After weeks of gruelling advocacy, home staging and styling businesses in the ACT have been granted permission to resume work during lockdown, but the income loss already suffered may put some businesses into the ground.
The ACT Government has announced home staging businesses may recommence work, after a submission was put forward by Adorn Home Staging and Magenta Home Staging, on behalf of their business peers, that detailed a Covid-safe proposal for their industry.
Home staging and styling businesses are often engaged by real estate agents or vendors to enhance a property’s presentation to potential buyers. They can readily stage a property without the homeowner being present.
Director of Magenta Home Staging, Wendy Osborne, said she was unsure if it was their joint proposal that tipped the government’s decision, but regardless, it’s such a relief.
“It’s fantastic. Everyone is thrilled, we’re over the moon!” Ms Osborne said.
“We’re not 100 per cent sure if it was the proposal that helped the decision, it isn’t clear to us what exactly happened. Maybe it was some lobbying, but it just suddenly happened.”
Over the past weeks, home staging businesses had been feeling the jaws of lockdown and had serious concerns about the future of their livelihoods.
“Our industry is really struggling, and we have lost all of our income, yet we still have significant outgoings and there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel,” Ms Osborne said a few days before the welcomed announcement.
The full impact of the loss of income over the first seven weeks of this lockdown is difficult to predict, but she is optimistic.
“We’re hoping that people who had been holding off putting their homes on the market will now go ahead, and hopefully we will be able to catch up and get out of this situation with not much of a deficit,” she said.
“It was only a short time, but the terrifying part was the chance it was going to last longer.”
The government didn’t reach out to the two business owners who sent the submission to let them know they were able to work again, and the information provided on the ACT Covid Business FAQ website provides little information around Covid-safe protocols.
“They didn’t let us know, we just found out. I know the business director of Adorn Home Staging Samantha Mallinson is going to talk to them today, because not a lot of information was published and we don’t want the opportunity to work to be taken away from us again, so we’re going to be making sure we are complying with every regulation,” Ms Osborne said.
“It’s just such a relief to know our companies can grow and can continue to pay and keep our staff on.”
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