Staging
Staging is a common real estate practice and gets progressively more elaborate as the price of the real estate increases, making staging a necessary cost for high-end real estate but a costly perk for mid-tier apartments or homes. Base price quotes usually start around $5,000 for a package including item move-in and move-out, while lower priced ($2,000 - $3,500) might not include the moving costs which are outsourced. In some cases realtors will front the cost of a staging, but will reimburse themselves from the sale proceeds, so the value of the real estate is an important determinant in making a staging decision. Or it was…
It seems that AI is taking over that job and is causing some consternation as it can present a very different image from what the apartment actually looks like, although in a very competitive real estate market, drab photos are easily overlooked and well staged photos capture considerable attention. Retouching house or apartment photos was considered gauche, and it took time and cost money, but now almost anything can be fixed by AI especially applications specifically designed to virtualize furnishings. You can even choose your furnishing ‘style’ and with a few clicks you can make a messy ‘lived-in’ apartment or house into a showplace, without anyone asking any questions.
What happens when you get to the apartment for a showing? The agent can say “It just came on the market and I haven’t been here myself yet, but I have a few others I can show you”, or “Oh, that one isn’t available anymore, but I’ve got others”, and while there might be some trust lost, the agent’s traffic level is increased, and the cost is almost nothing to the agent or the seller. Renters and buyers should be aware that anything that looks perfect is probably not real and should visit potential apartments or houses a number of times to get a true picture of what it really looks like and not trust images without a few reality checks.
To show how easy it is to do this, even at the most basic level, we took it upon ourselves to create an image of a New York City apartment living room, as if it had been staged for a showing:
It seems that AI is taking over that job and is causing some consternation as it can present a very different image from what the apartment actually looks like, although in a very competitive real estate market, drab photos are easily overlooked and well staged photos capture considerable attention. Retouching house or apartment photos was considered gauche, and it took time and cost money, but now almost anything can be fixed by AI especially applications specifically designed to virtualize furnishings. You can even choose your furnishing ‘style’ and with a few clicks you can make a messy ‘lived-in’ apartment or house into a showplace, without anyone asking any questions.
What happens when you get to the apartment for a showing? The agent can say “It just came on the market and I haven’t been here myself yet, but I have a few others I can show you”, or “Oh, that one isn’t available anymore, but I’ve got others”, and while there might be some trust lost, the agent’s traffic level is increased, and the cost is almost nothing to the agent or the seller. Renters and buyers should be aware that anything that looks perfect is probably not real and should visit potential apartments or houses a number of times to get a true picture of what it really looks like and not trust images without a few reality checks.
To show how easy it is to do this, even at the most basic level, we took it upon ourselves to create an image of a New York City apartment living room, as if it had been staged for a showing:
Note the flowers, the trees outside the window, the antique rug and the NY skyline view…
As we move back a step, one notes that the tree and the NY skyline view have been replaced with the original view of a typical NY airshaft and the bright light entering the room is somewhat dimmed..
Another click and various articles of clothing left during a rush to get to work are now visible. Notice also that the flowers are gone.
Another click and the dirty dishes from last night’s dinner in front of the TV appear and the couch pillows are showing signs of a early evening nap.
Figure 7 - Source for all images in this series - SCMR-LLC, Gemini Nano-Banana
This is what the apartment living room actually looked like (not ours), needing a few thousand dollars’ worth of clean-up and staging, but in less than 15 minutes we were able to make this disaster area into an appealing apartment that would generate lots of views and potential clients. Our concern does not extend to staging company employees losing their jobs as there will always be a need for staging in the real estate market, but driving traffic by completely falsifying images seems to be catching on. The image below is a real ‘touch-up’ out of China, where it is said that graduates looking for their first apartments are facing these modified images, only to be sorely disappointed when they actually visit the site and find it filled with the previous renter’s items and less than ideal appliances or damaged floors that had been changed in the listing images.
Caveat emptor!
Caveat emptor!
Figure 8 - Source: WeChat APPSO
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