Homes
Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: The “Magic” of Virtual Staging
A few weeks ago, a “For Sale” sign went up in front of our next-door neighbor’s house. This was pretty expected on our end since they haven’t been living in the home for months and had only been by a few times to do some work on the place. Anyway, once I saw the sign (and it opened up my eyes), I headed to Zillow to check out the listing.
When I did, something jumped out at me. Having been in their house before, I was surprised by some of the furniture on display in a few of the photos. That’s when I noticed the “virtual staging” watermark in the corner of these images. So, what is virtual staging and is it a good idea for your home listing?
Before we get to what virtual staging is, you may be wondering what regular ol’ staging is. Well, if you’ve watched certain HGTV shows, then you might be familiar with the practice of bringing in furniture and other decor into a home with the intent of making it look nice to potential buyers. Mind you, these items are probably not yours and won’t be included in the sale of the home. Instead, they’re just there to give buyers a vision of how the home can look — hence, staging.
With that, you may have gathered that virtual staging aims for a similar result, but uses digital imagery and renderings rather than bringing in physical furniture. You may have actually done some of your own virtual staging if you’ve tried augmented reality offerings found in apps from Amazon, IKEA, and others. In this case, though, rather than seeing whether a certain piece will fit well in your space, you’re creating an alternate version of your home, filled with items that you don’t really own and may not even exist!
The first question you may have is – is this misleading? Personally, I think the answer depends on how it’s employed. If you’re merely adding digital furniture to a real photo of your room, that seems similar to traditional staging in my opinion. However, if you’re using it to cover up issues or alter other parts of your home, then I’d say you’re being deceptive. Of course, with digital editing already committing these faux pas even without virtual staging, this isn’t exactly a new issue.
As for why you might want to choose virtual staging over real staging, an obvious reason is price. Looking around the internet, I was able to find a few different services. One of these had plans starting at $27 a month for 60 image credits, while another starts at $25 a month for six images. Granted, these are just two examples of several I was able to find with a simple search. Also, both were cheaper if you paid for a year up front. Surely that’s less than what a physical staging service would cost.
That brings me to my next question: who pays for the virtual staging account? My theory would be that the selling agent does. Then again, since real estate commissions have recently seen disruption, perhaps we’ll experience more self-listings, with sellers potentially turning to virtual staging tools to assist them.
With all of that, do I think virtual staging is a good idea? Well, at this time, I’d say that I don’t think it’s a bad idea. Specifically, I think my neighbors did a few things right with their listing. For one, there’s disclosure that it is virtual. That leads to my second point. If you were just looking casually at the image, I think it looks fairly believable. To me, that seems ideal as you don’t want some obvious AI slop in your home listing.
Of course, there are still advantages to regular staging as well. Most notably, while virtual staging is fine for a listing, it’s not going to help much when buyers stop by for a tour or an open house (unless you want to strap Meta Quest headsets on them when they arrive). Therefore, high-end houses that could benefit from some staging may still want to go the traditional route.
One thing’s for sure: it’s a brave new world out there. That applies to homebuying as well. All in all, I’d say that, as you’re looking at listings, keep an eye out for virtual staging (whether disclosed or not) so you don’t have false expectations going in. Then, should you decide to sell, make sure you’re using this technology and similar tools ethically.
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