As noted in my Part 1 article, home staging has been named by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of the hot business to start in 2006. That's great news, in one sense, because it raises the profile of home staging. Increasing the general public's awareness of the concept of staging is always a good thing, since you can do less "educating" and more "selling". The more people are already aware that staging exists and how it benefits them, the more staging becomes a "must do" for anyone selling a home. It will become an expected part of the real estate transaction just like home inspections and appraisals.

On the other hand, being named a hot business by a widely read publication such as Entrepreneur means if you've been thinking about it the time is now. Get established. Develop contacts. The competition among staging businesses is sure to increase in the years to come. Demand is sure to increase as well, but now is the time to jump in and do it. According to fees charged by professional home stagers you can realistically make $4,000 per month working weekends only.

Fees for consulting only (meaning the homeowner does all the work) are in the neighborhood of $100 to $150 an hour. Some stagers charge a 2 hour minimum. For this price you'd be going through the home and making a list of everything the owner can do to boost the home's appeal. You can have a ready-made check list where you check the items that apply to the particular home. But use that as your reference and make the home owner something that is highly personalized. You know, a polished report made just for them looks much more impressive than just handing them the same check-list that you use for everyone. If you can add photos it will look even better. Do the walk-through, make your notes and photos, and go back to your office to whip up your beautiful report to deliver promptly to the home owner. (This is exactly what home inspectors and real estate appraisers do). Once you've done this several times it won't take much of your time at all and you can structure your fees accordingly. My feeling is that there will be so much for your clients to do to prepare their homes, you definitely need to give them something to refer to. Walking through the house rattling off a "to-do" list is not enough.

Flat fees often work better than an hourly fee. You can just say "My standard fee for consulting is $200, and that includes preparing a detailed report for your home". To me that sounds like a better deal than the rather open-ended "I charge $100 per hour".

In future articles we'll discuss more aspects of pricing your services, as well as marketing and other start-up issues.

For more from Jackie Riley including free staging tips go to http://www.redesignforprofit.com To see more about starting up a staging business go to http://www.redesignforprofit.com/starting-home-staging-business.html