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Virtual Staging A Waste of Money?

Reblogger
Home Stager with East Coast Staging & Re-design

What is the difference in virtual staging and using stock photos?  That is my biggest question....

Original content by Debra Gould

virtual stagingMany home stagers have written me to ask what I think of  virtual home staging software.

In my opinion there are two types of “virtual staging.”

The first (which I practice), is virtual because I don’t actually go into a client’s home but I give them virtual staging advice by phone based on photos they provide me with to analyze. This allows clients to have my staging advice and do the work themselves at a lower cost than if I were to do an actual home staging consultation in their home. It also allows me to offer specific staging advice to clients outside my geographic area.

The second meaning of “virtual staging” I don’t practice and don’t recommend because I think it’s a waste of a client’s money.

Virtual staging companies have entered the home staging industry that use virtual staging software which allows you to load photos of vacant rooms to a computer and manipulate them to make it look like the rooms are furnished. The goal here is to sell attractive listing photos to real estate agents for them to use on their feature sheets and on MLS.

No stager goes to the home and no real furniture goes in the house.

The software (used by a stager, decorator or interior designer), is doing the “staging” by creating images of fully-furnished rooms to show online. While I can see the application of this software as a way to simulate what you’re going to do in a home to get a client’s approval for a decorating project where you’re asking them to buy new furniture, I don’t believe it has any place in staging in the way it’s currently being promoted.

Why is virtual staging, using software to manipulate listing photos, a waste of a homeseller’s or real estate agent’s money?

Because potential buyers are going to be quite disappointed when they arrive at a showing and see that the house looks nothing like the photos they viewed online. And everyone knows a buyer in a bad mood is not a buyer that makes an offer.

Potential buyers might even find themselves wandering through the empty house wondering why the owners had to move out so suddenly. Sensing desperation, this might attract a low-ball offer, certainly not the goal of home staging!

Your job as a home stager is to romance the buyer and while photos count (considering 90% of Canadian buyers and 70% of US buyers look online for a home before ever calling a real estate agent) they don’t count for everything.

The buyer needs to be romanced when they pull up to the drive and take in the view from the curb. They have to fall in love when they walk through the front door and they have to fall deeper in love with every single room in the home they look at until they have the feeling that it’s the property they’ve been looking for.

That’s why virtual staging software misses the mark and it’s not something I promote.

Home stagers, have you heard of this new technology? What are your thoughts? Do you agree with me, do you have a different opinion or do you see potential in such technology?

Realtors, do you use virutal staging to primp your feature sheets and listing photos? Have you found people disappointed after doing an actual showing?

Please add your thoughts in a comment below so we can have a discussion about this.

 

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager and she developed the Staging Diva Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love. She just completed her fourth book, The Home Stagers Guide to Twitter: Building your home staging business one 'tweet' at a time.

Comments (6)

Sally K. & David L. Hanson
EXP Realty 414-525-0563 - Brookfield, WI
WI Real Estate Agents - Luxury - Divorce

i would not use virtual staging in MLS but perhaps at a home which may be sparsely furnished, show pictures that have furniture to give buyers a better idea of how a home could look...and spacially what fits.

Apr 22, 2010 10:47 PM
Gita Bantwal
RE/MAX Centre Realtors - Warwick, PA
REALTOR,ABR,CRS,SRES,GRI - Bucks County & Philadel

I do not like the idea of virtual staging in the mls. I would rather they rent furniture if it is a vacant house.

Apr 22, 2010 10:50 PM
Catherine Chaudemanche - Edison & Central NJ
Metuchen Keller Williams Elite Realty / Middlesex County, NJ - Edison, NJ
Full Time, Informed and Involved- Results Driven

Yes I heard about this technology, what bother me with it is that you can now manipulate the picture to make it really look the way you want, so where does one stop...

Apr 22, 2010 10:51 PM
Lenn Harley
Lenn Harley, Homefinders.com, MD & VA Homes and Real Estate - Leesburg, VA
Real Estate Broker - Virginia & Maryland

Disclosure, disclosure, disclosure.  What's the problem if the manipulated appearance is disclosed.  Buyers are not buying furniture or decorating. 

Apr 22, 2010 10:55 PM
Debra Gould
Staging Diva / Six Elements Inc. - Toronto, ON
The Staging Diva

I disagree with Lenn. Technically people aren't buying furniture or decorating, but when they buy a home they are buying in part their hopes and dreams for how they will live in that home and the lifestyle it represents to them.

Look no further than all the people living in (or losing) homes they can't afford for proof that real estate purchases are driven more by emotion than pure logic!

Apr 23, 2010 01:58 PM
Debra Gould
Staging Diva / Six Elements Inc. - Toronto, ON
The Staging Diva

Randy, thanks for reblogging my original post. And to answer your question "what's the difference in virtual staging and using stock photos?" I agree they are both part of the same slippery slope. And to Catherine's point, indeed, where does one stop?

Apr 23, 2010 01:59 PM