King Sized Bed fits nicely into this space.

What’s the virtual staging trap? Thinking you can stage a home ‘virtually’ using modern tools and have it sell faster.  Virtual Stagers use photo-editing software to doctor your listing photos of empty (or poorly furnished) homes to make them more enticing to buyers. The idea is that you can get a buyer interested in your listing by showing them pretty pictures of the property. But what happens once the buyers tour the home in-person?

The art (and it is an art) of staging is about more than just making your listing look better in the photos. Yes, stunning visuals are important in properly marketing a property, but what happens when your buyer, drawn in by a compelling listing photo, arrives only to find sterile, empty rooms when they tour the property. They can’t sit down in a ‘virtual’ family room and imagine themselves watching the big game while the kids play on the floor. They can’t sit at a ‘virtual’ dining table and imagine holiday dinners with family and friends.  Staging is about creating a mood for your buyer. Like set decoration for a stage play or a movie, staging helps set the tone for the scene you want the buyer to experience when they tour the property.

We had a client recently who thought they could save some money by staging some of the bedrooms virtually. The rooms looked good when you saw them on the Internet. When buyers got to the property, however, most thought the bedrooms look smaller in real life. Buyers could not ‘see’ the rooms, the virtual staging wasn’t there and they could not imagine the space since it was not furnished. The listing sat on the market and we were called in to do traditional staging.

Consumers are savvier, they watch HGTV and read style blogs, they know what they like and don’t like. A good Stager will complement the style of the property and reflect the taste of the area’s demographic with their furnishings. Home Staging can help your buyers feel good about your listings, help you sell faster and for more money.

Call us today, we look forward to speaking with you about your listing.

This article from Inman provides an excellent breakdown of the various levels of Home Staging services offered in the market. What level is right for your listing?

Let’s explore the levels for a moment.

Level 1 - Organizational Staging: Staging at the most basic level. Your Stager comes in and helps you reorganize the stuff in your home to make it more presentable.

Level 2 - Partial Staging: Your Stager reorganizes your stuff and enhances the look with accessories from their inventory.

Level 3 - Vignette Staging: Your Stager highlights a few spaces in one or more rooms with accents to help create a mood.

Level 4 - Symbolic Staging: Fake furniture, possible cardboard standees, are used to give the space some dimension. (Yeah, we don’t do that).

Level 5 - Virtual Staging: Using a computer to augment the space with virtual furnishings to improve your listing photos. Can attract eyeballs to the listing by filling empty spaces, but falls short for ‘in-person’ showings since the space is still empty.

Level 6 - Full Staging: Your Stager fills the empty home with furnishings that will set your listing up for success. Not only do you get gorgeous photos of the home to attract buyers, buyer’s have that ‘wow’ moment when visit the property in person. Full staging helps the buyer visualize the space in context and helps your listing sell faster and for more money.

Read the full article for a detailed analysis.

How to make staging possible — regardless of budget

Beach living!

Do you need some raw numbers to sell your client on the importance of Home Staging? We have some data you can use in your presentation. According to a 2019 study of 900 Real Estate Agents by Homelight, Home Staging is an important part of their marketing arsenal.

Why We Stage

Home Staging is useful in helping a potential buyer see the space in context. An empty room may appear to be smaller than it actually is. With the room furnished, your buyer can visualize how their things might fit into the same space.

Staging also helps attract a buyer during their initial search. Research shows that buyers decide what homes to visit based on their internet searches. A staged room creates a mood that can entice the buyer to add the home to their list. An empty room has a higher bar to reach to elicit the same emotional reaction from the buyer.

Statistics in the Study

1. 67% of top agents say that home staging helps a seller fetch more money at close, while over 50% say that staging increases a home’s value from anywhere between 1%-10%.

2. A quarter of agents believe staging increases interest from the buyer and attracts more bids.

3. 92% of agents believe staging is beneficial to the sale.

4. 83% say listings sell faster when staged.

5. 75% of agents surveyed provide complimentary staging to their sellers.

There are more interesting tidbits in the survey, but the bottom line is Staged Homes attract more buyers, sell faster and sell for more money.

According to Wikipedia, the word Blog is 'a truncation of "weblog"‘. A Blog is a ‘discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order, so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page.’

With our new blog, we endeavor to explore things that interest us about Home Staging and Interior Design. Trends in the marketplace and new style trends we see emerging. We hope we can entertain and educate at the same time.

If have any questions about interior design or home staging for your real estate listings, use the Contact Us page on our website. You can also check out or profiles on Facebook, Yelp and Houzz.