As an AI hype skeptic + real estate enthusist, this one made me a bit angry. Angry enough to actually read the paper. The abstract is correct, but I am balking at the researchers' use of the word...
Exemplary
As an AI hype skeptic + real estate enthusist, this one made me a bit angry.
Angry enough to actually read the paper. The abstract is correct, but I am balking at the researchers' use of the word stages or staging. The research is specifically talking about furnished homes vs empty, and furnished with decor item vs just prescene of furniture.
As a buyer / seller, a staged home is not a furnished home. A furnished home can be one where an angry renter has rotten food on a kitchen table. A staged home is different from a currently lived in home, or even one that is very prettily tidied up by the sellers. They do things like get rid of personalized / controversial / sentimental items, update everything to modern grey, and basically make it look like a show room instead of a home. Some professional stagers come to your home with their full set of prop furniture that are smaller than standard sizes, even. Fun stuff.
Here's what the researchers mean by "staged": if it has at least two photos one of which includes any of these
By this research's AI methodology, "staged" could be a hoarder home with a bed next to five bags labelled poop, or abandoned horror house painted in blood across the home office, or any of these /rZillowGoneWild hallof famers / ridiculousrealestategems
Another thing the researchers don't mention is the scourge of AI staging that's happening right now. It's infuriating when im browsing that I have to skip every other photo because they're "digitally staged" meaning dishonestly represented. Why yes that window is magically there on a solid wall shared by the next apartment, and yes you can ignore the awkward pillar in the middle of the room. The only positive I can name for this stupid Realtor™ trend is when it goes hilariously wrong, like (jump scare warning) this gem or this goofiness
Okay back in serious mode. Another thing the researchers did was look for homes with two historic sold listings, one furnished one empty, in an attempt to apples to apples same house same location same school district. But they completely leave out if the listings are during buyer or seller market, and without consideration to how well priced or motivated the seller might have been. Real estate is Location³, but time is a crucial invisible fourth dimension.
At the end of the day I feel like this research is either extremely cheap and dirty fast to do as a publish or die, or intentionally misleading to help professional stagers sell their services, or intentionally misleading to help sell AI enhancement software subscriptions. Thumb down.
Brilliant links, thanks for the laughs. As for the lazy AI "staging", I hate it. I've had the experience of looking through adverts with 130+ photos, only for there to be real photo / fake photo /...
Brilliant links, thanks for the laughs. As for the lazy AI "staging", I hate it. I've had the experience of looking through adverts with 130+ photos, only for there to be real photo / fake photo / real photo / fake photo, and it's just tiresome. ALL of the problems you mentioned were there, along with rooms just generally seeming to grow, ugh. It feels crazy to me - no shit, buyers want to see what they're actually buying, not some weird photoshopped version - we've gone through this with dating apps, surely?!
Right? They say first impressions is everything, but don't they realise the first impression they're sending is "the seller is being deceptive"? Then again, when a house is priced well it will...
Right? They say first impressions is everything, but don't they realise the first impression they're sending is "the seller is being deceptive"?
Then again, when a house is priced well it will sell regardless of any shinannigans in a hot market. All the Realtor has to do is to upsell services and capture the profit. For ridiculous prices or buyers market, the Realtor captures the AI fee plus stager referral commission, and the stagers gets the furniture rental fees, regardless of sale.
One interesting thing that surprised me about our current house: it still had the previous owner's furniture when we toured it. After we bought it, the master bedroom actually felt smaller without...
One interesting thing that surprised me about our current house: it still had the previous owner's furniture when we toured it. After we bought it, the master bedroom actually felt smaller without any furniture in it and almost narrow. Had it been empty from the start, I would've questioned if my mom's king-sized bed would leave enough walking room. The presence of furniture can really alter your perspective of a room's size.
The furniture also covered some of the really worn spots on the old carpet. We planned to totally replace the flooring anyway, but just an amusing benefit of staging a house.
I mentioned this in my wall of text but some professional stagers have a full set of smaller than standard furniture to specifically create this illusion. Buyers beware
I mentioned this in my wall of text but some professional stagers have a full set of smaller than standard furniture to specifically create this illusion. Buyers beware
That's really incredible, real commitment to the bit. Do they not get busted when people sit down on a chair etc.? I often sit down on the furniture if it's available and imagine how I'd use a...
