Virtual Home Staging
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The vast majority of home hunting begins online. As a result, many argue that a listing is only as good as its visual presentation online. The better your images are, the more interest you will garner. The more interest you garner, the more foot traffic you are likely to receive at a property – which inherently increases the likelihood of strong and hopefully multiple offers. Home staging in the digital era has become an asset to the success of a listing.
In the good old days before COVID, it was already challenging to purge belongings in order to better market a property for sale. Home staging is not just tidying up, throwing your children’s toys in their closet and mowing the lawn. Home staging takes time, physical energy and money. What if there was a way that you could stage your home without much less work? Now you can with virtual home staging.
Arguably, one of the best times to use virtual home staging is when a property is up for sale and has been emptied of all the furniture. Vacant properties actually spend longer on the market and sell for less than furnished properties because not all homebuyers are capable of envisioning a home’s true potential without some visual aids.
It is important to know that with the advancement of technology, virtual home staging is just as easy and beneficial for homes that are already professionally decorated. A virtual home stager can provide options that show potential homebuyers what the rooms would look like with hardwood vs broadloom, or with different coloured paint on the walls.
In the photos below you can see a sample of a virtually staged property that I sold earlier this year. The suite was vacant, so furniture was added to the photo to show how the room could look when lived in. Then the walls were virtually “painted” white, to further enhance the space with a more neutral atmosphere.
Another reason to consider virtual home staging is the price. Real home staging can set a seller back anywhere from $2,000 – $5,000 or more depending on the size of the house, the items used in the staging, the time needed, etc. Virtual home staging is a tenth of that number! This is because you can pay per photo if you only need a couple rooms spruced up. Alternatively, you can get great packages. Expect to pay somewhere around $90 a photo. Package deals can be around $225 for three photos, or $325 for five. It is important to note that these are merely average figures, each individual company will offer their own prices. If you do opt to remove furniture digitally in a photo, you will generally incur an additional charge.
If you are worried that people will be confused if and when they visit the property in person and see something very different than the photos – not to worry! Your real estate agent will mention in the listing that the photos are virtually staged so that homebuyers feel guided and supported by your efforts instead of misled and manipulated.
Getting your home virtually staged is as easy as pie. All you have to do is submit your photos, browse through the company’s virtual furniture gallery and decide what furniture you want or allow the design team to make the selections for you. After a few business days you will receive the files of your new virtually staged spaces and you can throw them on your listing and any other marketing materials you would like!
If you think virtual home staging could be right for you, or you simply want to learn more about it, please feel free to reach out to me here. I would love to show you how to make your home as beautiful as possible to homebuyers.