When Lisa Welgehausen put her two-bedroom condominium on the market in spring 2002, her real estate agent persuaded her to call a home stager. Her condo sold in four days. "We staged on a Friday, and it sold the next Thursday. The San Francisco housing market is good, but I'm convinced that I got more money than I would have-and it went faster," says Welgehausen.

Home staging is the increasingly popular, not to mention successful, practice of hiring a design professional to redecorate your home before you put it up for sale. An informal study by Joy Valentine, a Los Altos, California, real estate agent, indicates that the average staged home sells in 13.9 days at about 6.3 percent over list price, compared with the average unstaged home, which sells in 30.9 days and at about 1.6 percent over list price.

It may seem counterproductive to redecorate a home you're about to leave, but Arthur McLaughlin, the San Francisco staging professional who redid Welgehausen's home, thinks his services are, in fact, essential. "Home stagers provide a clean, fresh, unbiased vision-they know their market," he explains. Your home may be impeccably decorated in a French Country-meets-contemporary style, but a buyer who's about to make a major investment wants to see himself or herself in your home, not you. "People have limited imaginations," says McLaughlin. "If they see an ugly sofa, then they see an ugly room." No one's insulting your furniture, but home stagers know what trends appeal to most people. Of course, if more people are attracted to your home, then that increases the likelihood of multiple offers, which help boost the price.

Although home staging can range from a few hundred dollars to upwards of $20,000 for major changes (replacing cabinets, refinishing floors, etc.), many realtors feel these costs are recovered by the resulting increase in your home's asking price. In Welgehausen's case, the changes were cosmetic, since she had purchased the condominium in fair condition just a year ago. She'd painted and added window treatments, but didn't have time to renovate before she was offered a job in Madison, Wisconsin. To prep her home, McLaughlin rearranged the furniture, brought in some coffee tables, and added some plants, artwork, and lamps. "Arthur used my furniture with a few things he added, and pulled it all together in an amazing way, " says Welgehausen, who especially liked the black-and-white photographs of New York City, Jackson Pollock reproductions, and Persian prints he hung on the wall. In fact, she liked the Persian prints so much, she bought them to hang in her new home.

Welgehausen, who made a 16.25 percent profit on the sale of her condominium, would hire a home stager again. Only if, however, "I could find one as highly recommended as Arthur."

Where to Start?

Once you decide to sell your home, start thinking about staging "immediately," says JoAnne Lenart-Weary, a home stager based in Erie, Pennsylvania, and an HGTV regular. "Definitely before the first open house." You want to woo the first people who look with a perfectly staged house, she says, because they're the most interested.

McLaughlin agrees, noting that "different homes require different levels of work." One home may require just cleaning, painting, and furniture repositioning, like Welgehausen's, while another may require more extensive changes, like installing new carpeting or updating fixtures. "And every day your house is on the market is another mortgage payment you have to make on your old home," says McLaughlin.

Your real estate agent may work with a stager, or you can search the Web or Yellow Pages for one. Home stagers will generally tour your house for a nominal fee (usually about $100) and suggest changes. You can either take their advice and implement those changes, or hire their service to do it for you.

You can probably do the work yourself, but sometimes it may just be easier to hire a home stager, since she or he will have a network of painters, carpenters, and landscapers who will get the job done quickly and expertly. Also, most home stagers have an inventory of objects (e.g., tables, chairs, plants, lamps, area rugs) that they can use to augment your furniture and update your style. McLaughlin's inventory, for instance, features over 20,000 items; Lenart-Weary pulls from her retail store as well as supplemental inventory.

What They Do

Cleanliness is the first thing both Lenart-Weary and McLaughlin take note of in your home. "Say you were going to buy a car and there were two of the exact same cars side by side. One's clean and the other's dirty," says Lenart-Weary. "Which do you instinctively want to buy? The same goes for your house," she explains. Your kids may have smudged jam all over your walls while you lived there, but if the walls are clean at the open house, who's the wiser?

Cleaning also extends to de-cluttering. If you're not using those Christmas decorations, pack them up and out of your home before potential buyers visit. When your closets aren't jammed with four seasons' worth of clothes, says McLaughlin, they look roomier, and a home with a lot of storage is very attractive. Also, get rid of excessive knickknacks, plants, and such that don't add to the house's aesthetic. "Staging should create a clean slate for the viewer," he suggests.

One thing most home stagers recommend is painting, which is fairly inexpensive and makes every home look clean and well-maintained. The best colors are warm and neutral, and neutral doesn't mean just white, says Lenart-Weary. "The paint should suit the wood accents in the room, and white clashes with dark wood. An off-white is fine, as long as it has warm, not gray, tones." She also likes to paint the front door to welcome the buyers.

Great lighting is the last essential element. "Open all curtains and maximize light, even before the home stager gets there," advises McLaughlin. The right lighting adds atmosphere, enhances colors, and highlights a home's features. And don't undervalue the decorative properties of the right fixtures: "I can take a $200 chandelier and make it look like it costs $2,000," notes McLaughlin. And that's $1,800 you can add to your asking price.

Just ask Welgehausen about McLaughlin's powers to transform. Her home looked so good when McLaughlin finished, Welgehausen says, that a couple of potential buyers asked the realtor if they could get the condominium furnished. Indeed, a home-staging service can make the process of selling your house quick, hassle-free, and, best of all, potentially more lucrative. And maybe when the service is done, you'll love the changes so much, you won't want to move after all.

Home Staging Tips

1. Break Out the Vacuum. Clean until your home is "so clean it's ridiculous," says McLaughlin. Focus on the kitchen, bathrooms, and windows.

2. Store Nonessentials. Pack away anything that's not in use, and store it off-site. Reduced clutter makes a home look cleaner and more spacious.

3. Get a Fresh Coat. Paint is cheap and easy. It also rejuvenates a room. Opt for neutral colors.

4. Hit the Yard. Make sure the grounds are in good shape, including the lawn, flower beds, and trees.

5. Enter Smiling. Paint your front door and be sure that the doorbell works--first impressions count.