Author: Brian Berkowitz When it comes to real estate photography, the first thing that always comes to mind are phrases like “how big is the home?”, “what’s the listing price?”, “will the homeowners be there?” or even “will the agent/client be there?” ...
Kathleen from New York writes:
I am looking for a reliable virtual staging company. I have used a few companies in the past and their work is great but they guarantee a turn around time of 24-36 hours. My realtor client needed the images for an ad and that was enough time, but I uploaded the images Monday evening and even after a bunch of phone calls and emails I didn't get them back until Friday night. I need a company with realistic virtual staging and reliable turn around time. Any suggestions would be great!
Thanks for reaching out Kathleen. I've only used virtual staging a hand full of times and I've yet to come across anyone that has really impressed me. As you know, there are quite literally hundreds of companies out there offering this service. There is also software that allows you to do it yourself (that's if you have the time and are interested).
I think the fastest way to get to the bottom of this is to open the question up to the community and ask for recommendations.
So, who in the PFRE community can recommend a reliable virtual staging company that does good work at a reasonable rate?
Feel free to share a link but be sure to explain your experience with the company and why you would recommend them.
we use Kelly Presby - she is awesome and is on the PFRE list of vendors although we found her through a realtor here in town
The problem with canvassing for suggestions is that once a lot of us find somebody that does a good job, we don't want them to get so busy that we wind up waiting days to get OUR stuff done. 🙂
Boxbrownie.com
Fast and affordable
We have been using Virtual Staging and Rendering Group for over 5 years now and they do an awesome job every time!
I use boxBrownie (BB) as well as they were the least expensive I've found. But I guess you get what what you pay for because I found their workmanship very poor in that I need to send the order back at least once and often twice. So here are some suggestions when dealing with virtual stagers:
They are not photographers and do not understand composition. It's imperative that you outline, and even include a diagram, of a suggested layout. Else they will fill the room with giant furniture. As you are aware, as real estate photographers, we are not shooting the furniture but specifically the space of the room. Usually our compositions include a lot of buffer around the furniture to show normal walking paths. 3D modelers do not understand this concept. Many are in love with their own creations and tend to neglect your specific requests. These services want to do a fast turn-around so do not spend much time on getting it right. Also it's important that you state where the height of the lens was when the image was shot (this is a setting in 3D Max). My lens is around 4-1/2 feet high but for some reason the BB 3D modelers want to make the sofas or dining room chairs go to the top of the image. Don't be afraid to send it back and ask for a re-do if not satisfied. I do all the time. With that said. Padstyler is a bit better in all the above aspects though twice the price and turn-around. Plus their communication is a bit slow. BoxBrownie answers right away, even has a live chat on their site.
We have been using Real Tour Vision RTV for the last 12 years. They brought on virtual staging as a service as a service several years ago and just upgraded to a much better service. I recommend them for virtual staging - we even are able to set up an account for our agents so they can do the staging themselves (some agents think they are interior designers!). This allows them to not have to have a lot of markup on the service while we make a nice commission on the sale. The we provide 2-3 money shots for more than if we were to charge for the whole house photography.
On the DIY side, I have used http://visualstager.com/ on a few occasions. The results are usually quite good.
Good things:
1) Pretty extensive library of 3D furniture to use.
2) Near photo realistic results. Just the right balance of looking real yet not too real, so you realize it is virtually staged.
3) As a non-decorator, I can get pretty good results that my clients have liked.
Some things I don't like:
1) Stupid "credits" you have to buy. Just charge me for what I am doing with out introducing this fake currency that you have to buy in blocks insuring you will have left over credits sitting around when you are done. No doubt it is a money maker for them, but I resent cheesy little rip offs like that.
2) I often shoot "too low" for their "calibration" to work. As photographers, we often have to make small places look big and shooting low helps. So the restrictions on their calibration don't make much sense to me. I do seem to recall reading that they are working on fixing this.
3) Organization of the furniture. Not being a decorator, it would be really helpful if the furniture could be filtered by a particular style or even a cohesive collection. There is the ability to create your own collections, but who has time?
4) Maybe it is me, but I have issues positioning things like beds partly out of frame. I can place a bed in the room and scoot it over to a certain point, then it goes bonkers and the perspective gets all messed up.
5) The user interface is madding at times with regards to selection and scaling.
6) I find the per photo cost to be high. I would much rather pay a couple hundred for a stand alone program to run on my PC and the library of furniture. I could sell a lot more of these if it was not costing me $16 per photo (then add my labor to stage and a bit of profit).
BeePec.com does an excellent job. Boxbrownie is not a friend of real estate photographers. They are fully committed to teaching agents to use iPhones and they will edit those images.
I also use http://visualstager.com and do it myself. The application leaves a lot to be desired, but my clients like the results. Way better than empty rooms. Just raise the camera up another 6"-10" or so and the calibration will work fine.
I looked at visualstager.com and though a bit clumsy seems to do a nice job. Pricing is confusing and not sure how much it actually would cost to typically stage a room. $15 is what I believe it would be. Decluttering could be interesting, didn't try it. If I need to usually do it in photoshop. Also wondering if there would be a big enough request for this service. I've tried looking for software to purchase rather than these services online, but I haven't found any. :/
I recommend https://www.roomhance.com for virtual staging. We have found that their level of quality is a bit higher than some of the other vendors noted above. So far our experience with them has been good.
I own a virtual staging business. It's http://www.omorfia.me I'd be happy to give you a free sample 🙂
Hi Kathleen, at http://www.revina.co, we offer 24-hour turnaround service for Premium Virtual Staging, with full virtual furniture library selection.
We have just created a short article comparing Virtual Staging with other similar services as well: https://www.revina.co/virtual-staging-vs-cgi-comparison-infographic/
Hi Kathleen,
You can use: http://www.5dflows.com. Friendly and fast delivery with only from $15 to $20 per image in 24 hours for Virtual staging job.
They also have their own 3d library online to choose furnitures.
Let try it.
Great post https://virtual-staging.archicgi.com
Hello! I would love to be your resource. My husband and I have put together a team made up of interior design professionals, all local to the US - we are based in Texas. Feel free to see my pricing and examples here: https://www.arrange.studio/virtual-staging-learn-more
I would love to earn your business, feel free to reach out to me directly at 210-823-4686 if you have any questions. We will be at the PRFE Conference in November and look forward to meeting many in this community!
Sorry for the late reply; myself Kewin from Editblocks working as senior image editor in Editblocks doing virtual staging and other real estate image editing for realtors who are looking to promote their property images online through MLS Listing. We helped agents whoever not so comfortable when it comes to traditional staging, spending a 1000$ to 2000$ in it to decor the empty house with the latest furniture design. If you are looking
to know about us, then we got a free trial offer only for you where you can submit your sample images, and we can stage your empty home with virtual furniture. we are doing it for FREE for a limited time. Here is our website link
https://www.editblocks.com/real-estate-virtual-staging
Hi my name is Matt Langan, I own and operate a virtual staging company, https://stuccco.com. As of writing this, we’ve been serving customers across the USA for over five years. If you have any questions about virtual staging, we’d be happy to answer them. We also have a variety of resources on our website and on YouTube to help teach others how to use virtual staging in the most intelligent way. I’m excited to hear you’re interested in virtual staging, it can be an incredibly powerful tool for you and your sellers.