I recently wrote a post about how 70%-90% of buyers don't "see" how a vacant can look with furnishings; basically, they see a big empty room.

As I mentioned in that post, I've heard numbers between 10%-30% of the population can visualize spatial relationships, but I couldn't find proof of those numbers.  After a bit of digging, I found the following on Wikipedia about visual/spatial thinking:

"Research by Child Development Theorist Linda Kreger Silverman suggests that less than 30% of the population strongly uses visual/spatial thinking, another 45% uses both visual/spatial thinking and thinking in the form of words, and 25% thinks exclusively in words. According to Kreger Silverman, of the 30% of the general population who use visual/spatial thinking, only a small percentage would use this style over and above all other forms of thinking, and can be said to be 'true' "picture thinkers".

This is from a paper Silverman wrote titled, "Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual-Spatial Learner".  If you're interested, you can learn more at www.visual-spatial.org.

With stats to back up the statement, I can now confidently include that information in furture staging presentations further demonstrating the importance of staging vacants.

I hope you find this information useful, too.