Virtual furniture

P

pennyk

Has anyone used Virtual Furniture when selling their house?
We have just had some done ready to relaunch our property on the market. Obviously, you dont get the benefit of having furniture there during open homes, but in a slower market like it is at the moment, and in a big house, the furniture was prohibitively expensive. the quote for furniture was $6000 for 6 weeks for 1 bedroom, 3 living areas, kitchen and deck.
The virtual furniture was $50/photo, plus photo shoot of minimum 8 photos at $220. We got 4 photos done with furniture. .... They look great. I'll try to work out how to attach a couple of them.
the company we used was topsnap.com. They came on Wednesday and the photos with furniture were online by Friday.
 
This is the master bedroom..... hopefully.

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and this is the lounge room with and without "furniture", and the dining room with furniture only

.WEB_PDC 4222.jpg

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I think as an "experiment" its really good value for money... we'll see how it goes with attracting the buyers!
 
That's just creepy ... its like looking at magazine ads for furniture or paintings where its clear its all the same room and someone has got in there with photoshop.

That said, you'd probably convince all your buyers that its real :)

I've seen FAR worse photoshops though. Always from builders. They just stick in practically cardboard cutouts of trees around their clearly computer-rendered houses. And the same trees/plants are often repeated in one 'photo' ...

Edit: other half just pointed out that the perspective in your bedroom is wrong - the photo has been photoshopped from a photo with different perspective to yours. The top isn't parallel to the ceiling.
 
It would be an excellent tool for selling properties overseas I say. It reduces the perceived risk of buying sight-unseen
 
What a great idea!!

If one of our units comes up for sale in the next 2 years I may just use them as cheaper than furniture.


Thanks
Sheryn
 
Aaron_C said:
That looks really professional...what is the name of the company?
Click to expand...

the company name is Top Snap. ... website www.topsnap.com

I thought they looked impressive. If you look closely, you can see that they have made the rooms look bigger than they are (although they are all large rooms anyway).... the door in the bedroom and the windows in the dining room are stretched. But at a quick glance, they make the rooms look very enticing.

Pen
 
Hi Pen

I've seen a few of these now and I don't mind them- whatever gets people through your door is worth considering! Best of luck with it all. :)
 
pennyk said:
the company name is Top Snap. ... website www.topsnap.com

I thought they looked impressive. If you look closely, you can see that they have made the rooms look bigger than they are (although they are all large rooms anyway).... the door in the bedroom and the windows in the dining room are stretched. But at a quick glance, they make the rooms look very enticing.
Click to expand...

I am really impressed. Rumpled clearly has a much more critical eye than most due to her professional "eye", but I would never have guessed the furniture was not really there.

As to the rooms looking bigger, that happens with many professional real estate photographs anyway. I couldn't tell you how many times I have been gobsmacked by expecting a huge room, only to find it was the "tricky" lens used. One local house looked like it had a huge grassed front yard (which I knew wasn't true) solely down to the "stretch" of the lens used.

One problem with selling houses empty is that they actually look smaller without furniture, and many people cannot imagine how their furniture would look. It is very hard for some people to imagine how things will fit in a room, and how much space will be left over. If this saves the vendor several thousand but also gives buyers an idea of scale, then it is fantastic.
 
I do 3d rendering and photoshop for fun and profit :)

I actually brought this business idea up for someone who was struggling to find ways to make money on the internet (all the ideas he was coming up with were truly awful and some were actually proven ways to LOSE money). Photoshopping furniture into empty rooms is an excellent business idea. I don't particularly like it - I can see it going down the slippery slope of photoshopping out all the faults, changing wall colours, adding a garden where there isn't one etc - but I can see the business doing very well out of it.
 
RumpledElf said:
http://www.news.com.au/money/proper...nts-latest-trick/story-e6frfmd0-1226157834885

Whole article on the practise here.

Seriously, 30-40% use it? Seems high, or at least made up. Or from one agency that recommends it or something.
Click to expand...

It's extremely common for any off the plan sale. I just saw a profesional marketing company the other day (for my own development), and they include advice on what furniture to put in etc to make it look attractive for potential buyers. All the big developments in South Yarra, Richmond etc all use it to great effect.
 
Off the plan I would have put it at close to 100%, and before virtual furniture it was "artist's impressions". Back in the dark ages when I did architecture pre-computers you just drew all that stuff in by hand.

But in existing houses ... its new.
 
RumpledElf said:
http://www.news.com.au/money/proper...nts-latest-trick/story-e6frfmd0-1226157834885

Whole article on the practise here.

Seriously, 30-40% use it? Seems high, or at least made up. Or from one agency that recommends it or something.
Click to expand...

I think its fairly uncommon for established houses.. our agent is fairly aggressive in terms of using "innovative" advertising, and we were the first ones he'd used it for.

I thought the Starr Partners guy's comment was strange.... its not illegal but its not something people appreciate.... but no further explanation of why he thinks it would be illegal or that people wouldnt appreciate it. I dont think people come to an open home to see the furniture!!

anyway, we've got our next house on the market and have used them again. The effect isnt quite so dramatic, but I'm fairly sure it does improve the appeal of the property when it is vacant.
 
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