First step to selling an apartment: Get a staging company to change everything

The practice now typically costs north of $10,000

<em>From left: Staged apartment at 134 West 82nd Street and apartment before staging</em>
From left: Staged apartment at 134 West 82nd Street and apartment before staging

Home staging companies have stepped up their game.

Though not a new practice, apartment staging is now more of a full-home transformation than a game of minor alterations, used to project a certain lifestyle to potential buyers. Unsurprisingly, the cost has also reached new heights, the New York Times reported. The cheapest staging job used to run for $4,000 to $5,000. Now the least expensive typically falls in the $10,000 range. A two- or three-bedroom apartment can cost $20,000 to $30,000 to stage.

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Still, the cost seems to be worth it for some homeowners: The owner of a co-op at 170 East 78th Street paid $20,000 for a staging company to overhaul the space. The co-op sold for $2.695 million after one and a half months on the market.

“People want it to look like a shelter magazine, or like something they’ve seen on TV,” Jane Saidenberg, the design director of Studio D, told the newspaper. “It’s more elevated than it has been in the past.” [NYT]Kathryn Brenzel