The History of Home Staging - Sandra Best Decor

Home staging is the act of preparing a private residence for sale by making it appealing to the most amount of buyers.

Before home staging became a marketing tool , real-estate agents would recommend that property owners cut the grass and keep the house tidy.

In 1972, preparing a home for sale was actually named “home staging” by Barbara Scharz. The then interior decorator and real-estate agent realized that homes that were better presented sold a lot faster and for more money.

Barbara Schwarz

Barbara’s methods became very popular in the USA in the late 2000’s as the recession turned real estate into a buyer’s market. Real estate agents, sellers and investors started looking for techniques to make their homes stand out from the rest. Home staging then slowly made it’s way to anglophone provinces and finally to Quebec.

Today Home staging is a lot more then cutting the grass and keeping a home tidy!

Our current market is still a buyers market and potential buyers are more savvy then ever.

Most potential buyers are looking into a turn key home that they can move right in and not have to do anything.

Also with some of the incentives, people may have access to property without having any money to renovate. Some of those incentives are:

-Home Buyers plan

-Low interest rates

-Mortgage pre-approval

I’m really glad home staging came along. I discovered I had a gift after helping my dad with his multi-unit. He was having a hard time renting out his apartments and attracting renters that would not trash the space.

I suggested we do a few minimal repairs and updates, we rented furniture to “stage” the apartments and we listed them.

The result was amazing, people came and signed the lease on the spot, and my dad was also able to increase the rent. The best surprised was to see that everyone who rented did so for a long term and they actually took good care of their space.