Are you interested in using virtual home staging?

A professional home staging can cost you anywhere from $2,300 to $3,200 per month. 

While most of us would love the fresh look and trendy appeal of a crisply furnished home, professional staging is not a price we are able to pay.

But what if there was a way to create beautifully designed rooms with updated furniture and accessories for one payment of a few hundred dollars?

Fortunately, virtual home staging can help you showcase your home in the best light for a fraction of the cost. And you won't have to worry about stepping over any rented furniture or strange folks in your home.

How can you make virtual home staging work for you? Let's take a look.

Why Virtual Home Staging?

The only person who will visit your home to prepare for a virtual home staging is a photographer, who will take photos of empty rooms. 

A virtual stager will then visually stage the photos online. The photos can get used by MLS and sync to other real estate sites.

A virtually staged photo will allow a room to be completely transformed. It can help potential buyers visualize such elements as furniture placement, wall color, and woodwork, which will get impeccably placed in the photographs. 

Your home will be instantly updated, modern, and more attractive to buyers. 

Virtual home staging is particularly popular in the urban, condo, and co-op markets, where curb appeal is not possible. It can also get used by landlords to help attract quality tenants.

Virtual staging software can get used to help buyers picture themselves in an empty home. Homes can get updated online so you do not need to involve expensive professional stagers.

Virtual staging gives buyers a chance to creatively visualize the space, and it even gives them decorating ideas. It can give them a chance to emotionally connect with a home and imaging living there. 

A home stager will help you attract a larger number of active buyers online, which will give you more offers to work with when it comes time to sell.

Let's take a look at some tools.

1. RoOomy

RoOomy is software for your iOS device that will provide four virtual stagings for $415, and up to nine virtual stagings for $835. All you will need to do is submit your photos and design style, and your photos can get added to any listing.

RoOomy's design style options include Traditional, Transitional, Modern, Mid-Century, Rustic, and Scandanavian. The free iPad app allows clients to customize each individual staging. They can also freely interact with any listings they might be interested in. 

Your virtual staging photos will be available within two days of submission.

2. Pad Styler

For a stylish $59 a photo, Pad Styler offers a two-day turnaround, a 100% money-back guarantee, and free revisions.

Other services offered by Pad Styler include virtual home staging, virtual furniture replacement, virtual kitchen vision, virtual curb appeal, virtual renovation, and 3D floor plans.

3. VRX Staging

VRX Staging offers a most competitive turnaround time. In fact, if you submit photos under 6MV, VRX will return them before 5 pm Central Standard Time the next day. You will also get one free revision per photo and pay only $5.00 per revision after that. 

If you are located in the US, VRX can also take the professional photos for you for $35 per photo. Other services available include furniture removal, virtual twilight, blue sky/green grass, and paint color change.

4. Hommati Virtual Staging

Hommati also offers competitive turnaround time. Most images are completed in about 48 hours for around $35 per image. You will also get one free revision per photo and pay only $10.00 per revision after that. 

Hommati also offers furniture removal, blue sky/green grass for a slightly higher cost per image. Hommati provides 3D virtual tours and produces aerial drone videos. Check with your real estate agent to determine if any of these additional services should be used to help market your home.

5. iStaging

Choose your package at iStaging, where you can get the Ultra service for $29 per month and $299 a year. The Ultimate service will cost you $69 a month and $699 a year. Additional Enterprise services are priced upon request.

iStaging is a virtual reality platform for both iPhone and mobile devices on Android. You can furnish any room with a variety of pieces.

The program allows you to view all furniture in real-time, decorate your walls, and paint your ceilings. You can choose from over ten thousand furnishings.

The basic Ulta plan includes up to fifteen live tours a month, their VR Editor and app, AR for your floor plan, custom branding, workshops, and discounted hardware.

You can turn compatible smartphones into VR cameras to create 360-degree tours of your rooms and landscape. In today's virtual world, an online tour can make the difference between bored shoppers and interested buyers. 

6. Virtual Stager

If you are more of a do-it-yourselfer, Virtual Stager is for you. The software allows you to upload your room photos, choose from over 4,000 home furnishings, and drag and stage photos. Once you have done the work, JPG's can get saved on a cloud. 

Before working in Visual Stager, you will purchase prepaid credits and pay $10 to stage a single photo. You can also get deals like $15 for ten credits, $59 for fifty credits, and $699 for one thousand credits.

The White Label Lite plan is $10 per month paid yearly. You can also purchase this plan at $15 monthly. The White Label Standard Plan will costly $20 per month yearly, or $30 per month. 

Virtual Stager is not downloadable software. It is a website where you design your own photos. For an additional fee, Virtual Stager's staff can remove the furniture from any photo you choose to upload.

You can get a free version of Virtual Stager and make your first payment when you download your own photos. 

Virtual Stager is very much a "point and clicks" tool. If you have no experience with photoshop or graphic design, you can still create some beautifully staged rooms.

7. Spotless

For $69 per photo, Spotless offers a service that includes turnarounds within 3-5 business days and unlimited revisions. They will do furniture replacement along with furniture addition, so it doesn't matter if you remove the furniture before photographing your rooms. 

Photos staged by Spotless look impressively realistic.

8. Punch! Interior Design

Punch! Interior Design Software does not require an actual photo of the room you wish to stage. All you need are the dimensions and layout of the room. You can choose from one of the software's room layouts and customize furniture and accessories.

If you have never virtually staged a room before, Punch! is a great option. It is only $40 and doesn't require a subscription fee. The program is easy to download and comes with pre-made interior design layouts. 

9. Cedar Architect

Cedar Architect is a great DIY option that allows agents to stage both the interiors and exteriors of their homes. At $99 per month, it is a little more expensive than its competitors, but it offers incredibly realistic photos. 

Furniture, floor plans, and rooms can all be customized using Cedar Architect. Users can make edits throughout the process. For example, if you wanted to show a prospective buyer how a piece of furniture would look against a different wall, you could complete the edit on your iPad on the spot.

Preparing Your Home for Virtual Home Staging

You will want to consider who you are marketing to before you stage your home online. For example, if you are selling a co-op in an urban area, you may want to set the place up to suit a young professional.

If you hope to sell a suburban home, a traditional master bedroom and bedrooms decorated for kids is appropriate. You want your buyer to see a family living there.

Be sure to make any needed repairs before photographing your home. Stains, leaks, or burned-out lightbulbs will not do in a professional photograph. 

If you are using a photo of an empty room as your backdrop, be sure to paint it a warm, neutral color. Your prospective buyer should be able to see themselves living there. Any clutter, such as books, toys, and furniture, should be removed before you click.

If you have a nice property, be sure to photograph the outside of your home as well as the interior. A professional can help you add a barbeque, swing, or landscaping to show prospective buyers what they can do. 

Beware of misrepresenting your home's condition in virtual staging. Your buyers will be sorely disappointed if you have touched over repairs that need to be made in virtual photos. It is important that prospective buyers are given a realistic idea of what they will be getting for their money.

If your photos do not accurately represent your home's condition, you will pay for it in wasted time. Be sure you attract the type of buyer who will genuinely be interested in your space.

Get Clicking!

If you are a creative seller looking to attract the best buyers, virtual home staging may be for you! With the right tools and a little genius, your pad could be somebody's dream home in no time.

For more information on buying and selling a home, read our blog today.