Virtual Staging for South Florida Listings

You should, and you should check your own MLS’s current rule. There is no single Florida statute on the point, but the NAR Handbook on Multiple Listing Policy (Policy Statement 7.93) allows an MLS to require photographs that accurately depict the listed property, individual MLSs write their own virtual-staging rules underneath that, and Florida Realtors’ guidance is to label staged images and keep the original available. We label every staged file and deliver the unstaged original with it so the disclosure is straightforward. Confirm the current requirement with Miami MLS (MIAMI REALTORS / Matrix) or BeachesMLS before you file.

No. We add furniture, rugs, art, lighting and plants. We do not remove or alter walls, columns, windows, doors, structural features, damage, staining or anything visible through the glass. Removing a defect is not staging, it is misrepresentation, and it exposes the listing agent far more than it exposes us.

Twenty-four hours, the same as a photography gallery. If staging is part of a shoot booking it comes back with the rest of the gallery. If you are sending existing photographs, the clock starts when we receive them.

Yes. You do not need to book a shoot. Send the files and tell us which rooms and what style. The only thing worth knowing is that photographs framed from a corner at chest height stage far more convincingly than photographs taken from the doorway at eye level, so results depend somewhat on how the originals were shot.

It is far cheaper and far faster, and it does nothing for the showing. Physical staging changes how the property feels when a buyer walks in; virtual staging only changes the photographs. On a mid-market listing where most buyers pre-qualify online, virtual staging is usually the better value. On a high-end property where the showing is the decisive moment, physical staging still wins.

Match the architecture, not the trend. Contemporary furnishing works in a Brickell or Downtown Doral tower; warmer, more traditional furnishing suits a Coral Gables Mediterranean house; coastal suits a Delray or Hollywood beach cottage. Modern grey furniture dropped into a 1920s living room is the single most common reason staged photographs look obviously fake.

Three to six, in almost every case. The living room, the primary bedroom, the dining area if it is ambiguous, and any room whose purpose a buyer cannot guess. Staging every room costs more and adds little, because by frame nine the buyer has already understood the property. We would rather you spent the difference on a twilight exterior.