Virtual Staging: An Alternative to Traditional Staging

By Angie Bersin, Redfin

As technology continues to improve, growing numbers of home sellers find themselves looking into the benefits of using virtual staging to help sell their home. But just what is virtual staging and how does it stack up against physically staging a home to sell?

As the name implies, virtual staging is done on the computer rather than in real life. This means that, unlike traditional staging, you don’t rent any furniture, decor, or accents. Instead, virtual staging digitally inserts all of those same items into photographs of empty rooms in the home. This, in turn, helps to attract potential buyers online to tour the home, where they can then use their imagination and consult the virtual staging photos in order to envision how each room would look with furniture inside.

Preparing for Virtual Staging

One of the most important steps when preparing to virtually stage a home is to professionally photograph the rooms that will be virtually furnished. It’s crucial that these images are high-resolution to ensure that the final listing product is perfected for online buyers.

Professional Photographed RoomIt's important to have a room professionally photographed in high resolution. Virtually StagedThe same room after it has been staged

Make sure to remove any unwanted items before capturing each room on camera - this will speed up the process of editing. Once the photos are primed and ready for staging, the virtual stager can add furniture and decor to compliment the overall style of the home. High-quality listing photos improve the final staged product by giving the stager the opportunity to work with an ideal canvas.

Benefits of Virtual Staging

Virtual staging is usually a lot less expensive than traditional staging is. Here’s a quick glimpse at what you’re looking at:

Virtual staging costs somewhere between $39 and $199 per room, depending on the contractor you use, your location and the amount of space you need staged.Traditional staging can cost several hundred dollars per month, depending on the stager you use, how much furniture you need to rent, your location and the number of rooms you need staged.

Here are a few additional benefits of virtual staging:

• Can help you showcase an empty home’s best features
• Is cost-effective when compared to traditional staging
• Attracts prospective buyers’ attention online
• Offers you the opportunity to stage any number of rooms
• Allows you to stage flex rooms in multiple ways

Drawbacks of Virtual Staging

Being able to see the home fully furnished is the main benefit of traditional staging. It allows prospective buyers to walk into a home and picture themselves living there without any of the guesswork of what kind of furniture they may need to purchase and where to place it. That work is done for them and, as a result, 33 percent of Realtors say that the home’s value actually increases an additional one to five percent when professionally staged, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

Here are some reasons you may want to stick with traditional staging:

• Gives buyers real-life perspective when they tour the home
• Prevents buyers from having to tour a completely empty, vacant home
• Appeals to buyers’ sense of imagination
• Makes spaces appear larger and enables prospective buyers to gauge size
• Helps your home stand out in buyers’ memories after they leave

Regardless of which method you choose, it’s important to make sure your home looks ready to sell before it’s listed. First impressions are often a deciding factor for buyers and staging is a powerful tool to create a strong impression and sell your home quicker.

For more information visit www.jmaurophoto.com/virtual-staging.

Contact JMAUROPHOTO at [email protected]