How Skipping Staging Conversations Hurts Home Sellers’ Bottom Lines

Written by:

Rudi Davis

Date:

04 Feb 2026

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Home sellers may be losing thousands of dollars when real estate agents avoid discussing professional staging, according to Fiorenza Bilak, founder and CEO of Stage The Space, LLC. While staging is widely recognized as a tool that helps homes sell faster and for higher prices, Bilak says misunderstandings about cost, timing, and impact often prevent agents from recommending it, leaving sellers to absorb higher financial losses over time.

Bilak says the issue frequently begins with unrealistic expectations about how staging works. “Some agents expect to make a call today and have it staged tomorrow,” she explains. In practice, professional staging involves site visits, measurements, photography, design planning, proposal development, and coordination with multiple vendors. Many agents, she adds, still view staging as a simple furniture drop-off rather than a comprehensive design service.

Misjudging the Costs

According to Bilak, a more significant barrier is agents’ failure to compare the cost of staging with the ongoing expenses of leaving a property unstaged. “They worry their client can’t afford staging,” she says, “but they don’t realize that if the client skips staging, they’ll likely pay far more in mortgage, taxes, insurance, and utilities while the property sits on the market.”

When a home remains unsold for weeks or months beyond expectations, carrying costs can quickly exceed the one-time cost of professional staging. Despite this, Bilak says many agents focus narrowly on the upfront expense without walking clients through the broader financial trade-off. “If you don’t invest money, you’re not going to make money,” she says.

Agents’ reluctance to raise the topic often stems from concern about sellers’ financial stress. “They’re afraid to bring it up because clients are under pressure and short on cash.” Bilak says, “I understand that. But she argues that avoiding the conversation can ultimately cost sellers far more than staging would.

A Gap in Agent Education

Bilak’s experience reflects what she describes as a broader lack of education among real estate agents about how staging influences buyer perception and pricing. Many agents, she says, still see staging as optional or cosmetic, even though industry research consistently shows that staged homes tend to sell faster and at higher prices.

The issue is less about whether staging works and more about whether agents understand why it works. Without training in design principles, buyer psychology, and the economic impact of presentation, agents may struggle to address client objections or clearly articulate staging’s value. As a result, some sellers never hear about staging as an option, even when it could significantly improve outcomes.

Overcoming Financial Barriers

Recent changes in payment options have reduced one of the most common obstacles to staging: upfront cost. “With pay-at-closing options, sellers don’t need to pay for staging out of pocket,” Bilak says. Instead, the fee is deducted from sale proceeds at closing, allowing homeowners with limited cash flow to access professional staging services.

Despite this shift, Bilak notes that many agents remain unaware of these options or are hesitant to suggest them, limiting their adoption.

Closing the Knowledge Gap

Some companies are now focusing on agent education to address these gaps. Stage The Space, for example, has begun offering training sessions and presentations designed to help agents better understand staging fundamentals, design basics, and the financial logic behind staging recommendations.

The company is also developing a continuing education course that would provide agents with three credits toward license renewal. According to Bilak, the course will cover how design influences buyer decision-making and how to communicate staging’s economic benefits in concrete terms.

Whether expanded training will lead to wider adoption of staging remains to be seen. However, Bilak argues that as long as agents avoid the staging conversation, or lack the tools to explain it, sellers may continue to lose time and money due to misunderstandings that could be resolved through better education and clearer communication.