We’ve all heard of photo shop. You upload a picture, then you add a background, make your smile a little brighter, remove that jerk of a date you were with that evening and shave off about ten pounds. All of a sudden, last weekend was the best weekend ever!

Well, now some sellers and their agents are taking the photo shop approach to staging homes for sale, upgrading existing appliances and even putting in new countertops, window treatments and flooring. This is called virtual staging, and some agents are actually using computer programming to make the virtual tour feel real, leading some buyers to question exactly what they are getting when they arrive on-site to something very different than what they experienced on their virtual “tour.”

One staging group has established a happy medium in this regard, placing digitally enhanced, altered and professionally-designed images in electronic frames in each real room[1]. This is idea, they explain, for sellers on limited budgets who may not be able to afford professional home-staging on a large scale. This type of staging can help a buyer determine what the home will really look like once it is remodeled or renovated and can be critically important to selling a home quickly or at a good price.

Do you think that virtual staging is appropriate in any form?

Let us know what you think about this issue below.

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[1] http://www.latimes.com/classified/realestate/sns-home-professionals-boost-speed-sales,0,991412,full.story