First Impressions and Home Staging

First Impressions and Home Staging

“Did You Know?”

•    Most buyers form an opinion about a home within the first 7-10 seconds of arriving.
•    Over 90% of buyers look at homes they’ve found on the Internet. It is critical that your home makes a strong first impression online. Staging or virtual home staging will help you do just that.
•    A staged home will sell, on average, 17% higher than a home that is not staged. (US Housing and Urban Development)
•    Sellers who spent $500 on staging recovered over 343% of the cost when they sold their home. (Homegain.com)
•    It is estimated that only 10% of home buyers can visualize the potential of a home. That means 90% are not going to be able to look past dirt, clutter, and imperfections.
•    Staged homes spent 83% less time on the market than non-staged homes. (HomeGain.com)

I’m sure you have heard the saying, “first impressions are everything” but may have never thought too much of it. Now that you are in the virtual tour business, this is definitely true when you are trying to market any piece of real estate property. When your customers see a property for the first time, they need to be “WOWED!” This is both true in person and within your online virtual tours. Making sure that your properties are presented in the best way possible, is crucial and can easily make or break a sale.

Here’s an example :

Virtual Home Staging1

The inside of the home was dirty, furniture was poorly organized, and it looked like a cluttered mess. All of these obviously are not good but sometimes can be overlooked when setting up a home for a photo shoot. Your photos are taken and the tour is now uploaded and viewable to everyone you show. Someone visits your online virtual tour for this home that is amazing and has the potential to sell quickly to the right person, but your introduction photo and the rest were a complete mess. What is the visitor’s first reaction? To leave the tour and not look at the other photos because they are not presentable. You have now lost a potential buyer.

That was just an example and may not even apply to you, but it DOES happen and some tours can look bad just because of poorly taken photos. So what can you do to make sure that your home property is prepped and ready for photography?

Let’s go through some of the staging tips :
– Remove personal items.
– Focus on the main areas and rooms such as bathrooms, bedrooms, living room ,dining room, kitchen, etc.
– Remove evidence of pets.
– Turn on all lights and create a warm atmosphere. Natural lighting is very important and shows up well in photos.
– Remove personal photographs.
– Clean and declutter the focus areas.
– Capture great shots of the exterior and surrounding areas. Focusing on nice landscaping is important and will give the house that extra “curb appeal”.

The whole goal is to have your property feel like home and to capture it in a positive light. Make sure your online visitors feel like they are actually stepping inside of the property so that they can feel the experience of a great 360 virtual tour. Your clients and everyone who views your virtual tours will be blown away. By following these tips and staying within your photography guidelines will help you create great virtual tours and have a more successful virtual tour business. Good luck and happy marketing!

Sincerely,

RTV, Inc
www.RealTourVision.com
Virtual Tour Software & Digital Marketing Training

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