Virtual Home Staging
In today’s society, almost all purchases and research begins online. Whether a person is looking for a great Italian restaurant, looking to purchase a smart phone, or looking to buy a new car, most people start their search online. The same is true for people looking to purchase a home or find a rental. The search for real estate starts on the Internet, not in the “homes for sale” section of the newspaper. With web sites like Trulia, Zillow, Realtor.com, and Craigslist, online searches are done easily and without a licensed Realtor. Other aspects of real estate have also gone virtual and home staging is one of them.
Home staging is the process of putting furniture, paintings, and other home furnishings in an empty house for sale. Staging has increased over the past several years since it is a widely known fact that staged homes sell more quickly than homes that are empty. Virtual home staging has become much more popular as well and is becoming a new, innovative method for listing properties that are unfurnished.
Virtual effects are so common in so many different areas including television, the news, Hollywood, and marketing ads. With this advanced technology, why should landlords or sellers furnish their properties when it can be done using virtual effects? It makes the job much easier, it is faster, and doesn’t cost nearly as much. Virtually furnishing your properties is not only photo-realistic, it is sometimes better than what a home stager can do. There are no limitations with virtual staging and options are endless.
Realtors and landlords who want to advertise unfurnished properties need to take high quality digital pictures, email them to a virtual stager with preferences and room dimensions, and then wait for their unfurnished properties to magically become furnished. These furnished photos can then be used for MLS listings and in other Realtor marketing techniques. Real estate ads should show both the virtually furnished and the unfurnished pictures to portray a complete and honest overall picture of the property.
Anyone who claims that virtual home staging is dishonest or unrealistic doesn’t realize that properties with furniture that are not being lived in aren’t real either. When renters or potential buyers see the home, they can imagine how it could look when lived in as well as see the entire apartment or home as is. No screens are hiding cracks in the wall, carpet and flooring imperfections are not disguised and shows every spot that needs to be fixed, and every flaw can be seen. When the property is finally rented or purchased, there is no need to get rid of the furniture that was used to stage the home.
The downside is that when a buyer comes to view the home in person, there will not be any furniture in the home and have a different feel from the pictures online. Another downside to virtual home staging is that when an appraisal is done, the appraiser does not see the virtual furniture and may value the house as being less valuable because empty houses have a foreclosure feel to them. That is why it is important that if you do spend the money to stage a property with real furniture, wait until the appraisal is completed to remove the furniture.
However you feel about virtual home staging or normal home staging, it is a good idea to do one or the other if you are looking to sell a house for top dollar and quickly.