In a slow real estate market, buyers have less incentive to buy because they know that increased inventory means asking prices may go down even more tomorrow. As listings sit on the market month after month, and in some cases year after year, they get forgotten by real estate agents and their clients.

After all, a new listing is always more enticing than one that’s been sitting around getting stale.

In most cities across the US and in some smaller markets in Canada, home sellers can be trapped in their non-selling houses for a long time, as was the case for a client of Staging Diva Graduate Holly Battaglia. She recently staged a listing that had been on and off the market for part of 2007 and most of 2009, without a single offer.

By decorating a home to be more appealing to buyers, home stagers offer the perfect solution for desperate home sellers who need a way to make their homes stand out from the competition. Congratulations to Holly Battaglia for proving that home staging can transform a stale listing into a hot property (even in a slow market).

After Holly staged her client’s home, it had 7 showings in 7 days and got the first offer.

About this single project, Holly reports that her staging fee more than covered the entire Staging Diva Program plus her listing in the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers.

That’s the cool thing about home staging as a career. You can try it out without much risk because you can quickly make back what you put into training, assuming you are learning the business side of things in the training program you take.

Not all staging training programs offer the same thing and not all are taught by people who know how to succeed as a home stager.

> Read 15 questions you should ask before choosing a training program.