Table of Contents
- What Is Home Staging?
- Traditional Home Staging Can Be Expensive
- How to Stage a Home for Sale on a Budget
- How to Legally and Ethically Use Virtual Staging
- Virtually Stage a Home on a Budget With PhotoUp!
Are you selling a home and looking for ways to stage it on a budget?
Staging is a proven real estate marketing practice for making a property look its best to potential buyers.
There are many ways to stage a home for sale and unfortunately, some of them can be quite expensive.
So, in this article, we’ll show you how to stage a home for sale on a budget.
But first, let’s explore what home staging is.
What Is Home Staging?
Staging aims to make the property as attractive as possible to potential buyers.
Staging a home involves cleaning, organizing, and often redecorating to get it ready for sale. The process can include adding furnishings to empty rooms and sometimes undertaking renovations and repairs.
There are many significant benefits to home staging, including:
- Improving visual and curb appeal. Staged homes tend to look attractive, encouraging more buyers to consider the property
- Helping buyers see the property’s potential
- Capturing buyer interest – 90% of buyers start looking online, where you only have a few moments to catch a buyer’s attention
- Selling homes faster – homes that are staged sell 75% faster than those that are not
- Higher sales prices – 83% of staged properties sell for the asking price or above
Therefore, staging a home for sale has many benefits. Unfortunately, it can also it can be expensive.
Traditional Home Staging Can Be Expensive
While home staging might help you sell your house faster, it does come at a cost.
For example, staging expenses can add up quickly when you consider things such as:
- The fees for the home staging professional
- Furniture and decor rental
- Repairs and remodeling
According to HomeAdvisor, homeowners, on average, pay the following for staging their homes:
- Typical home staging costs between $650 and $2,300
- Ongoing furniture rentals can easily cost $6,000 or more
- If renovations and repairs are part of the staging, the costs can quickly reach the tens of thousands of dollars
Aside from the financial cost, home staging is a lot of work. For example, think about the following:
- It’s labor-intensive. It requires physically moving furniture, making repairs, and adjusting the layouts and flows of rooms
- It’s time-consuming and invasive. The sellers are going to need to endure workers around the house and rooms upended, and it can take many days or even weeks
Yes, the sellers are hoping to recover the costs of the staging because the home will likely sell for a better price, but it’s a bit of a risk.
However, there is an affordable and even easier alternative to traditional staging. Let us show you how to stage a home for sale on a budget.
Fast & Affordable
Virtual Staging Service
Interiors. Landscapes. Commercial. Virtually transform any space.
How to Stage a Home for Sale on a Budget
As we’ve seen, traditional home staging tends to be expensive. You will likely need to hire a designer, rent furniture and decor, and pay for labor and repairs.
Thankfully, there’s an affordable alternative.
Virtual staging is a technology that allows photo editors to furnish and decorate a room or an entire home digitally. It changes vacant and empty spaces into stunning, realistically furnished and well-decorated rooms.
For virtual staging, all you need is a photograph. Then, you give the photo to a virtual staging designer and watch what happens:
- Attractive furnishings are added to rooms
- Unwanted items are removed
- Any repairs or remodeling is done virtually
- Other imperfections are eliminated
The result is a perfectly decorated, stylish home that strongly appeals to buyers.
So, right now, you’re probably wondering how much does virtual staging cost? Let’s take a look:
- On average, virtual staging will cost you $10-$50 per image
Not only is virtual staging cheaper than traditional staging, but it’s also much easier. Think about the following advantages of virtual staging:
- The staging is done digitally and isn’t labor-intensive. It’s also easier on the seller with fewer disruptions
- It’s quick — most virtual staging companies take a couple of days or less for turnaround time — and we all know how important time to market can be
- Virtual staging is incredibly flexible. It’s easy to virtually decorate an entire home in one or several popular styles – and buyers love the variety!
Therefore, virtual staging allows you to stage an entire home for sale on a budget easily.
Want to see some examples of what virtual staging can do? Take a look at this article — What is virtual staging in real estate (examples included)?
Now, some real estate sales professionals understand the benefits of virtual staging but worry if it is ethical to use it. So, let’s take a look at this issue more closely.
How to Legally and Ethically Use Virtual Staging
Imagine seeing a listing online where each room is beautifully furnished and finely decorated — only to arrive in person for your showing to find an empty, cold home instead.
In such a situation, you would likely feel tricked and probably angry. It’s important, therefore, to know how to use virtual staging properly.
If you follow these guidelines, you can use virtual staging legally, ethically, and with confidence:
- Each photo should be clearly marked as “virtually staged”
- Mention the use of virtual staging in your marketing copy
- Show before and after photos using a reveal slide bar
To give you a better idea of how to disclose virtual staging properly, here’s a sample disclaimer you can use:
“Some images have been virtually staged to show the potential of rooms and spaces in the home.”
When virtual staging is used transparently, there are no surprises and no one feels tricked.
Fast & Affordable
Virtual Staging Service
Interiors. Landscapes. Commercial. Virtually transform any space.
Virtually Stage a Home on a Budget With PhotoUp!
The bottom line? Virtual staging allows you to stage a home for sale on a budget.
Plus, it offers greater variety and flexibility.
The good news is that PhotoUp’s virtual staging is easy and affordable. Our full range of virtual staging services includes:
- Adding furnishings to vacant rooms
- Kitchen and bathroom redesigns and full makeovers
- Dozens of furnishing and decor style options to choose from
- Color changes for walls, furnishings, and flooring
- Digital decluttering and repairs, and updates
- Blue sky and virtual landscaping
- And much, much more!
And our virtual staging services are extremely easy to use. In just 3 simple steps, you’ll get stunning, virtually staged rooms.
1) Upload your photos.
2) Select from our large library of design styles and furnishings.
3) Within 48 hours, we’ll send you proofs for approval and download.
PhotoUp Virtual Staging Demo
To see how quick and easy it is to get started, check out our virtual staging demo:
It’s as simple as that!
And PhotoUp does more than virtual staging. We also offer:
- Photo editing
- Single property websites
- Video editing
- Virtual assistants and more for all your real estate marketing needs.
So why wait?
Sign up for a free PhotoUp account today, and start using virtual staging to help sell your listings more quickly and for better prices.
We hope you enjoyed reading this article on how to stage a home for sale on a budget. If you liked this post, you might also want to check out these other valuable resources:
