In today’s HOT real estate market, you only get one first-impression to sell your listing. As real estate agents, we’ve all had that one listing that featured outdated furniture, unattractive furniture, or even no furniture; and we know how difficult it is to sell an empty house or one that is decorated with outdated furniture. Well, we have the solution for you, Virtual Staging.
In today’s digital age, listing a property requires extensive online advertising, and advertising an empty home or one that features unattractive outdated furniture makes even the best home a hard sell. The photos need to be enticing, and unattractive outdated furniture can be an eyesore. And an empty home can make a home appear unattractive or small to buyers. But, with virtual staging, the real estate game is changed! Gone is the days when unattractive outdated furniture or an empty listing holds us back from getting a deal done! Virtual staging tools take staging one step further. It makes a listing stand out and allows buyers to visualize their dreams –not only in their minds –but on their monitors or mobile devices. It pulls on their heart strings and takes a professional photograph of an ordinary home and changes it into a breathtaking image that stirs your buyers’ emotions and imaginations to prompt dreams about how they’ll live in that house.
WHAT IS VIRTUAL STAGING?
Virtual home staging is a home staging method in which an interior design is created in a graphic editor rather than in person by purchasing and moving in furniture. The main goal of this type of staging is to create a highly realistic image of a property. Virtual staging is a service used to improve a buyer’s impression of a property available for sale or rent that subsequently leads to significant sales growth
WHY REAL ESTATE LISTING AGENTS SHOULD UTILIZE VIRTUAL STAGING
Virtual staging is significantly more cost-effective than hiring an interior decorator to stage the property; with the ability to reduce the cost of staging by up to 97 percent. It is a powerful tool that can attract buyers to your listing. In a 2018 home survey about home staging, 68 percent of homes sold for 9 percent more money thanks to staging. Considering that statistic and that virtual staging also saves money, the return on investment is much higher than traditional staging. It is also more time efficient as it only takes a day or two to complete the virtual staging process
Primarily used to assist in the sale of vacant homes, virtual staging removes the need to purchase and haul in furniture to make a listing seem more attractive to buyers. Virtual staging helps spaces stand out and makes it easier for buyers to picture themselves in a home. It’s an excellent way to demonstrate usable spaces in online listings
With limitations to showing properties in person due to COVID-19, virtually staged listings have proven a safe, cost-effective, and time-efficient alternative to staging and showing listings through professional photography. Virtual staging costs only $225 to $325,which equates to approximately 10 percent of traditional staging costs.
In today’s hot market, real estate agents lack the time necessary to properly stage a property in person, and we all know that time is of the essence in today’s market. When marketing a property, there is an urgency to getting the listing up and running within days –not weeks –of obtaining a signed listing agreement. Virtual staging provides the opportunity to meet these time restraints and attract buyers to visit your listing.With 81% of prospects finding it easier to visualize the property as their future home when it is staged, it makes the fees associated with virtual staging worth the cost
There are many positives of virtual staging, including its ability to showcase a property’s full potential, its non-invasive, fast, and flexible. According to the National Association of Realtors®,“77 percent of buyers’ agents say that staging makes it easier for buyers to visualize themselves living in a home.” Because the benefits of staging a property have a direct impact on listing performance, and as many as 38 percent of sellers’ agents say that they stage a client’s home prior to listing the home, virtual staging was introduced to provide the same benefits as staging a home to agents who prefer a more cost-effective and timely alternative
Virtual staging is best suited for vacant homes, homes featuring outdated furniture, and properties housing tenants.
EFFECT ON BUYERS IMPRESSION
As a seller’s agent, it’s understandable to expect you to wonder how many buyers change their opinion about a property after it has been virtually staged. 49% of sellers stated that virtual staging makes sense for most clients. While 48% of buyers say virtual staging is attractive to them, but it doesn’t always have an effect of their purchase decisions. And only a small 4% of realtors claim that virtually staging a home does not increase the sales and have little to no impact on potential buyers
If you’re listing an empty, cluttered, or outdated property, virtual staging can be an excellent tool to put the listing’s best foot forward. By ensuring the space is presented as appealing as possible for potential buyers, virtual real estate staging can earn you more property views on and offline and create faster sales
Citations:
- Profile of home staging. (2019, March 14). Retrieved March 11, 2021, from https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics/research-reports/profile-of-home-staging
- Networx. (2017, February 06). Virtual home staging is the new wave in home selling. Retrieved March 11, 2021, from https://www.foxnews.com/real-estate/virtual-home-staging-is-the-new-wave-in-home-selling
- INTERVIEW: Aleksandr Lanin explains the value and costs of VIRTUAL STAGING. (n.d.). Retrieved March 11, 2021, from https://www.cityrealty.com/nyc/market-insight/features/future-nyc/interview-aleksandr-lanin-explains-value-costs-virtual-staging/13764
- Bersin, A. (2020, October 10). Virtual staging: An innovative way to impress buyers. Retrieved March 11, 2021, from https://www.redfin.com/blog/impress-buyers-with-virtual-staging/
- The effect of VIRTUAL staging on real estate prices. (2020, May 12). Retrieved March 11, 2021, from https://www.spotlessagency.com/blog/the-effect-of-virtual-staging-on-real-estate-price/