Home Staging for Physicians—Types, Steps, and Cost

Home staging ensures your property is market-ready through high-impact rooms—such as your kitchen, living room, and master bedroom—and creates an impression that draws more buyers to schedule showings.

If you’re a busy physician who doesn’t have the time to coordinate home preparations or wait for the right buyer to come along, home staging services are a must for you.

Read on to understand everything you need to know about them.

What Is Home Staging?

Home staging is when you make a property more appealing for sale through decluttering, cleaning, rearranging the future, and adding decorative elements. This helps you create a space where buyers can envision themselves living.

Staging also enables you to show your home to its full potential, which leads to faster sales and higher offers.  

Types of Home Staging

Home staging comes in several forms, depending on your property’s conditions and your needs. Here are the main types:

1. Vacant Home Staging

When a property is empty, vacant home staging fills the space with rented furniture and decor to help buyers visualize how each room can be used. You can later sell the home along with the furniture and decor.

This type of staging ensures the home doesn’t feel cold or uninviting, which makes it easier for potential buyers to connect with your space.

2. Occupied Home Staging

Occupied staging happens when you live in your own home and use the existing furniture and decor to improve its appeal to prospective buyers.

However, many professional stagers recommend replacing the existing furniture and adding accessories that could make the home more buyer-friendly.

3. Partial Home Staging

This type of staging involves staging only key rooms—those that are likely to influence buyers’ decisions—while leaving other areas untouched.

Examples include your living room, kitchen, or master bedroom.

Here are the most common rooms buyers want staged:

Source 

Partial home staging is a great option if you’re not in a financial position to go for a full staging, you’re saving up for expenses like your medical licensure, or paying for malpractice insurance as a clinic owner.

4. Virtual Staging

Virtual staging includes taking high-quality photos of your property and having them digitally altered with furniture and decor elements.

It helps you show potential buyers a fully furnished version of your home without having to make physical arrangements. This type of staging is great for vacant properties or homes with outdated interiors.

5. DIY Home Staging

If you’re on a tight budget because you’re applying for a costly license in another state but still live in the house you want to sell, you can follow the DIY staging route.

This involves making small improvements like decluttering, deep cleaning, and rearranging furniture.

You should only take this route if you have time because it can take months and may interfere with your clinical responsibilities.

Why Is Home Staging Important?

Home staging is necessary for physicians with demanding schedules and those in the process of relocating. Let’s understand why:

1. Faster Sales

As of June 2024, it takes an average of 58.2 days to sell a house, from putting up a listing to closing the sale.

If you’re a physician relocating to another state, you may not have the luxury of waiting for months to sell a home.

Home staging shortens the time it would normally take you to sell your home. 27% of sellers’ agents reported that staging slightly decreased the time on the market.

For physicians on tight schedules, this translates to fewer delays and faster sales.

2. Higher Offers

Staging a home increases its value in the eyes of buyers, which leads to more competitive offers.

According to 20% of agents, staged homes receive offers that are 1% to 5% higher compared to similar properties that aren’t staged.  

If you’re a physician looking to balance your financial goals with relocation expenses, this added return can make a big difference in your financial position.  

3. Better First Impressions

First impressions matter, especially in real estate, where buyers often decide within a moment whether a home feels right.

A well-staged home grabs attention and creates an emotional connection that helps buyers see themselves living in the space.

National Association of Realtors (NAR) research shows that 81% of agents believe that staging makes it easier for buyers to visualize the property as their future home, which makes for faster decisions.

How to Stage a Home

Staging a home requires more than decluttering and deep cleaning. You also need to make strategic changes that create a sense of home that resonates with buyers.

Here’s how you can make sure your home creates a powerful first impression:

1. Find Areas to Improve

Before you can stage your home, you need to find out what to stage. Start with an honest assessment of your property.

Walk through each room—are there any areas that could look better? Are there any noticeable issues like scuffed walls, broken fixtures, or outdated decor?

You need to prioritize these because buyers are drawn to clean, well-maintained places that feel move-in ready.

Aside from that, the outside of your home is the first thing buyers see, so revamp it first to create a positive first impression.

2. Create a Staging Plan

Once you’ve figured out what you want to improve, you need to create a staging plan that shows all of your home’s best features. Here’s what to do:

• Find the most important rooms. According to NAR, buyers mostly focus on your living room, kitchen, and primary bedroom.  
• Decide whether you’ll use your existing furniture or rent new pieces.
• Plan the layout for each room—you should work with an interior designer for this.

You can add decor, accents, lamps—or other forms of lighting—and make even more radical changes, such as breaking a wall to make the space feel more open.

3. Add Final Touches

Once the major staging elements are in place, you need to focus on making sure your home gives buyers the confidence that they’ve found the right place.

Start with cleaning your entire home—or use a cleaning service if you’re in another state or don’t have enough time. Buyers will notice the care you’ve put into your home.

Aside from that, open curtains and Roman blinds are also a great idea.

They let in natural light, which makes your rooms appear larger and more inviting. This is a major selling point for buyers.

How Much Does It Cost to Stage a Home?

The average cost of a home staging is between $837 and $2,924. But the actual cost depends on your home’s size, whether it is vacant or occupied, your home’s location (an upscale neighborhood will cost more), and your home’s list price.

Here are some of the costs you’ll run into when staging your home:

• Stager consultation—$300 to $600. You can reduce this cost by avoiding professional home stagers. According to the NAR, people spent a median dollar value of $400 when sellers’ agent personally staged the home, compared to $600 when it was staged using a professional service.
• Furniture rentals—$500 to $600 per room, per month.
• Staging fees—$400 to $700 for one month

This means if you have an empty three-bedroom home, you’re looking at home staging costs between $2,500 and $4,000.

This excludes cleaning, decluttering, exterior painting, face-lifts, maintenance, and purchasing furniture—all of which can add up to thousands of dollars.

Figure Out Your Finances for Home Staging With Physicians Thrive

Home staging helps you sell your home faster and for a better price. If you’re a physician looking to move to another state, a home stager will help you work around your tight schedule and get your property sold faster.

Still, staging involves many moving parts like decluttering, redecorating, renting or buying furniture, and hiring a professional staging company—all of which can be expensive.

That’s where we come in.

At Physicians Thrive, we understand the financial challenges of being a physician—especially when you’re changing states or setting up a new practice.

That’s why our team helps you create a practical budget for home staging while making sure it doesn’t impact your day-to-day expenses.

Looking to stage your home on a tight timeline? We can help you make sure your finances are ready for the task. Reach out to us today!