An Insider’s Look at Home Staging | REDDIT REAL ESTATE Question of the week 🦅 🌎 ⚓️



 

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Staging Worth It
 

To stage or not to stage. That is the question. It costs a lot of money. It's an investment. Our buyer's really going to pay you more for a home that's staged. The reason why I'm bringing this up is that I talked to a whole band of different types of sellers, and a lot of 'em are not willing to spend the money on staging because sometimes they don't see the value in it.

So let's, let's get into this real quick and see if it makes sense. 

Staging Data and Costs

So this is from Realty Times by their writer Jamie Re, and she took information from the annual  NAR Buyer's Report Home Staging Report, which is right here, and I have it.

I have this report, the 2025 Home Buyer's report. So if you want me to share it with you, let me know, and I'll walk you through it. Answer any kind of questions. Here's what you gotta remember, though. 

Buyer Psychology and Model Home Effect

Buyers are going to pay more for a house that looks like a model home than they are for a house that's lived in.

Smells like dogs. They have dogs, smells. Look, the furniture looks like it's 10 or 15 years old, right? If your house looks nice and has all the little decor things, and it makes it look like a model home, they are going to pay more for it. But are you willing to pay 25 to three or $4,000  for staging?

My job is to guide you and educate you and give you all the information and let you decide whether or not you want to stage it up. 

Vacant vs Furnished and Who Pays

From a buyer's agent's perspective, they say that it works a lot better because it makes it easier for the buyer to envision where they would put their furniture.

And once you do it vacant or you do it with your home, your furniture in your home. That's always a big question, too. Sellers sometimes don't want to do it. Sometimes I've paid for, it depends on the house and if it needs it or not, or if it's a total beater, you know, if it's, if it needs to have an investor come in, I'm not gonna stage it.

Sometimes I pay for staging. I do

as part of the negotiation right now. They can call it the HGTV effect because every time you see a home for sale on HGTV, they bring in staging. But here's the other thing you gotta look at. 

Car Shopping Analogy

I'm looking for a car with my daughter. And the first one we went into looked nice, except that the rims were kind of ganged and there were some dents on the side.

And then when I opened up the door, it smelled like smoke.

It kind of turned me off. It was otherwise a perfect car, but the look, the feel, the smell, the touch made me feel like maybe this isn't the right car. Like when I drove it, I can kind of feel it. It was not aligned, right? Felt a little wonky. Upon further inspection, I saw that it had been in an accident, even though the Carfax said it hadn't been in an accident, meaning they fixed whatever dent or accident they were in and didn't report it to Carfax. You gotta be careful about what you're buying. Same thing with houses. Some sellers are very, very elusive about the truth.

And, when you see a house or a seller that's not willing to put the money into air conditioning or updating the kitchen or inspections or selling or staging, and yet they're expecting to get a premium price, they're gonna be duly Upset. 

How Staging Hides Flaws

The real effect of staging is that it makes the house look pretty.

And yes, your house might sell faster, and yes, you might get more money for it, but it does give the buyer a sense that you are ready to move if you come into a house and there's still 50 things on every surface, and, It's not clean and it's only halfway packed up, you're not ready to sell that house.

And it gives a big, huge, loud explosion of a message to the buyer, saying, this one's gonna be a pain to sell or buy. And then they're gonna start looking for other imperfections in your house. When you find a house that's staged, the eye naturally goes to the pretty things and not to the broken, cracked windows or the old.

Dishwasher or what have you, the imperfect parts of the house, 'cause no house is perfect, right? So staging really does a lot. 







AI Staging vs Real Staging
And here's the thing: this is the Reddit real estate question of the week.  Is physical staging still materially influenced buyers? Well, I can tell you that most people hate the AI staging mostly because it doesn't really work that well.

Now, when you're on a mat port, it's just nice to be able to influence and throw a bed or a couch or whatever. Here's the thing: if you do an AI staging and you have a house that's completely decorated and then you walk in and it's completely vacant, your eyes are completely focused on where that bed was and what this is, it's not selling the house.

The unfortunate truth is that most people are terrible at imagining their stuff in your space. Staging is basically turning your space into a modeled home, right? The staging definitely helps create more appeal and connection at the end of the day, right?

Physical staging all the way, do it in an open house right now, and the staging is simple and elegant. When I'm in the position of a buyer, I also find that photographs of stage spaces help me differentiate and make sense of the floor plan before I go in person.