That's really incredible, real commitment to the bit. Do they not get busted when people sit down on a chair etc.? I often sit down on the furniture if it's available and imagine how I'd use a space. I feel like I'd notice if I sat on a 90% scale chair.
I talked to one of the stagers in real life and they said people never notice, or chalk it up to just different people buying different furniture. They're not wildly tiny kids furniture, but like...
I talked to one of the stagers in real life and they said people never notice, or chalk it up to just different people buying different furniture. They're not wildly tiny kids furniture, but like you said maybe 90% or a very slightly narrower table or a couch that's maybe a little shallower. Which, maybe because I grew up in HK and we brought our furniture, I was already used to sometimes things are just smaller in some homes. There are sometimes end tables for hallways that are so crazy narrow who would buy them except for stagers? But perhaps I'm also used to the Vancouver / Toronto market show homes. Would probably stick out in a Texan mansion, for example
I bought a house 2 years ago and I absolutely noticed when they had a king size bed that was significantly shorter. My realtor also pointed things out to me if I didn't catch them, but it was not...
I bought a house 2 years ago and I absolutely noticed when they had a king size bed that was significantly shorter. My realtor also pointed things out to me if I didn't catch them, but it was not that hard. I just wouldn't have said shit to their realtor at an open house or something.
Oh I do love a really narrow table for a hallway though. They're very handy for putting stuff on or putting them behind a couch.
Fair enough: if it's something everyone does why mention it to the seller agent. And the person talking to me is obviously trying to sell this fantastic service, and is motivated to tell me people...
Fair enough: if it's something everyone does why mention it to the seller agent. And the person talking to me is obviously trying to sell this fantastic service, and is motivated to tell me people don't notice :)
There were American flag stickers on most of the windows when we toured this house. After moving in I found that each one covered a crack in the glass.
There were American flag stickers on most of the windows when we toured this house. After moving in I found that each one covered a crack in the glass.
I toured a house where the agent was SO helpful showing that the taps all worked, good water pressure etc. Of course immediately after move-in I discovered that most of the taps wobbled!
I toured a house where the agent was SO helpful showing that the taps all worked, good water pressure etc. Of course immediately after move-in I discovered that most of the taps wobbled!
Ahh, ye olde "let me tap this baby so you don't touch and discover its wobbliness" trick At least it's a quick fix :) I moved in and found gently sloping kitchen (but this one was firmly my fault...
Ahh, ye olde "let me tap this baby so you don't touch and discover its wobbliness" trick
At least it's a quick fix :) I moved in and found gently sloping kitchen (but this one was firmly my fault for buying site unseen from another province. Price was right though)
We examine the economic impact of non-consumable visual cues through home staging on high-stakes housing transactions. Using hand-collected listing photos for 15,777 transactions and a machine-learning algorithm to detect furniture, we provide the first large-scale evidence that staged homes sell for roughly 10% more and one week faster than comparable homes without furniture. Our pre-registered online experiment establishes causality and uncovers mechanisms. We find that furniture clarifies spatial use, while decor enhances emotional attachment, jointly driving the higher willingness-to-pay. These findings demonstrate how visual cues impact high-stakes decisions and systematically shape valuations in the largest asset market for households.
As an AI hype skeptic + real estate enthusist, this one made me a bit angry.
Angry enough to actually read the paper. The abstract is correct, but I am balking at the researchers' use of the word stages or staging. The research is specifically talking about furnished homes vs empty, and furnished with decor item vs just prescene of furniture.
As a buyer / seller, a staged home is not a furnished home. A furnished home can be one where an angry renter has rotten food on a kitchen table. A staged home is different from a currently lived in home, or even one that is very prettily tidied up by the sellers. They do things like get rid of personalized / controversial / sentimental items, update everything to modern grey, and basically make it look like a show room instead of a home. Some professional stagers come to your home with their full set of prop furniture that are smaller than standard sizes, even. Fun stuff.
Here's what the researchers mean by "staged": if it has at least two photos one of which includes any of these
By this research's AI methodology, "staged" could be a hoarder home with a bed next to five bags labelled poop, or abandoned horror house painted in blood across the home office, or any of these /rZillowGoneWild hall of famers / ridiculous real estate gems
Another thing the researchers don't mention is the scourge of AI staging that's happening right now. It's infuriating when im browsing that I have to skip every other photo because they're "digitally staged" meaning dishonestly represented. Why yes that window is magically there on a solid wall shared by the next apartment, and yes you can ignore the awkward pillar in the middle of the room. The only positive I can name for this stupid Realtor™ trend is when it goes hilariously wrong, like (jump scare warning) this gem or this goofiness
Okay back in serious mode. Another thing the researchers did was look for homes with two historic sold listings, one furnished one empty, in an attempt to apples to apples same house same location same school district. But they completely leave out if the listings are during buyer or seller market, and without consideration to how well priced or motivated the seller might have been. Real estate is Location³, but time is a crucial invisible fourth dimension.
