Even though you may have to go through a lot of mental gymnastics before you decide to sell your home, it’s just the first of many big decisions that lay ahead. Thankfully, technology can make one time consuming task — home staging — easier than ever while helping to increase your chances of making a quick sale. Virtual staging is an easy, cost effective way to get your home sale ready.
What is Virtual Staging?
House staging can be a crucial step in selling your home, but it can also be expensive and, depending on how much furniture-moving it entails, time-consuming. With virtual staging, you can digitally add furniture or change the decor to your listing photos allowing potential homebuyers to easily envision all the possibilities your home offers. A virtual staging service can:
- Remove existing items and add new furniture and decor
- Change interior wall, trim and/or cabinet color
- Change flooring
- Change ceilings
- Change exterior wall, trim and/or door color
- Change landscaping
- Applying a day to dusk effect on a photo of a property’s exterior
- Enhance a photo’s lighting and/or orientation
Benefits of Virtual Staging
The goal of virtual staging is the same as the goal of traditional staging: sell your home for more money in less time. But virtual staging offers a few additional benefits over physical staging:
- Affordability: The cost of virtual staging can be a fraction of traditionally staging which can cost an average of $6,000. Virtual staging is around $29 per photo.
- Ease and convenience: With virtual staging, you don’t have to move anything. However, traditional home staging can require replacing your furniture with new furniture which is not only time consuming but drives costs up.
- More design options: Traditional home staging furniture is dependent on your staging company’s available inventory and expertise. With virtual staging, can use any piece of furniture online.
- Virtual design translates to real life: If the home buyers love the virtually staged design, some staging companies make it possible for them to buy the exact pieces from their retail partners.
Virtual Staging Apps
Here are 10 virtual staging apps to help make your online listings more appealing.
- VisualStager: This DIY staging website allows you to upload and stage photos of vacant homes online. Simply upload the photo you want to stage and choose from over 4,000 interior design pieces. Just select the piece of furniture you want to add, drag it onto the photo and export the photo when you’re finished.
- iStaging:
Turn your smartphone into a virtual reality device with iStaging. Start by shooting a virtual 360-degree shot of the room you want to stage with iStaging’s app. You can preview your tour on your phone, then upload it to iStaging’s online design center and start adding furniture and more.
- Cedero: Cedero’s online application allows you to stage and create 3D models with highly realistic furniture and offers texture library with its wide range of textures and pieces. You can then edit the shading and lighting on each piece to look more realistic. Plus, you can create exterior 3D models and 360-degree room tours.
- Punch! Interior Design: Punch! is one of the most affordable options for computer-based staging. You won’t need to worry about paying per photo or funding a continuous subscription as the software is just $50 (although it’s currently only available for Mac desktops). Punch! allows you to decorate the interior of your space after uploading the room you want to stage.
- Box Brownie: Simply send in photos you need staged and let its team of professional photo editors stage the room for you. Box Brownie promises a 24-hour turnaround on all photos, and it will rework any image at no additional cost if you aren’t satisfied.
- Real Tour Vision: Real Tour Vision offers two staging services — DIY at $15 per photo and professional assistance. If you get started and decide that self-staging isn’t right for you, you can request professional assistance through the site.
- Barion Design Inc.: At $119 a photo, Barion Design is one of the most expensive virtual staging services. However, it can be worth the extra money for a high-end listing that wants the best staging team at their disposal.
- Homestyler: Homestyler is a free virtual staging app. Simply, take a few photos of your space and then, scroll through real interior design pieces and drag and drop the items you like onto the screen to stage.
- Roomle: This is free app that allows you to add furniture with a few taps of your phone screen. But the company offers much more than just 2D layouts. For an additional charge, you can also use their 3D floor plan tool to turn virtual tour into an AR-compatible floor plan for a fully immersive experience. Roomle prices vary widely depending on which tools you want to use.
- PadStyler:
This web-based service offers virtual staging solutions and furniture replacement with a 100% money-back guarantee on its virtual staging services and free redesigns if you aren’t satisfied. It also offers a 48-hour turnaround guarantee on all projects and same-day services for an extra fee.
Now that you have some ideas for how to stage your home, you can also learn how to downsize your home here.
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