When it comes to marketing a property, home staging is an inevitable step to help sell faster and better price. By adding or removing furniture and accessories as well as changing lighting and colors, the vacant houses increase their appeal and realize the full potential. NAR’s 2021 Profile of Home staging (National Association of Realtors®) suggests that 47 percent of buyers’ agents agree that it has an effect on most buyers’ perspective of home. Besides, more than 80 percent of buyers’ agents incline to the view that the staged houses are easier to be seen as their future home for buyers.
Although it is no longer a new idea in the industry of real estates, some progressive changes brought by 3D visualization techniques infuse it with greater power. This innovation, named “virtual staging“, involves using computer software to digitally decorate rather manual work. It is a big trend of this field in the fast-paced era with the development of 3D technology. That’s why in this blog we’ll address an overview of virtual staging for you. What is it? How does it help you? Let’s get started from these two questions.
What is Virtual Staging?
Serving the same purpose, the clear differences between traditional staging and virtual staging are the methods in dealings and the achievable effects. Traditional staging relies on physical furniture and interior decor to redesign a house. It tries its best to restore the beauty of the empty space. To achieve this, it’s vital to hire a good staging company where stagers, movers, cleaners, photographers and other essential staff work together to complete the project.
Evolved from traditional staging, virtual staging is a process of developing aphotorealistic visualization of the house through 3D software, exploring all the possibilities that it could be. No need to prepare any single items, what it requires is to take photos of the empty rooms from different angles firstly and add virtual furniture and accessories from 3D model warehouse in the chosen pictures. With a phone or laptop, good Internet access and creativity, you can virtually stage any space within a few clicks and have an exciting and inspiring presentation of the listings at your fingertips. No need to worry if the final furnishings doesn’t match the style of the house. There are various types of furniture models on virtual staging platforms for your option. There is hardly any cost to revise the design plan if you are not satisfied.
How does Virtual Staging Help Real Estate?
#1. Easy to alter
A picture is worth a thousand words. Presenting the house in its best light and conveying the ready-to-live-in impression are the key to making the properties shine and standing out in such a competitive real estate market. It is significant for each property to seek the right style. For traditional staging, the process of trial and error is too expensive involving manpower and material resources. However, it is a piece of cake for virtual staging which offers great flexibility of modifying the design. Restyle is easily available ready to hand so that you can remove the existing outdated furniture in the real estate photos. This benefits a lot especially when you want to increase the price or transfer your target market from classy to modern.
#2. Simple to use
Just like what we mentioned before, there are many ready resources of virtual staging apps and software. Many people choose to work with professional outsourcing companies in order to save time and energy. Also doing it yourself is an economical option. The user-friendly interface allows even beginners to digitally add ornaments from the material library to the images. As well, it’s a realizable task to match the wall color, flooring, fixtures and more with the selected furniture. Click, tap, drag and stage, then you can create stunning and share high-quality images to max out your property value.
#3. Cost-effective and time-efficient
Time and cost for the staging are also a big plus. Some factors will influence these two parts, such as the size of the house, turnaround time, the level of detail and so on. Traditional staging usually ranges in price from around $2000 to $5000 within a few days. In addition, the cost increases if needing some fixes before staging. Once closing the deal, everything staged before has to be removed, which is another workload.
Compared with its conventional counterpart, virtual staging, whose duration is about 2-3 days, takes less time but gets the same perfect results according to the same requirements. As for the expense, it is generally about 10% of the cost of traditional staging that is between $39 and $100 per photo. Discounts will be provided for the sheer volume of images. And it’s more affordable to do it yourself with the help of virtual staging software.
#4. Wider marketing reach and better visualization
Nowadays, over 90% of buyers start their search for the dream home on the Internet. Therefore, digital marketing is as important as traditional marketing. Images and videos made by virtual staging can be instantly transmitted and spread through the use of electronic media for more audience. Not limited to these, 360 virtual walkthrough tours which are a unique selling point, can also be offered for potential buyer to explore the rooms over long distances or under extreme weather and reduce trouble of in-person visits. What’s more, it’s hard to imagine the life in the empty space. But a vivid virtual staging will make it inviting and warm, building a wonderful vision for would-be buyers, visualizing their arrangement in the space and finally boosting sales.