At the end of the day I feel like this research is either extremely cheap and dirty fast to do as a publish or die, or intentionally misleading to help professional stagers sell their services, or intentionally misleading to help sell AI enhancement software subscriptions. Thumb down.
Brilliant links, thanks for the laughs. As for the lazy AI "staging", I hate it. I've had the experience of looking through adverts with 130+ photos, only for there to be real photo / fake photo / real photo / fake photo, and it's just tiresome. ALL of the problems you mentioned were there, along with rooms just generally seeming to grow, ugh. It feels crazy to me - no shit, buyers want to see what they're actually buying, not some weird photoshopped version - we've gone through this with dating apps, surely?!
Right? They say first impressions is everything, but don't they realise the first impression they're sending is "the seller is being deceptive"?
Then again, when a house is priced well it will sell regardless of any shinannigans in a hot market. All the Realtor has to do is to upsell services and capture the profit. For ridiculous prices or buyers market, the Realtor captures the AI fee plus stager referral commission, and the stagers gets the furniture rental fees, regardless of sale.
One interesting thing that surprised me about our current house: it still had the previous owner's furniture when we toured it. After we bought it, the master bedroom actually felt smaller without any furniture in it and almost narrow. Had it been empty from the start, I would've questioned if my mom's king-sized bed would leave enough walking room. The presence of furniture can really alter your perspective of a room's size.
The furniture also covered some of the really worn spots on the old carpet. We planned to totally replace the flooring anyway, but just an amusing benefit of staging a house.
I mentioned this in my wall of text but some professional stagers have a full set of smaller than standard furniture to specifically create this illusion. Buyers beware
I noticed that when touring houses. Tiny loveseats everywhere.
My favourites are staging loveseats that look like there are three cushions, so it ensures maximum actual sitting discomfort
That's really incredible, real commitment to the bit. Do they not get busted when people sit down on a chair etc.? I often sit down on the furniture if it's available and imagine how I'd use a space. I feel like I'd notice if I sat on a 90% scale chair.
I talked to one of the stagers in real life and they said people never notice, or chalk it up to just different people buying different furniture. They're not wildly tiny kids furniture, but like you said maybe 90% or a very slightly narrower table or a couch that's maybe a little shallower. Which, maybe because I grew up in HK and we brought our furniture, I was already used to sometimes things are just smaller in some homes. There are sometimes end tables for hallways that are so crazy narrow who would buy them except for stagers? But perhaps I'm also used to the Vancouver / Toronto market show homes. Would probably stick out in a Texan mansion, for example
I bought a house 2 years ago and I absolutely noticed when they had a king size bed that was significantly shorter. My realtor also pointed things out to me if I didn't catch them, but it was not that hard. I just wouldn't have said shit to their realtor at an open house or something.
Oh I do love a really narrow table for a hallway though. They're very handy for putting stuff on or putting them behind a couch.
Fair enough: if it's something everyone does why mention it to the seller agent. And the person talking to me is obviously trying to sell this fantastic service, and is motivated to tell me people don't notice :)
A Short King bed is pretty funny though
I think it was maybe a table or something not an actual bed but something the realtor kept around because it was the right height and width.
Hey us short kings still need a bed!
It was very short
Are you sure it wasn't just a twin/double turned 90° :)
Haha yes, it wasn't quite that short
Absolutely, and we should get a discount too for everything from pants, beds, to airline seats!
There were American flag stickers on most of the windows when we toured this house. After moving in I found that each one covered a crack in the glass.
I toured a house where the agent was SO helpful showing that the taps all worked, good water pressure etc. Of course immediately after move-in I discovered that most of the taps wobbled!
Ahh, ye olde "let me tap this baby so you don't touch and discover its wobbliness" trick
At least it's a quick fix :) I moved in and found gently sloping kitchen (but this one was firmly my fault for buying site unseen from another province. Price was right though)
(laughs) that's the American way!
Here is the abstract: