Pivot. Reinvent. Transform. Select the best verb to describe real estate in 2020.
Digital. Mobile. Virtual. Pick a word to describe how agents best communicated with buyers and sellers over the past several months.
Mix and match these terms and you have what has been an unusual year characterized by different means and methods to buy and sell real estate. And, yet, it has had its silver linings in the year of Covid-19.
For one, listing agents and their sellers have had to pivot when staging a home for sale. Before 2020, homes were often staged in about 2 weeks by professional interior designers charged with filling out an empty room with real furniture, wall art and rugs or to rearrange and update existing items – usually to allow for modern touches and showcase more space.
Facing virus-related limitations and concerns from anxious sellers, agents have called upon digital designers for help by using proprietary software to virtually stage the home safely – and in only a few short days. The photo above shows a virtually staged living room (could you tell?).
Picture a vacant home – absent furniture and accessories – and think how, well, bare the home would appear in listing photos. Now, professional photographers take pictures of each room (as well as exterior shots) and hand off results to digital editors to work their magic. This site offers a nice before/after slider to see the difference between unstaged and staged.
Sellers are encouraged to take an active role in the process. That can include taking photos of each room to reduce health risks from having a photographer walk through the home. It can also include sellers rearranging or removing items to improve appearances.
Once pictures are taken, the stager typically schedules a video consultation with sellers to evaluate the unstaged photos and discuss suggested styles, colors and themes before converting each room into a digitally enhanced package. The guiding principal is to show as much space – and greater potential – for buyers to envision. Sellers are expected to provide input and approve final imagery.
Listing agents should always be transparent, and that includes indicating the photos are a digital representation and not what buyers may see when visiting the home. Agents can add a sentence in the listing description, printed materials and as a note that only fellow brokers can see on the MLS.
Digital staging saves time and money (in the hundreds of dollars rather than potentially thousands), as well as helps portray the home in a cleaner and modern light. One company says virtually staged homes sell 78% faster and for 19% more money on average (although we could not verify these claims).
Many agents see long-term benefits, where digitizing images rather than hiring a traditional in-person stager is smarter, sensible and safer.
Like video conferencing, remote digital signatures and greater adherence to safety protocols for in-person meetings, digital staging is likely here to stay.
“Necessity is the mother of invention,” said Audra Slinkey, president and founder of Home Staging Resource, a training center for the staging industry, speaking to Realtor® Magazine. “Staging isn’t going away, and we are proving it can be done in other ways.”