Staging Without Limits

The practice of traditional staging started in Seattle in 1972. Since then it has been promoted as an important part of selling a home. Bring in the furniture, artwork and accessories, create an appealing space, and help buyers imagine themselves living there.

But the way buyers shop for homes has changed, and I think it is worth asking whether the way we stage them should change too. 

Today, the first showing usually happens online. Before buyers ever walk through the front door, they have looked through the photographs, studied the rooms and formed an impression of the property. This is the place and the moment where Buyers decide whether the home interests them enough to see it in person. To me, that is the real purpose of staging. It creates an emotional connection and gives buyers a reason to want to see the property, and this is where I think virtual staging has an advantage that is sometimes overlooked.

Once they arrive they are no longer looking at a photograph. They are looking at the actual house. They are assessing its condition, the size of the rooms, the finishes, the natural light and how the space might work for them.

The buyer has already seen the possibilities online, but when they walk into an empty room, they can see the entire space. There isn't someone else's sofa determining where theirs should go or a dining table defining the only way a room might be used.  In fact, the moment Buyers enter the home they are quick to exclaim "this house is staged" or "I've seen this furniture in another listing".

We have spent years telling sellers to remove personal belongings so buyers can imagine themselves living in the home. Yet with traditional staging, we remove the seller's belongings and replace them with furniture that has been recycled through multiple listings, as if every ensemble is a one-size fits all solution for every home and every Buyer.

An empty room doesn't always photograph well. Without furniture, scale can be difficult to judge and even a beautiful room can feel cold. Virtual staging solves that problem without physically filling the house. It allows me to show buyers what a room could be, while leaving them free to experience the actual space when they visit.

There is another part of the process that I think is important.  After buyers leave a showing, they often return to the online listing. They look through the photographs again, sometimes several times. The images become part of how they remember the property. That is where the emotional connection created online can be re-established.

So if staging is largely about creating that visual and emotional connection, I think we need to ask: does the furniture actually need to be there?

This is where virtual staging becomes much more interesting to me than simply being a less expensive alternative. Traditional staging has physical limitations. The furniture has to exist. It has to be available. It has to 

be transported to the property, fit through the doors and remain there for as long as the home is listed.

Virtual staging removes those limitations, and allows me to create a story.

A contemporary condo can be staged one way, a family home another. An unusual room can be shown with more than one possible use. Furniture can be selected for the architecture, proportions and character of the individual property. We are no longer limited to choosing from an inventory of furniture that may have already appeared in numerous other listings, and the staging can fit the house instead of making the house fit the staging.

My current listing at 41 Grange Street is probably the best example I've had of what that can mean.

41 Grange was built around 1910. It is an Arts & Crafts home with remarkable original architectural details, including extensive woodwork, French doors and an inglenook with built-in seating around the fireplace.

I could have virtually staged every room with beautiful contemporary furniture. In fact, contemporary staging is useful because buyers want to see how a century-old home can work for modern life. But I wanted to show them something else. What might this house have felt like in 1910?

Virtual staging gave me the freedom to explore that. I staged portions of the home with period furnishings, clothing and lighting. The inglenook became a family gathering place around the fire. The living room became a glimpse into family life at the time the house was built. Even an exterior image helped place the home within its original era.

The purpose wasn't to disguise the property or pretend those things were actually there. The original photographs show buyers exactly what the home looks like today. The purpose was to tell its story.

Trying to accomplish the same thing with traditional staging would require sourcing period-appropriate furniture, rugs, artwork and accessories, transporting everything to the property and keeping it there throughout the listing period. Realistically, it would be difficult and very expensive to accomplish. Virtually, the possibilities are almost limitless.

There is also a practical issue that has become more important as the market has slowed. Traditional staging made a great deal of sense during a market when homes routinely sold within days. A seller or Realtor might pay several thousand dollars for the first month of staging, the house would sell in a week, and the furniture would be removed shortly afterward.

Today's market is different.

A property may take several months to sell. If staging has to remain throughout that period, additional monthly costs can become significant. Either the seller pays those costs or, when staging is included as part of a Realtor's marketing package, those costs consume money that could have been spent elsewhere marketing the property.

That doesn't mean traditional staging no longer has a place. There are occupied homes where bringing in selected pieces and working with the seller's existing furniture can make an enormous difference. There are also properties where physical staging may still be the best choice, but I don't believe it is automatically the better choice.

I also think we need to be careful about how staging is sold to homeowners.  A beautifully staged home can photograph extremely well and attract attention. That has value. But staging does not change market value. It doesn't change location, square footage, condition or what comparable properties have sold for.

And it cannot compensate indefinitely for an asking price the market doesn't support. The goal is to present a property in the most compelling way possible and get buyers through the door.  What happens after that  depends on the property, the price, the market and the strategy behind the listing. Technology has given us a more powerful and efficient way to accomplish the first part.

For me, virtual staging isn't about doing less.  It's about having the freedom to do more.