Staging is an essential step in the pursuit of the highest offer possible for a listing. Still, there are aspects of physical staging that can be prohibitive from a financial or time standpoint. Enter virtual staging. It’s becoming an increasingly popular method for staging homes, apartments, and commercial spaces.

Are there cons to virtual staging, or should you opt for this newer approach on each of your current and future listings? Let’s get into it. 

How Does It Work?

Virtual staging can be reduced to four essential steps:

1. The property is decluttered or ideally emptied to create a canvas for the virtual stager.

2. Either you or the stager capture images of the entire property.

3. The virtual stager creates seamless computer renderings of a fully-furnished interior.

4. The computer renderings are converted into photographs, which are then given to you to use in your marketing work.

Use exterior virtual home staging techniques with caution. If your client is in the process of updating the property’s exterior, then it may be useful to use virtual staging to convey the expected results.

On the other hand, if your client wants you to use virtual staging to change the property’s exterior, yet has no plans to follow through with real updates and upgrades, buyers will not perceive this disparity in a positive light. Better to stick with a less-than-stellar reality than to risk buyers feeling misled.

Why Is Virtual Staging Good?

There are several advantages of virtual staging over traditional staging, including a rapid rate of completion, greater affordability, reduced burden on owners who are still living in their home, and creative freedom to furnish the property in any desired style.

Why Is Virtual Staging Bad?

The disadvantages of virtual staging shouldn’t be ignored, and include the risk of disappointing buyers when they view the home in person. Buyers may even feel duped, and this negative reaction could result in buyers moving on without making an offer.

To mitigate this, encourage your client to use the time and cash saved by choosing virtual staging to update the home in real life. By reducing the distance between the virtual images and reality, the potential harms of virtual staging can be reduced or eliminated entirely.

As their realtor, you can help your client bridge the gap between expectations and reality by incorporating the staged images into each showing. Create an easel display of the virtually staged home, include the images in brochures, and speak honestly with buyers about the choice to use digital technology to stage the home as you envisioned it.

When Virtual Staging Gets Ugly

Virtual staging must be created by an experienced, talented stager. If you choose to go with the lowest bidder, you’re going to be given ugly, unrealistic, off-putting images for your marketing.

Your goal should be working with a virtual stager whose final images are as close to photo realism as possible.

Tips to Achieve Beautiful Virtually Staged Photos

Choose modern, sleek, cohesive furniture that doesn’t have an overpowering personal aesthetic. The final look should be neutral and safe, with the goal of drawing in as many buyers as possible.

While the buyer is likely to decorate in a style quite unlike the images in the digitally staged world, they will appreciate having a starting point from which to imagine what’s possible. 

Pops of color, creative use of rugs, and restrained additions of statement furniture are welcome methods for keeping an interior fun and engaging, so don’t be afraid to work with your stager to introduce subtle variations on your overall neutral theme.

Encourage your virtual stager to keep the furniture choices in line with the actual scale of the home, too. Pieces that are too small will look cluttered and have the unexpected effect of downplaying the real capacity of a room. On the other hand, huge pieces will overwhelm the space, making it look smaller than it really is, and overshadowing the elegance of proportion that exists in real life.

The most important aspect of successful virtual staging is the layout. Because your goal is showing buyers the true potential of the property, plunking down furniture in expected spaces isn’t going to serve you well.

Don’t just arrange furniture against the walls! Instead, create a layout fully customized to the interior’s specific strengths. Emphasize a home’s positives and use strategic furniture placement to bypass potential concerns about less optimal zones.

The Takeaway

While virtual staging is an outstanding tool in your kit, it won’t replace the importance of a clean, uncluttered, updated reality. Encourage your client to work with you to make their home beautiful for buyers who will arrive to view the property.

Once the home is as prepared as possible, take high-quality photographs to include in your digital listings. By including original, unstaged images, you’re acting in good faith and fully priming buyers for what they’ll see when they arrive. 

You needn’t worry that you’re negating the benefits of virtual staging by doing so. Keep in mind that both virtually and physically staged properties will be handed over fully empty. Either approach is only a suggestion on how the buyer may decide to furnish the property once they’ve sealed the deal.