Virtual staging has a place. If a home is already under contract with a fast closing, if a listing needs to go live before furniture can physically arrive, or if a seller is truly out of options, I get it, and I've recommended it myself as a last resort. But I want to be honest about something the marketing around virtual staging doesn't say out loud: in most cases, it doesn't actually help sell the house. It just helps the listing photos and MAYBE helps get people in the doo

People don't buy homes with a spreadsheet (okay maybe investors, but that's a topic for another day). They buy them with a feeling. You can have the right square footage, the right school district, the right price per square foot on paper and still lose a buyer in the first ninety seconds because the house didn't feel right when they walked in. This is the part of real estate that's hardest to put a number on, and it's exactly where vacant homes tend to struggle most. The Vis