Obviously, virtual staging is the best marketing approach for real estates to sell houses fast, easily and for the most money. Are you ready to try it? If you don’t even have time and proper equipment for taking photos for your rooms, you may try 3D architectural visualization services. Contact our professional project manager now, and we’ll get back to you within 12 hours with the best visual solution for your project!
According to Real Estate Staging Association, the staged houses before listing are sold markedly faster than ones that are not staged. As NAR’s 2021 Profile of Home staging (National Association of Realtors®) shows, more than 80 percent of buyers’ agents think that staging a house help buyers visualize it as their future home. For sure, real estate staging is becoming increasingly prevalent in this industry. And there are two main ways to make it: traditional staging and virtual staging.
Traditional Staging vs. Virtual Staging
Traditional staging is the art of redesigning a house to realize its full potential. By means of furniture, décor, accessories and so on, it will bring out the best features of the property and give it a design upgrade. It demands a good staging company which includes efficient movers, conscientious cleaners, experienced stagers, professional photographers and other essential staff to complete the project. It takes a few days or so at the soonest, and sometimes takes even longer based on the staging requirements of different properties.
Compared to traditional staging, virtual staging is a cinch to present the house in its best light thanks to 3D visualization techniques. With the same ultimate target, it no longer needs the above preparations. What you have to do is take photos of the empty rooms from different angles as well as add virtual furniture and accessories by yourself or outsourcing. In common with traditional staging, it produces photorealistic images, allows walkthrough tours and set up a more absorbing aesthetic.
What are the Benefits of Virtual Staging? It Virtual Staging Worth it?
Virtual Staging really does take less time and offer greater flexibility. Unlike its conventional counterpart, virtual staging can be done within 2-3 days and less than 10% of the cost of traditional staging. During special times, such as the COVID-19 outbreak, it allows would-be buyers to have a virtual tour in search of their dream home without in-person visits.
Furthermore, it encourages infinite possibilities to showcase houses to meet the needs of potential buyers. Some clients better understand the space of a house from the attention-grabbing images where it is well decorated. Some clients prefer seeing the bare house so that they could envision their own furnishings in it. Apparently, it is hard for traditional staging to ensure the freedom over changes to the properties. However, virtual staging can enable this to be done at your fingertips. With a phone or laptop, good internet access and creativity, it’s easy to virtually stage any space and inspire a presentation on the staging design software.
Interested to use this more cost-effective and time-efficient approach? Now, let’s have a good look at 15 best virtual staging resources available.
Price: virtual staging $75/photo; restyle $70/photo; remodel $85/photo; envision $399/photo; 3D floor plan $99/photo (bulk discounts)
Virtual Staging Solutions provides the service of digitally furnishing, building, or remodeling any house. Send them your photos vacant or occupied, floor plans, virtual tours, or any other materials you have. Make clear your special requests, even your favorite furniture style. And their designers will handle the rest. It ensures fast turnaround of 1-2 days and 2 free revisions at no extra charge. If necessary, you can order plus service at an additional fee. It is worth mentioning that their “happiness guaranteed” can give you a full refund as long as you aren’t satisfied with your final photos.
Price: Prepaid credits (10 credits to stage one photo). $15.00/10 credits; $59/50 credits; $99/100 credits; $699/1000 credits; White Label Lite Plan, $10/month paid yearly or $15/month; White Label Standard, $20/month paid yearly or $30/month
This is made for real estate agents and brokers to stage vacant rooms and accessorize furnished rooms to help sell a home faster at a higher price. And it’s our most recommended home staging software for the DIY option. You can stage anywhere and anytime, from a PC, an iPad and other tablets in the browser without any downloads and installation. The user-friendly interface allows beginners to achieve ideal images within a few clicks. Upload the room photos, erase existing furniture, select from over 5,000 furniture items, and simply tap, drag and stage your photos. Once finished, you can share staged photos as JPGs or on the cloud as a single property website.
Price: virtual staging $75/photo; virtual twilight $10/photo; blue sky, green grass $5/photo; paint color change $15/photo; furniture removal $55/photo
Created by former top selling real estate agents and marketing experts, VRX Staging has rich experience in this field. Their professional design experts will transform the uploaded photos in as little as 1 business day from your order (from Monday to Friday). You can get free modifications until you enjoy the results and download them instantly upon completion. Besides, if your project is situated in the United States, you can also use photography services in its sister company, VRX Media.
