Staging:
More Than an Appetiser

When it comes to market­ing real estate objects, the situ­a­tion has changed rather signif­i­cant­ly in the past years: Rather than display­ing empty rooms, marketers have been adding furni­ture and furnish­ing elements: This so-called stag­ing (derived from “stage”) start­ed in the USA around the year 1970 and is now wide­ly used here as well — in real or a virtu­al form. In today’s Valdivia Expert Tip, we discuss the bene­fits of this sales tool.

Sell­ing Real Estate in a Better Way

Initial­ly used in the resi­den­tial sector only, offices spaces have long been made more attrac­tive by means of stag­ing. This corre­sponds with the current trend: for many prospec­tive tenants, work-life balance includes friend­lier surround­ings in the work­ing envi­ron­ment — even if their own station­ary desk in many compa­nies is a thing of the past.

Whether resi­den­tial or office space — the most tangi­ble advan­tage of stag­ing is certain­ly better sales. Buyers decide more easi­ly and accept high­er prices if rooms are attracriv­e­ly staged. Vari­ous stud­ies carried out by the Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Real­tors (USA), the most recent one from 2021, only confirm this:

- Accord­ing to the partic­i­pat­ing real­tors, stag­ing has a medi­um to strong posi­tive influ­ence on 91 % of buyers.

- 23 % of brokers observed a high­er price accep­tance (1 to 5 % of the value) in the market for prop­er­ties with stag­ing. In some cases, even value increas­es of up to 20 % were achieved.

- 53 % of the prop­er­ties offered could be sold slight­ly to signif­i­cant­ly faster due to the imple­men­ta­tion of staging.

Contracts being closed more speed­i­ly and the accep­tance of high­er prices speak for them­selves. Espe­cial­ly prop­er­ties that are, for some reason, diffi­cult to sell (loca­tion, cut, condi­tion, etc) often get an extra chance with staging.

Making Rooms Vivid 

One aspect that should not be under­es­ti­mat­ed is the fact that stag­ing helps many people to better visu­alise the dimen­sions of rooms. Even if on a tight budget, a chair and a table can give you an idea of the dimen­sions or space avail­able. Fresh plants trans­form dull office floors into a living space . And virtu­al stag­ing is increas­ing­ly supple­ment­ing or replac­ing real furnish­ings. Even if walk-in 3D appli­ca­tions are still rare, virtu­al sample furnish­ings offer an unbeat­able advan­tage: the rooms can be adapt­ed to indi­vid­ual wish­es and needs – with the click on a mouse. Depend­ing on the soft­ware tool, this can even include exist­ing furni­ture that is being insert­ed into the representation.

Learn more

As you can see in the exam­ples, stag­ing does not have to be a cost­ly market­ing tool. Profes­sion­al advice and self-assem­bled rental furnish­ing for an aver­age flat or team office are avail­able for just a few hundred euros. Howev­er, for high­er-qual­i­ty prop­er­ties, you should be will­ing to spend a little more: For profes­sion­al real-estate stag­ing, one to three percent of the sales price should be set aside. As the above-mentioned study has shown, such a sales aid is well worth its money. Further infor­ma­tion and contacts — also for office stag­ing — can be found on the Inter­net or by getting in touch with the German Soci­ety for Home Stag­ing and Re-Design (DGHR), www.dghr-info.de

The above figures and exam­ples are proof enough: stag­ing is a win-win strat­e­gy. For sell­ers, the chance of a success­ful deal increas­es with rela­tive­ly little effort. For buyers and espe­cial­ly future owners or tenants, the offer may even only come to live, i.e. more concrete and tangi­ble, or even conceivable.

¹ 2015 / 2021 Profile of Home Stag­ing — Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion of REALTORS® Research Group