Virtual Staging Apps Make it Easier to Market Properties

Virtual staging startups and apps are revolutionizing the process of staging properties for marketing, a previously time-consuming and expensive process that required cleaning, furniture rentals, and wait time for a space to be built out.

Virtual staging apps allow owners to digitally design and furnish a space in a matter of days at a much lower cost than traditional physical methods, and begin marketing with realistic visuals before model spaces are developed and outfitted.

"Virtual staging provides commercial owners, developers, and operators increased flexibility to customize the design, layout, and configuration potential of various units and spaces—creating a tailored experience that goes beyond static, and oftentimes costly, physical staging," says Pieter Aarts, CEO and Co-Founder of roOomy, a 3D virtual staging platform.

Of course, traditionalists would argue that virtual staging is no match for a physical walkthrough—but it's not intended to be. The purpose is to help viewers visualize the space and give them a feel for what it might look like when complete.

roOomy partnered with virtual tour company Matterport in 2017 to create virtually-staged walkthroughs of spaces, and announced the launch of Matterport 3D Capture for Smartphones in September 2019. The new technology allows iPhone and Android users to create 3D virtual tours from the digital footage they capture with their phone camera, and when combined with roOomy, users can film a video of their space on their phone, virtually furnish it, convert it to 3D, and send a custom virtual walk-through of the space to a potential client.

“Matterport aims to achieve full camera and capture ubiquity that will allow us to digitize the entire built world," company founder RJ Pittman said in a public statement at a September launch event in San Francisco. "Creating a 3D solution compatible with smartphones is a huge step towards reaching that goal."

Matterport also automatically measures dimensions in a space, which benefits CRE professionals in myriad ways: contractors and designers can have automatic shared records of a room's measurements to streamline material orders; floor plans can be corrected on the fly; and designers can easily see where furniture can fit in the room with realistic measurements.

Other virtual staging companies are positioning themselves not as PropTech, but as real estate digital marketing firms with extra capabilities. BoxBrownie takes customers' photos and has a professional design them, from virtual renovations and staging of unfinished space to full color renderings of commercial floor plans. A removal feature allows the designer to edit out tools left behind by the construction crew or items left by a previous tenant from the original photo.

Additionally, visual shopping tools that use artificial intelligence could save designers time searching for furniture pieces. For example, with GrokStyle, you can snap a photo of a piece while out and about, and the app will identify the item—or the closest approximation of it—and find where its available to purchase online.