HGTV Canada.

House Capades, a Canadian-produced TV show in its third season airing in Ontario only, has spawned Toronto-based Haverhill Institute of Staging & Design, which recently opened a Montreal office.

Nadia Fezzani, Haverhill's director of business operations in Quebec, said 10 people in the province have enrolled in the firm's training courses already being taken by more than 800 others across the country.

"It's a booming industry and there is a voracious appetite for the service," Fezzani stressed, suggesting the Montreal area "is probably underserved."

There are interior designers, home decorators, real-estate agents and a growing number of independent home stagers who take courses like those offered by Haverhill operating in Quebec, but few companies here are devoted to the practice.

One exception besides Haverhill, which isn't offering the service here until it has trained a team of stagers, is the Bergeron family firm Groupe Accès Home Staging Québec, with three local offices.

President Carole Bergeron - who established the business in 2005 with daughter Mikal (vice-president), sister Monick (director of business development) and sister-in-law Kim (regional supervisor for the West Island) - said Quebec was slower to embrace the concept than the rest of Canada and especially the U.S.

"It's more touchy in Quebec. You need more bonding (with owners) here before you're allowed into their homes," Bergeron said. "Americans are more open and less shy."

She suggested it's less well known in the francophone community because there are fewer home-staging programs to watch in French, but with the growing inventory of houses on the market and the growing competition, Bergeron expects it to become "a very strong concept" over the next few years.

Both she and Fezzani point to industry statistics that show at least a 10-per-cent increase in the selling price of a home that has been properly staged.

Bergeron said staged homes usually sell within six weeks and often on the first visit by potential buyers, while Fezzani said it knocks about 25 per cent off the time on the market.

Margaret O'Dowd Andrews is a believer after Kim Bergeron helped sell her Pointe Claire home in one day and for $10,000 more than their asking price.

"It's incredible. We were shocked at first," O'Dowd Andrews recalled yesterday from Newmarket, Ont., where she moved with her husband and their two children after selling their bungalow in April.

"I didn't even recognize the place when I walked into the house after Kim had spent three-quarters of a day staging," she said.

"She made it so beautiful, classy and neutral, even our real-estate agent was floored."

Of the 55 visits at their open house, there were a half-dozen offers, including the buyers who sealed a deal at 7 p.m.

"You can get a lot more for your house if it looks more impressive than the competition," Fezzani said.

Carole Bergeron agrees, emphasizing the need to make clients' homes look like showroom models.

"Serious real-estate agents have been telling their clients to stage forever," said Katsanis, an expert on consumer behaviour.

"It's more competitive now, not like it used to be when you were told to bake cookies to attract buyers," she added. "But once everybody does (home staging), it kind of loses a bit of impact and buyers expect it."

With not all houses suitable for home staging, like Katsanis calls "handyman specials," she said the goal is to make the house look as big, bright and clean as possible.

mking@thegazette.canwest.com

To see a home-staging video, visit montrealgazette.com

Staging Checklist

The goal is to depersonalize a private residence before putting it up for sale. It is recommended to spend about one per cent of the asking price on staging.

- Rearrange

- Declutter

- Improve

- Do minor repairs

- Paint

- Decorate

Source The Gazette