Photo provided by DepositPhotos
The math of home shopping has flipped. According to the National Association of Realtors’ 2025 Profile of Home Staging, agents whose buyers had an expectation said those buyers planned to view a median of 20 homes virtually and just eight in person. That’s up from 15 online and 10 in person in NAR’s 2021 report. The first showing now typically happens on a phone screen, and the listing photos may decide which homes earn a real visit.
The same NAR report shows staging pays, yet just 21% of sellers’ agents stage every listing, and more than half don’t stage at all. If presentation drives the sale, why are so many listings competing with photos of empty rooms?
People are also reading…
29% of Sellers’ Agents Tie Staging to Offers 1% to 10% Higher
In NAR’s 2025 report, 29% of sellers’ agents said staging lifted the dollar value offered by 1% to 10%, and nearly half, 49%, said staged homes spent less time on the market. On the buyer side, 83% of agents said staging made it easier for clients to picture a property as their future home.
The Real Estate Staging Association tracks the pattern through its own members’ projects. In RESA’s first-quarter 2025 report, drawn from its Sold Over List Price Club (a program tracking homes staged and sold by members), 84 sales averaged 12 days on market.
The $1,500 Problem Behind the Staging Gap
NAR puts the median spend on a professional staging service at $1,500. That’s real money for a seller already covering repairs and moving costs, and it helps explain why 51% of sellers’ agents skip staging and usually recommend decluttering instead.
Sellers are weighing a fixed upfront bill against an uncertain return, and many often decide the bill wins. That calculation was built for an in-person market, though. When buyers expect to screen roughly two and a half homes online for every one they tour, the listing photo typically does the first round of selling. NAR’s 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers found that 52% of buyers located the home they purchased online, and in the staging report, 88% of sellers’ agents said photos in their listings were much more or more important to clients, the highest-rated marketing element in the survey, ahead of videos at 47% and physical staging at 43%.
Virtual Staging Starts Around $24 Per Photo, Against a $1,500 Median for Physical
For the listings that never get furniture delivered, the practical alternative may be editing the photos: brightening dim rooms and virtually furnishing empty ones. Industry estimates put typical professional work between roughly $29 and $75 per photo, a fraction of the $1,500 median for a physical service.
The tools have followed the demand. General-purpose image editing and generation suites, StockCake’s AI tools among them, typically let a seller or agent erase clutter from a real listing photo, sharpen its resolution, or generate supporting imagery in minutes without hiring out the job. For the listing agents who skip staging, and for owners selling without an agent, per-photo pricing may close most of the distance the NAR numbers describe.
Edited listing photos do come with disclosure rules. Florida Realtors notes that MLS requirements commonly include labeling virtually staged images and providing the originals, and those requirements vary by market.
58% of Agents Say Buyers Are Disappointed Homes Don’t Look Like TV
NAR found that 48% of agents say buyers expect homes to look the way they do on television, and 58% say buyers are let down when reality falls short. Buyers raised on renovation TV shows often judge listings against a televised standard, and that standard keeps climbing whether sellers budget for it or not. With buyers expecting to view 20 homes on a screen for every eight they walk through, the listing gallery typically now works as the first open house, and it may decide how many buyers show up to the second.
