As a real estate agent, you always want your properties to show their best. Especially now; with the ongoing push to digital, marketing your properties effectively online to make people feel like they’re actually there in person is more important than it ever was before.
And while there a lot of ways to accomplish that, one really important one is by staging the property.
Staging is a really valuable part of the listing marketing process as it removes the need for potential buyers to imagine what the space could look like by furnishing and arranging everything in the best possible way.
So should you include staging as part of your listing marketing plan for all of your properties? I’d say yes, particularly if your competitors do.
There’s only a few situations where it doesn’t make sense to include staging, like if the property is likely to be torn down, extremely dated, or the inside is otherwise not significant to the sale, but in most situations, staging is a key and important part of marketing a property.
And while getting a property professionally staged is certainly a good idea, recently, with the ongoing push to digital and more buyers starting their search online rather than in person, virtual staging has become an increasingly popular option.
And that makes sense, but one key point to make here is that virtual staging is not a one-size-fits-all replacement for professional staging services. Professional stagers absolutely provide a valuable service to real estate agents; but in some cases, virtual staging might just be a better fit.
For Cost:Â Professional staging is expensive, and rightfully so as there’s a lot of time, work, and expertise involved. But in some cases, you may just not have the budget to hire a professional staging company, so you may be forced to choose a less expensive option. As well, since you’re using their furnishings, most staging companies charge based on the length of time that the property is staged, so if your property is on the market for a longer period of time, you can expect the cost to go up.
Virtual staging is quite a bit less expensive than traditional staging services, and as well, you’ll have the photos forever no matter how long the listing is on the market.
For Convenience: Depending on the needs of the sellers, virtual staging can be less of a hassle too, particularly if the sellers are still living in the space. With a virtual option, there’s no need for them leave the space or deal with the furnishings being moved in and set up. And if their property isn’t in the best shape, there’s no need to declutter as most virtual stagers can update images to remove anything that doesn’t show the property in the best light, and rather, highlight the most important aspects.
For Options: While with traditional staging, you usually pick a style you want to go with, and the furnishings are brought in based on that; but with virtual staging, you have a lot more options because none of the furnishings are physical. Because everything is digital, you usually have more options in terms of style; you can even produce multiple styles if you wanted to.
Virtual staging should never be a complete solution for staging all of your properties as in a lot of cases, physically and professionally staging is a better option; however, in some situations, virtual staging can solve a lot of problems and be a more economical, easier solution.
With up to date marketing trends relevant to today’s market, our report is a selection of curated content, information, and data that will give you an outline of what’s working right now in real estate marketing.
