Do you love decorating and real estate?

I've loved decorating for as long as I can remember. From choosing my wall color at the age of seven (royal blue to set off my white furniture) to painting a mural in my bedroom several years later. Thankfully, my mother indulged my early experiments. At least I wasn't painting the room black and covering the ceiling with tin foil like some teenagers!

I was in heaven when HGTV hit the air, finally something to watch on TV at almost any hour. It's hard to believe it wasn't all that long ago that none of these decorating shows even existed (being on HGTV twice in the last 2 years were real high points of my life).

Based on the growing awareness of Home Staging or House Fluffing as a concept, within the last two years, Home Staging shows have also made their debut on HGTV, A&E and other specialty channels with shows like: "House Doctor," "Designed to Sell," and "Sell this House."

These shows are fun, but not that realistic. After all, who has a crew of 10 or more trained people show up to transform their home over two days. And, if they did, what would it cost?

In the real world, Home Stagers do client consultations in which they identify all the steps that are necessary to prepare a home for sale. Often they do a lot of the work themselves, or involve others in the process. It doesn't generally happen over two days, so if you've let those new TV shows scare you out of trying Home Staging as a business, don't!

I started my own Home Staging business after buying, decorating and selling 6 of my own homes in about 8 years. When the last one sold for $30,000 more than it should have (after I owned it for only 7 weeks), I knew I was really onto something! It wasn't the market that changed, it was what I had done to the house that made all the difference in the new selling price!

Since that time, I've staged hundreds of homes in the $190,000 to $1,600,000 price range. I've also taught others from all over North America to start their own home staging businesses. If you think this might be the business for you, but have many doubts, here's a FREE quiz you can take.