Home Staging is a "No Brainer" to new buyer

This past weekend, I went to visit a dear friend in another Oregon town. She recently purchased a home after several months of looking. Unfortunately, properties in her area seem to be ridiculously overpriced with a huge glut of homes sitting for months and months without any interest being shown. So price was her first obstacle to overcome. Second was the condition of the homes she saw. In all, she viewed 53 properties before she found what she was looking for at an affordable price. The homes that were in good shape and showed well were price-inflated. In those priced a bit lower, my friend was amazed at the way most of these homes looked. Dirty, outdated, cluttered, funky decor etc. She told me, from a buyers perspective, that she was turned off from the minute she stepped inside some of these homes and couldn't figure out why sellers and listing agents weren't using professional stagers to help them prepare properties for sale. That remains my question du jour most days. I promote home staging on a daily basis, educating agents and sellers alike about what buyers see when they walk into a home. With a background in marketing working as a staging professional, I'm trained to see things from the consumers' perspective.  It was refreshing to hear my words coming out of the mouth of a real life, home buyer...buyers do and should expect to see worthwhile "products" on the market and are turned off by much of what they see. I can't suggest strongly enough that home sellers slip on the buyers' mocassins and try to look at your home from their perspective. Most sellers can't be objective and can't emotionally detach from a home enough to see it other than through rose colored glasses.  EVERY professional stager can.