Staging agreement says 60 day minimum then month to month, what am I signing up for

Question

An agent sent me a stager's agreement to look at for a house a family member is selling, and I ended up reading the whole thing twice because the fee structure is stranger than I expected. There's a design fee that's non refundable, then an install fee, then a 60 day minimum rental term, then a monthly rate after that, then a de-stage fee at the end. So four separate charges for what I thought was one service.

The part I can't get comfortable with is the clause making the homeowner responsible for loss or damage to the furniture while it's in the house. Nobody lives there. If a pipe bursts in a vacant listing, whose problem is the sofa? And does the 60 day clock start at install or at listing? Those aren't the same day.

Rena Guide · Accepted Answer

Taking the damage clause first, since that's the one with money attached. The furniture belongs to the stager and is on loan to the property for the term. Most staging agreements put loss and damage while the items are on site onto whoever signed, which is usually the seller. Your family member's existing property insurance may or may not cover personal property that belongs to someone else, and on a vacant house a lot of policies restrict coverage after a certain number of days of vacancy anyway. That's a conversation with the insurance agent before install, not after, and the answer depends on the specific policy.

On the calendar, the minimum term almost always runs from the install date, so if photography slips a week or the listing goes live late, you've burned days of a term you paid for. Ask for the term to be written as starting on a stated date and get the answer in the agreement rather than in an email.

The piece people miss is what happens when the sale takes longer than the minimum. Staging is typically priced as a first period plus a monthly extension, and a house that sits for five months costs materially more than the quote implies. Ask what the monthly rate is, whether it can change mid engagement, and how much notice the stager needs to pull the furniture out. Also ask what happens if the buyer wants the furniture, because that's a separate purchase negotiation and the stager may not want to sell any of it.

monica_tran3 · Answer

Four line items is normal, and the reason is that they're four different costs. Design time, labor and truck, furniture sitting in your house instead of my warehouse, then labor and truck again to pull it out. The de-stage fee catches people because they assume it's included in the install. It almost never is.

Clock starts at install in every agreement I've seen. Nobody's going to hold inventory in a house for free while you wait on photos.

ryanmck27 · Answer

One thing I got wrong when I looked at my first one of these: the non refundable design fee covers a walkthrough and an inventory plan, and stagers hold that line hard because they've done the work whether you install or not. It's the fee people try to argue about and the one you're least likely to win.

tashaford30 · Answer

Does the de-stage fee get charged even if the house sells in week two? Seems like it must, but the agreement I read didn't say it either way.

angela_burke · Answer

@quill yes, always. The truck and the crew come out regardless of why the furniture is leaving.

@warrant the other clause worth reading is access. If the stager schedules a de-stage and shows up to a locked house or a buyer's contractor already working inside, most agreements let them bill a return trip. On a vacant listing with a lockbox that's usually fine, on an occupied one it's how people get surprise charges.

Staging agreement says 60 day minimum then month to month, what am I signing up for

5 replies