Don’t you love checking things off of your to do list? It’s one of my favourite things to do, I find it very satisfying to review what I’ve accomplished and gaze at the little check marks beside each item. Ok, maybe I enjoy it a LITTLE more than the average person but most of us can relate to the sense of accomplishment.
A few months back, I connected with a fellow home stager in Langley through Twitter. She had commented on one of my blog posts, we began corresponding back and forth and the next thing I knew, we were setting up a coffee meeting. When Heather (yes, we’re both named Heather, we’re both home stagers and we both drive the exact same car – strange) asked me if I had ever considered starting a RESA (Real Estate Staging Association) chapter, I just about jumped out of my chair. This had literally been on my to do list for months and months and always seemed to be postponed. I was so excited about meeting with her to start brainstorming.
RESA holds merit for many reasons. Firstly, home staging is a completely unregulated industry. That means that anyone can call themselves a home stager as there are no formal criteria to meet to become a home stager. There are certification programs everywhere but they are all independent and not ‘official’. RESA is dedicated to creating solid credibility in our industry by introducing a code of ethics and ongoing educational opportunities, to name a few.
RESA chapters are all over North America and when I discovered that Vancouver/Lower Mainland didn’t have their own chapter, I was shocked. Hence the reason I added it to my to do list but somehow it just never made the transition into an action item. It is a very formalized process and operation, there will be a President, VP, Secretary, Treasurer etc. We will meet monthly to discuss our industry, new developments in home staging, arranging guest speakers and last but not least, becoming involved in our communities. RESA chapters are a great way to get our industry into the mainstream, earn credibility in the real estate community and share the impact of our businesses with realty professionals and home owners. It will also be a great way to get to know fellow home stagers and promote our industry.
If you are a home stager, real estate agent or service provider (painter, general contractor, cleaner, mover, electrician, etc) and are interested in getting involved in our RESA chapter, our next informal meeting will be on June 15th at 7:15pm. Please go to this link for all details: http://www.meetup.com/Lower-Mainland-Fraser-Valley-RESA An important note: if you are a home stager who would like to join our chapter, it is imperative that you are a member of RESA (http://www.realestatestagingassociation.com ), this only applies to home stagers, all other professions are welcome without membership.
Please join us and see what all the hype is about; we hope to see you there!
[...] back I wrote about the beginnings of the Metro Vancouver RESA Chapter, which is well underway now. Read the post here if you missed it. We’ve had 3 meetings so far and our attendance numbers have been doubling each month; we’re off [...]