I find it. Really unappealing to look at pictures of four bedrooms with blank walls. I can't tell which is which, or even which makes sense of orientation. Floor plans are very important, but so is staging. If you don't stage it, it makes it look like you're trying to sell a Corolla for a Mercedes-Benz price.

 I don't know how to, I firmly believe. Now again, these guys could be on the pro side because they're in the business, right? So take this with a grain of salt. I'm not telling you either way. Buyers always claim that they can see a potential place, the potential of a place. But 95% of the time it's not true.

Physical staging is a huge help. When done, collect. See, this guy's a buyer, an agent gimme a 10 by 10 room and a 10 by 20. 20 common space, and I'm ducky that I think he just doesn't care. I'm gonna be real with you. 

Marketing and Real Buyer Behavior

Real people going into the house look at it are very, very easily influenced by that stuff that is objectively trivial.

Exactly. It's marketing. That's what marketing is. I had friends wear a tiebreaker between two houses. They like was a cabinet hardware. We just talked about fixtures yesterday. 

When Staging Is Rare

Now it was a tiebreaker between two houses in a time when there were probably 20 on the market, and our local marketing, local market staging is rare, right?

My sister says she barely does staging at her price point in Henderson. I get it. I understand.

And since 2000, I purchased three homes. Two were completely empty,y and one was the seller's furniture in it. So no staging. So some people don't care, but do you want to deal with that person who is going to nickel and dime you as well? Something to think about.





Probate and Estate Talk
Probate and estate sales.  Guys, your parents are getting older. Let's have that conversation with them. Period. Let's see. 

Listings Without Staging Examples

This is 40 days on market. Curry drives right down the street from the house. Four bedroom, two bath, not my listing. 1,933 square feet, $1.9 million for a 1900 square foot house.

And it's on, oh, I don't know, a busy street. Here's the thing. Location, location, location.   That's an okay-looking house.

I don't think it's worth $2 million, though. No floor plan. It's not staged. It's empty. It's vacant. It's been on the market 40 days, and yep, no change in price. I know what my house is worth. Alright. This is 90 days on the market. 133 days on market. San Jose. Nine five. 1 2 4, which means it is off Brandham and Meridian,
huh? Right here. Four bedroom, two bath, two-story. These things are gargantuan, behemoth. Nine five. 1 2 4 Should. Suffice at 1.8 for 1600 square feet. But let's take a look inside. It's nicely done. Why isn't that selling? Maybe it was too high for too long. 133 days, and then they dropped the price from

Not really gonna change here, and this is obviously a flip.  You can tell because they didn't do anything in the backyard.

Otherwise, it's a nice house. 

Pricing Reality and Market Cycles

Is it worth 1.8? I don't know. Buyers don't think so, right? Buyers are the people who tell you that they're gonna pay that much for a house. Sellers don't get to decide what their house is worth. Buyers do when the market's hot. Then they'll pay more for it. But when the market's cold, like it has been for the last four years, here you go.






Homes of the Week Rundown
This is the REO Bank owned of the week on Third Street. This is in the Bricky yard, and it's $585,000 for a two-bedroom, two bath, a thousand square feet. Condo with $785 a month HOA. So in 82 at the Brickyard, it's the Brickyard.




It's Brickyard. Mountain View home of the week. This is Lavender Drive, not my listing. $2.2 million. Three-bedroom, two-bath, built in 2008, and I think this has an HOA, too. Yep. $318 a month

walking distance to Castro Street, which is nice. I think it's a great value. But you're in NHOA this. This is brand new. I don't know how much this is gonna go for, but I think it's a great value considering it is in Mountain View and it's a three-bedroom. The sad part is it's multi-level. It's probably three stories.

 Let's see if they did a floor plan. No,

I think it's a great value. I was looking at something like this for 1.6 in downtown San Jose.  There's nothing wrong with multi-story. You just have to be strong with the leg. 

Inventory and Rate Update
We had a big jump in 40 days on market, but I think that's going to solve itself in the next couple of weeks, considering the fact that we have rates down below 6% now.
Which is nice. It's what we've been asking for. It's what buyers have been asking for. It's what sellers have been asking for. We have a thousand homes on sale for Santa Clara County, which is nice. And we're close to 500 for San Jose. We needed to be about a thousand for San Jose.

We need to be about 2000 for Santa Clara County, which in the summer months and the selling months, which we're in, we could be there. 

Wrap Up

Thanks for watching Beto with ano. Let's go out there.

 


Wednesday Real Estate Snapshot 🦅 🌎 ⚓️


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Vito Scarnecchia
Real Estate Broker, Veteran, Dad
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