Virtual staging vs. traditional staging

In this day and age, there is always a new way to use newer technology to. Virtual home staging is one of those things. With a software package and just a few clicks of the mouse, you can produce images that make a listed home appear furnished and ready to live in. Yes, this allows some amazing benefits of producing pictures to help grab the attention of potential buyers online and will probably even produce more physical views of your home. But are you going to get the results you are really looking for? Good question, we should talk about that.

Unlike a lot of goods and services that are ideal for online sales and marketing, selling homes will never be just an online process. Potential buyers will want to see the house in person before every single purchase. While it's important to attract a wider audience online, the whole sale hinges on how that home shows during the actual showing.

Put yourself in the hopeful buyer's shoes. They are really excited after seeing your incredible photos online. They have viewed your home again and again and have imagined themselves in your home.

Then they actually show up to walk through the empty house. Talk about a major let down. Those images that show the perfect room layout turn out to be the furthest thing from the truth. And the way they were able to fit the dining table in just the right place? Oh yeah, that isn't even close.

As professional home stagers, we have run into this before. The house shows one way online, and then when you actually walk through it, turns out the virtual stager had no clue when it came to the actual functionality of the home. This can throw off the potential buyer and completely ruin their viewing experience. Which in turn prevents those offers from flowing in. 

While there is absolutely a place for virtual home staging in today's world, we believe that traditional staging wins pretty much every time. This is the guaranteed way to make sure your potential buyers are wowed every single step of the way. A staged home also helps them see the home in a more positive light and be more forgiving of unflattering features. It also is much more likely that a potential buyer will make a real emotional connnection with the listing when it is physically staged.