The adage, “Necessity is the mother of invention,” could apply to the home staging phenomenon that is taking place in the Midwest.

“Staging, in general, has evolved because the need is there,” said GraceAnn Simoni, owner of Midwest Staging and Redesign Institute in Naperville, a company that trains people in interior redesign and how to stage homes. “Back in 2001, when I used the word ‘staging,’ it was like I was speaking Chinese.”

Home staging is preparing a home to be more visually and emotionally attractive to potential buyers. Stagers objectively view a home as a product and highlight its assets while downplaying any flaws. Home sellers usually cannot view their home objectively, and many real estate agents do not always have the time or resources needed to stage a home for sale.

Simoni had her own wallpaper-hanging business for 17 years before starting Yours Redesigned, an interior redesign company, in 2001.

“When my (redesign) business started, it was an affordable way to get a house decorated without new furniture,” she said. “Everyone is entitled to a nice-looking home.”

But Simoni also saw a trend in how homes were being altered to appeal to home buyers. In addition, the recent downturn of home sales helped open a new niche business for some people. Simoni opened her training company in 2005.

“My business has doubled since then,“ she said. “And my personal business (Yours Redesigned) has increased. The need is definitely there.”

Donna Posuch and Patrice Bertheau, certified staging professionals, are graduates of Simoni’s training course and are now co-owners of Stage to Impress, LLC, in Aurora.

Posuch and Bertheau note that when people decorate a home they do so in order to personalize the space. The goal of staging a home is to depersonalize it.

“A home designed to live in is different than a home that is staged,” Bertheau said. “We remove furniture to make the home look more spacious, and we make sure that the television set is not the focal point of the room. Staging is much more than de-cluttering and de-personalizing. It is not just taking down family photos.”

The Stage to Impress owners perform an evaluation of a home and offer recommendations as to what needs to be done to make it most appealing to the widest range of buyers. A one-hour consultation costs $150.

“We have to see the home in order to know what has to be done,” Posuch said. “We will walk through the home with a buyer’s eye and perspective.”

Said Bertheau, “We point out what we think can really highlight the assets of a home. We make sure a buyer’s eye travels to the fireplace or to a beautiful backyard.”

The duo’s clientele is primarily real estate agents who are selling the homes, but the company has done redesign consultations for individuals as well.

“We have done it when it was just a walk through,” Bertheau said. “We leave the homeowner a list of suggestions. Then they can have us implement the suggestions, if they like.”

The two stagers give clients estimates on how long a staging will take and charge $150 an hour for their time and effort to move furniture and other items.

“Many times a staging will mean rearranging the furniture, bringing in accessories or redistributing items of furniture and other things to different parts of the home,” Posuch said. “With the client we agree on what rooms we should do and how much should be done in each room.”

Simoni believes that the home staging trend started about 25 years ago on the West Coast.

“What brought it to the Midwest was TV shows like those seen on HGTV (Home and Garden Television),” she said. “Those TV shows are seen by everybody. That helped my business. I did not have to explain it to people. They would say, ‘Oh, just like on TV.’”

Posuch estimates that some area stagers have been in business about nine years.

“People in this area think that real estate agents come in and de-clutter and de-personalize the home and they think that is staging, but it is not,” Posuch said. “Because staging is relatively new in the Midwest, many real estate agents are not familiar with exactly what this service is. But there are agents who do understand it and some real estate agents do staging work as well.”

Statistics seem to indicate that it pays to stage, at least according to HomeGain, a leading provider of online marketing solutions that connects real estate agents with home buyers and sellers. A 2003 HomeGain survey of 2,000 real estate agents in the United States found that staging could increase the sale prices of homes by anywhere from $2,275 to $2,841.

In addition, home staging can take some of the pressure off of selling a home.

“There is some stress (in selling a home) even if the move is something that you want,” Simoni said. “If the home stager comes in and because of their work you can sell the home fast, it is a bonus. Then the stress is eliminated.”

And, in the current real estate market, staging may be the advantage that home sellers need.

“There is a lot of competition out there,” Posuch said of selling homes. “If people want the edge, they really have to stage the home.”