Best Accredited Home Staging Certification
Accredited or not, the real goal is finding a course that actually prepares you for real-world staging success. Here’s our guide to the best home staging certifications – some carry official accreditation, others just deliver outstanding results.
Do Home Staging Courses Need to Be RESA Accredited?
If you’ve started researching home staging certification courses, you’ve probably come across the term RESA accredited. RESA stands for the Real Estate Staging Association, a trade group that created its own accreditation process for home staging course providers. Their goal is to set standards in an industry that isn’t regulated by any government body.
But here’s the key point – RESA accreditation is optional. It’s not required by law, and it doesn’t make or break a course. In fact, RESA itself admits that many excellent training providers choose not to be part of the accreditation program. Their exact words are: “Participation is voluntary. Many excellent training providers are not part of the program.”
That’s straight from the source.
What this means for you is that a course doesn’t need RESA’s seal of approval to be high-quality, effective, or worth your time.
What really matters is whether the course teaches you practical, real-world skills that help you stage homes confidently and professionally. A RESA-accredited course might tick boxes on a checklist, but a non-accredited one could still give you better templates, better examples, and better support.
The takeaway?
Don’t dismiss a course just because it isn’t RESA accredited. Look at student reviews, compare what’s included, and consider how well it will prepare you for working with clients. Accreditation might look good on paper, but your portfolio, confidence, and hands-on skills are what will actually land you staging jobs.
The Real Mark of a Good Home Staging Course
Accreditation is just one piece of the puzzle – and honestly, it’s not even the most important one. What really matters is whether the course prepares you to succeed outside the classroom.
You want a course that teaches you how to stage homes beautifully, work with clients, market your services, and build a business (or career) you’re proud of.
So what should you actually look for? For starters, pay close attention to reviews and testimonials from past students. Did they feel supported? Did they land staging jobs afterward? Are they still in the industry? Real feedback from real students tells you far more than any accreditation badge can.
Also look at what the course includes. Are there downloadable templates you can use with your clients? Are the lessons practical, or just theory? Will you learn how to price your services, create before-and-after photos, and impress real estate agents? These are the kinds of things that make or break your success – not whether a course meets a list of 60+ criteria set by a trade group.
At the end of the day, the best home staging course is the one that gets you results. If a program offers strong training, ongoing support, and tools you can actually use in the field, it’s worth far more than any fancy accreditation logo at the bottom of a website.
So, What Are the Best Home Staging Certification Courses?
We’ve written an entire article comparing the best home staging certification courses in detail – including what each course offers, who it’s best for, and how much it costs. But if you’re after a quick summary, here’s what you need to know.
Our top pick for 2025 was the Home Staging Institute. It stood out for its affordability, flexibility, and practical approach to training.
While it’s not RESA-accredited, we found that students consistently praised the course for its real-world value, downloadable templates, and clear path from beginner to working stager. In a field where hands-on results matter more than fancy titles, it really hit the mark.
Other courses we reviewed also had strong points – some with RESA accreditation, others with more structured classroom formats – but none struck the right balance of value, convenience, and effectiveness quite like the Home Staging Institute.
If you’re ready to dive deeper and compare all the top options side by side, you can read the full breakdown in our separate guide: The Best Home Staging Certification Courses.