Property Styling – aka Is This For Real?

Virtual styling or property styling is the new phenomenon of the real estate market, quite a shrewd piece of thinking by the sellers really, but a little unethical if you look into it. An article on the Australian Property News describes how stylists help vendors beautify their homes with “virtual furniture” for showcasing them to prospective buyers.

Often, this succeeds in pressing the right buttons in a buyer and as soon as he visualises a home full of decorative additions, his “want turns into a need”, says the article.

If the vendors do not have the funds to spare, the agents take up property styling on their behalf. After all, they are quietly confident that a virtually revved up property is likely to attract more interest and fetch more money.

What is Virtual Styling?

So if you have a vacant house- completely devoid of furniture- take help of a stylist who can inject sofas, curtains, plants, and modular furniture through computer graphics into your home’s photographs.

The big question remains – how ethical is this practice?

The practice does not challenge law but it is only befitting for the agents to post a notification or a disclaimer that the furniture and gadgetry are fake or virtually styled. This way, you do not see buyers dropping their shoulders when they come to inspect your home first hand.

A thought experiment

Think about this scene. A buyer sees the image of a property and is immediately entranced by it. He then takes out time from his schedule to make an inspection. Already in his mind, he is visualizing himself as the owner of the prospective home.

On inspecting the home, he finds it as empty as Jacob’s kettle. Isn’t there every reason for him to feel cheated?

On the contrary, vendors or their agents would do better to let the buyers know that the property is vacant but with some styling, it could look this way (and then show the virtually styled images)

You can read the original article here.

What do you think of virtual styling?