As prices (and stakes) soar in the real estate market, staging has evolved from simple decluttering into a bona fide and competitive profession.
Leslie Whitlock excuses himself for the third time during our phone interview. Holding his mobile away from his mouth, he shouts, “Hey, come here!” to a mover unloading too much at once from a van parked outside a Dutch colonial revival house in Pasadena, California. “Under your arm is a beautiful matelassé bedspread,” he says, politely but firmly chastising the mover. “By carrying it that way you’re crushing the linen.” Turning back to his interlocutor, he sighs. “They don’t get it. You have to keep the furniture clean and the quality high. Who wants to walk in and see somebody’s dirty chair?”
Whitlock is energetic and funny, but he doesn’t fool around. He can’t afford to. His business—staging homes to ensure they sell fast and for a premium—used to be the quaint purview of third-tier decorator housewives who glided in, tidied up a bit and arranged pretty flowers in a vase. Today, the business is fast-paced and high-pressure. Last year, Whitlock staged 800 houses. “I have three or four projects a week, 52 weeks a year,” he explains. Acquiring a poor reputation (for shabby furniture, say) could land him on stagers’ skid row.
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