What are the benefits and drawbacks to virtual staging?

A: Not a fan of virtual staging! It looks great online but then when you get to the house it’s like, “Hmm ...” Virtual staging was a key way for agents to showcase their listings during COVID-19 and it surely served its purpose. During COVID-19 we were not hosting open houses, and it wasn’t always easy to physically go see houses on the market.

Nowadays, we are back to having open houses and physically showing homes. Viewing a home in real life makes all the difference in the world. Real life staging does, too! Here are the benefits of seeing a home in real life and why virtual staging doesn’t help:

When you see a home in real life you use all of your senses, unlike virtual staging. You hear, see, smell, and feel your surroundings. You only see with virtual staging, not to mention that defects are seldom seen.

Real life staging allows the homebuyer to envision the home as a “real,” comfortable living space, where virtual staging has a fake feeling. When visiting a home after viewing the virtual staging online, it feels deceiving.

Finally, when agents hold open houses now, it is a pleasure to present with real furniture. A nice, professionally decorated home is always a favorite to home buyers when compared to virtually staged homes.

Karin Cunningham, Intero Real Estate, 650-438-3504, kcunningham@intero.com.

A: When it comes to marketing a property successfully, we usually stress look, touch and feel. With virtual staging, you’re taking away the touch and feel of the experience. Virtual staging may have been sufficient during lockdown, and may seem alluring to sellers wanting to keep costs down.

In the long run, the penny saved in skipping over full property preparation and staging is unwise. How disappointed do you think a buyer will be if they’re met with an empty shell? There’s nowhere to sit. And what else will they do there other than find all the property’s flaws or misjudge a property’s size for the worse?

The reality is that top-dollar consumers expect to see (and are more likely to buy) fully prepared and staged properties. You need to give buyers a reason to buy a property; preparation and real-life staging is how we help our sellers get top dollar and how we help our buyers stretch their dollars by imagining what living there feels like.

Virtual components like 3D tours and property videos do have their place, but more important is to give buyers something to look, touch and feel. Kevin Ho, Vanguard Properties, 415-297-7462; Jonathan McNarry, Vanguard Properties, 415-215-4393, www.kevinandjonathan.com.

A: I am not a big fan of virtual staging. First, you take a good chance having the prospective buyer being disappointed when they see the property in person after viewing it online with the virtual staging.

Virtual staging is where the photos are altered to include staging items. It is a lot cheaper than actual staging, but in my experience, it does not come close to having a home staged. Staging a home is an important part of prepping the property to go on the market in addition to the various home improvement projects that I typically recommend a home seller. Having a home staged on average runs about $4,000.

The virtual staging typically runs about $45 per photo.

There is another problem with virtual staging. Professionally done videos of homes have become an important component of the online marketing, even more after the past COVID outbreaks. So, the problem herein becomes, if you do a virtual staging of the home, it doesn’t make much sense to do a video of the home without any actual staging physically in the property.

Jeff LaMont, Coldwell Banker Realty, 650-740-8808, jeff@jefflamont.com.