BoxBrownie has a global team of virtual staging gurus working 24 hours, 7 days a week to get your virtually staged rooms in 48 hours. It mainly deals with both small and big commercial and residential listings. It’s a commendable virtual staging choice because it offers an all-in-one virtual staging service at an affordable price. It can also do day-to-dusk editing, object removal, 360-degree virtual tours, and virtual renovations.
Price: enter your zip code to view rates for different photography series (Silver Series, Gold Series, and Platinum Series)
Similar to forementioned services, VHT offers high-quality services like staging, painting, decluttering, redecorating, and virtual twilight to help you WOW buyers and get to the market fast.
Specializing in transforming photos of vacant properties into beautiful, virtually staged homes, it promises to help you sell faster and for top dollar. Once placing your order, the home stagers will contact you at once to discuss the design plan and address any questions during the process. It secures a quick turnaround of a few business days and 100% satisfaction guarantee in 15 days.
By creating 2D or 3D virtual home staging or real estate tours, this is a great tool to show properties to their best advantage. You can use its patented 3D rendering technology to carry out DIY virtual staging with low cost in this website. Or you can hire the professionals there to stage your properties according to your preferences.
Founded in 2005 by Ilaria Barion, a well-known home stager in New York, this company combines 20-year experience of luxury home staging and high-end interior design with state-of-the-art rendering technology. If you aims to stand out in the luxury real estate market, that is your sensible option.
Price: Light $79/photo; Standard $99/photo; Professional $199/photo
Working with Sotheby’s International Realty, Corcoran Group, and Compass, this firm is dedicated to produce the best and most realistic virtual staging images and 3D renders. Its expert stagers have great stylish taste to bring the freshest, most modern look to houses. But compared with the previous ones, its services are at a slightly premium price. In addition, the simplicity of the virtual staging process eliminates lots of trouble. Just send photos of the properties in the highest resolution in JPEG format (Advice: Better to use the services of professional photographers for best results). Then choose the interior design style you desire to achieve and provide a floor plan if you have. After that, they will contact you to confirm the following steps.
Providing round the clock 24/7 support, it allows you to start a free, no strings attached consultation. In cooperation with Virtual Staging Lab, you can work with skilled professionals with years of experience in staging rooms. They will make sure the virtual furnishings match the style of your home to get an enticing vision.
The same as most virtual staging studios, PadStyler includes 2-day turnaround, 100% money back guarantee and unlimited design revisions. This best home staging tool claims to have strong power of 3D visual marketing so that its virtually staged homes sell for 19% higher amount on average. What sets it apart from others is to supply many design collections created by interior professionals.
Although this app often suffers from crashes and slow performance, people still love it owing to a broad selection of virtual staging features. Even it is equipped with AR and VR technology to create stunning virtual enhancements. Its biggest superiority is that it is able to incorporate furniture from leading home furnishing brands such as Crate & Barrel, Wayfair, and Design Within Reach. Users can actually buy their desirable furniture and decoration items in the listings.
As an augmented reality app, it’s really suitable for beginners and amateurs. It makes it easy for homeowners to plan their future home or reorganize their living space on iOS or Apple devices. Through the camera, you can place fully rendered 3D furniture anywhere and testing how they will look in this freehome staging app.
Price: pay by usage $5/month; standard $55/month; business $95/month
Receiving good reviews from tens of thousands of users in 180+ countries, this virtual staging app turns compatible smartphones into a VR camera to capture 360-degree tours of any space. As well, it supports to communicate in real-time using 1 on 1 video calls or live chat.
Homestyler is both a real 3D home décor app and a creative community for design lovers in the world. Its main focus is on interior decoration using AR to add 3D-rendered furniture in room images. Its high reputation in 2021 list of virtual staging software is attributed to its compatibility with computers and mobile devices.
Buying a house is more than an economical decision. It really matters to buyers’ inner world. In the house which is called “HOME”, they grow up, begin a new life, act as parents or retire. So to speak, real estate staging plays an important role in bridging between people, objects, and spaces, while virtual staging is a big trend of our times. Hope these listed resources can help you change an empty living space into a dream home for prospective buyers. If you want to know more, please consult us about your projects. We’re here to offer a wide range of 3D rendering services.
