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The house next door hasn’t sold – it’s been on the market for over 100 days, beating the average of 63 days, and the price has already “gouged” by $100,000.
There is no need to mention the specific broker or agent who is marketing this property, but suffice it to say that although they have a good local reputation, their work is not the best.
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We don’t know what the neighbors have given them permission to do in terms of marketing, but it’s clear she is keen to sell her home, having spent months renovating the inside before putting it on the market, and having recently visited to spruce up the yard.
The house is empty, has little decoration, and doesn’t have a particularly appealing layout — a byproduct of the fact that the older homes in our town weren’t legally incorporated until the early 1990s, meaning their owners could do with them however they wanted, and many did.
The region’s rapid growth as a mountain resort market ultimately contributed to homeowner concerns about property values and created unrealistic expectations from out-of-town buyers who expected every home to be “mountain modern” and ski-town chic.
For better or worse, your real estate agent should do everything in their power to ensure your home meets these expectations.
Thankfully, there are a number of virtual staging companies that can at least give potential buyers a sense of what the home is like, even if it doesn’t turn out to be exactly what they wanted. Can be.
8 Virtual Staging Companies That Can Help You Close a Deal
Virtual staging is becoming an increasingly easy and affordable way to market your older property. Here are some software companies that excel at bringing vacant homes up to market expectations.
Box Brownies
These guys have been in the business for years and have developed a rapid response model for improving a property’s image inside and out: they can do things like decluttering (not the last thing this house needs), 3D tours, exterior improvements, new construction renderings, and more.
Their mobile photo extension, SnapSnapSnap, is great and will be of great help to my neighbor.
Virtual Staging AI
Although relatively new, This company As the name suggests, it uses AI to create virtual interiors.
Users simply upload a high-quality image and choose a room type from a drop-down list, such as bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, or living room. The image is rendered while you wait, and you can start over if the first iteration isn’t how you want it. The style defaults to midcentury modern, but new interior design themes are added regularly.
HomeKynd
The service features enterprise-level brokerage integration: With multiple different styles to choose from, team leaders and marketing staff can ensure, for example, that agents don’t use the same items on each home.
You can also generate more detailed reports, such as which homes sold faster with staging and which furniture brands performed best. Remember that staging is a marketing asset – take advantage of what it gives you. Property Page Integration is a very smart way to connect buyers directly with your property, and suggests that when listing your property, it can be effective to leave a few rooms open to entice homebuyers to start designing.
Matterport
The industry standard setter for digital twins (the house in question has one) has partnered with SketchFab in 2022 to begin integrating virtual interior improvements.
Objects in Sketchfab can be still or animated, and like every other aspect of a Matterport tour, can be “walked” and explored from different angles. The company is known for working with many prominent consumer goods manufacturers in creating and publishing 3D renderings for marketing, sales, and product configurations.
Bella Staging
At Bella Staging, we hire actual graphic artists to edit, redecorate, tidy up, and make our sellers’ homes the best homes in the neighborhood, with most projects turned around within 48 hours and unlimited revisions.
There’s a good reason why Bella requests high-quality images to start the editing process: it’s not a big ask, but unfortunately there are still too many agents out there who don’t understand the importance of good quality kitchen photography.
Bella Staging is the best I have seen in this category and their bespoke handling of each project is undoubtedly a big reason for their best in category quality.
VSH Media
Particularly prominent is the in-image notes tool, which lets users tap locations in a photo to attach instructions for editors before uploading—you could use it to tell the creator where to place a sofa, or to indicate that you’d like stools arranged around your breakfast bar.
Speaking of décor, VSH Media comes with a library of home styles, including Farmhouse, Contemporary, Hampton, Urban, Traditional, or a combination of each. You can also remove items, and the “enhanced” images essentially offer the same bracketing/image blending technology that other apps in this space use to make your windows look beautiful from the inside.
Asterum
Like many mobile applications in this field, Asteroom uses a rotating phone mount to rotate and shoot to capture a room. The rotating mount turns the phone into a 360-degree camera and automatically pairs with the device via Bluetooth (BLE 4.0). A single tap on the “Capture” command in the app starts the process. The device stops rotating after one revolution and the user moves on to the next room.
The app allows you to display different text designs, links, information tags, floating static images (for detail shots like close-ups of appliances or window views) and even your logo for in-app interactions. You can also add 3D objects to virtually fill empty spaces.
Inside Map
InsideMaps, a veteran residential interiors data marketing company that built its reputation on tours like Matterport, has evolved into a valuable insight tool for all things real estate.
Virtual staging is just one of the company’s many features, and it might not be the best fit for your neighbor’s house, whose average home is less than 1,500 square feet. Still, the company’s expertise and many value-add propositions make it worth considering to free up a stuck property.
Appealing appearance is also important
Appearance is important, and it’s another factor why this house has been on the market for so long. There is no design or formal plan around the house, just old stairs, weeds, some random stones, and a few garden hoses. It needs a complete renovation, but thankfully, most of the companies listed here can also provide exterior renderings.
Computer vision AI company Restb.ai has data showing that homes with high-quality exterior photos, especially those with sunset edits, stay on the market for less time, and considering the location overlooking the river and ski slopes, we can’t help but think that enhanced exterior photos would go a long way in attracting buyers.
It doesn’t hurt for real estate agents to get into video marketing either – a compelling showing that better illustrates the home’s potential and location is definitely helpful and can be reused across social media and the web.
I know it’s a weird market right now, and smaller, more expensive markets may have even harder sales, but there’s clearly a lot that can be done and it’s not being done, and the market will continue to suffer.
Email Craig Lowe
