Now, advances in virtual staging enable brokers to do even more. They can remove clutter from a photograph of an apartment, spiff up a scratched stainless steel refrigerator, even open up the kitchen to the living room by removing a wall.
“I’ve gone to dozens and dozens of open houses, and I’m always being told to use my imagination by a broker,” said Vince Collura, the president of the Gotham Photo Company, which offers the services. “Customers don’t have imagination; they’re looking for the potential risks, not the possibilities.”
Gotham offers what it calls “Gotham Renew” to brokers who want to clean out cluttered spaces, and “Gotham Revamp” to brokers who want to show what renovations could do for an apartment. Gotham also continues to offer virtual staging, which it calls “Gotham Envision,” to add furniture to an image, as do a handful of other companies, like Virtual Staging Solutions and Virtually Staging Properties.
A virtually staged digital image created with Envision costs $65, while an image created with Renew runs a bit more, depending on how much clutter is cleared, Mr. Collura said. Images created with Revamp start at $100 and go up depending on the complexity of renovations, he said.
The question of who pays for staging is usually resolved in the broker’s agreement with the seller.
Mr. Collura said the ability to manipulate photographic images could be abused by some brokers to mislead customers, so Gotham has worked out procedures for the use of the images with the legal departments of the largest brokerages.
He said these could include a note on the image saying it had been virtually staged, or side-by-side images labeled “before” and “after.”
Tracey Lundberg, a sales associate with Prudential Douglas Elliman, spent $292 for two images to market a studio apartment at 225 West 70th Street, listed for $399,000. The apartment was almost empty, except for some essential furniture for the owner, who was still residing there.
Not only did Ms. Lundberg have Gotham virtually stage the studio apartment, but she also used the Revamp service to open up the wall of a dressing room to create a small bedroom, adding French doors in the process. (She also spent $80 to have Gotham make a three-dimensional floor plan showing the renovations.)
Eventually the seller received an offer above the asking price, though the deal fell through and the unit remains on the market, Ms. Lundberg said.
“Most buyers actually commented that the illustration helped them to see the possibilities,” she said, “and they had a lot of enthusiasm about the potential of creating an extra room.”
Chad Thomas, a vice president and associate broker with the brokerage Mark David Company, used both the Renew and Revamp services to market a 4,300-square-foot loft space at 424 Broadway. The loft had been used as a commercial space, but can be used as a residence, he said.
“They took the raw space and made it look as-is, but clean,” Mr. Thomas said. “They made a patchy tin ceiling all one solid color, made the floor and walls clean and consistent, and brightened up the entire space.
“Then they basically installed a kitchen, placed furniture, created a new elevator door, and put up walls where bedrooms would go,” he said.
Other brokers have found a use for Gotham’s services in the new development market, where virtual images were used more widely during the most recent booming market, in which buyers signed contracts after seeing only floor plans.
Jessica Peters, an agent with Prudential Douglas Elliman, says she uses virtual staging for apartments in the same line to show their potential, minimizing the need for expensive model apartments, or in smaller developments, eliminating model apartments altogether.
Ms. Peters says she also frequently markets individual resale apartments being sold by investors, which are often vacant, so she uses virtual staging in those cases. “It’s about $150 to virtually stage a two-bedroom apartment,” she said, “and if you’re actually staging a model unit, it can cost a minimum of $10,000. And this isn’t even high-end furniture. I’m talking Ikea and West Elm.”
Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=1893b7978b73c94035b81ea1dd24c12b