By Tiffany Clark, Principal Broker, Bend Premier Real Estate, voted Realtor of the Year for the 4 consecutive years by Source magazine

Every week I walk through homes with sellers who have poured years of their lives into these spaces. They love what they’ve built. But what I’ve learned after years of listing and selling property across Central Oregon is this: what a seller sees and what a buyer sees are almost never the same thing — and home staging is the bridge between those two realities.

Home staging is the strategic art of preparing a property for sale by arranging furniture, décor, lighting, and flow to appeal to the broadest pool of buyers. It is not interior decorating for your own taste. It is targeted visual marketing designed to help a buyer emotionally say, yes, I could live here — within seconds of walking through the door or scrolling through listing photos online.

In the Bend and Central Oregon market, where buyers increasingly relocate from high-cost metros in California, Washington, and the Willamette Valley, first impressions online are everything. The typical buyer today begins their home search on the internet long before they ever contact an agent. A beautifully staged listing photograph stops the scroll. An empty or cluttered room keeps them moving.

It is true that every seller has special memories associated with knick-knacs on shelves, books that they loved reading, artwork that they got on vacation, etc.  However, the buyer walking in the door wants to picture themselves in the space and if all these wonderful memories aren’t packed in advance and your home de-personalized the buyer has a hard time seeing themselves living there.  Staging helps to decorate a space with generic items that allow buyers to visualize themselves living in the space.

According to the National Association of Realtors® 2025 Profile of Home Staging, staging the living room is considered the most important space for buyers (37%), followed closely by the primary bedroom (34%) and the kitchen (23%). If those rooms don’t tell a compelling story the moment a buyer lays eyes on them — digitally or in person — you’re leaving money on the table before negotiations even begin.

I always tell my sellers: staging is not a cost — it is an investment with a measurable return. Let me walk you through what the data actually shows, because home staging benefits are striking.

The NAR’s research confirms that nearly 30% of listing agents reported their staged homes received 1–10% higher offers compared to similar unstaged homes. On a $600,000 home — a realistic price point across much of Bend and Redmond today — that range translates to an additional $6,000 to $60,000 in your pocket. The median cost of professional staging, per that same NAR report, runs around $2200-5500 The math is not ambiguous.

The Real Estate Staging Association (RESA) adds further weight: professionally staged homes spend roughly 73% less time on the market than their unstaged counterparts. In a region where months of carrying costs — mortgage, insurance, utilities, and HOA fees — can run several thousand dollars, selling faster isn’t just convenient. It is financially significant.

Estimated impact of professional home staging on key sale outcomes, based on aggregated industry data. Sources: NAR 2025 Profile of Home Staging & The Zebra Home Staging Statistics.

“The typical homeowner resides in their home for 10 years before selling. During that time, homeowners might overlook certain aspects that could be less appealing to potential buyers. By staging a home, agents strategically highlight the best features, ensuring sellers receive the most competitive offers.”

— Dr. Jessica Lautz, NAR Deputy Chief Economist & VP of Research

Physical staging — bringing in a professional team to furnish, arrange, and style a home — is the gold standard, and for most listings I recommend it without hesitation. But I am also practical. Not every seller has the budget or timeline for full-scale staging, and that is exactly where virtual staging real estate services have stepped into a very real role.

Virtual staging uses professional photography of empty or sparsely furnished rooms and digitally inserts high-quality, photorealistic furniture and décor. The result is a set of listing images that show buyers the home’s full potential — without a single piece of furniture ever being physically moved. According to The Zebra’s home staging statistics research, virtual staging can reduce staging costs by up to 97% compared to traditional methods. Individual virtually staged images typically run between $59 and $129 per photo, making a complete package easily achievable for under $500.

Is virtual staging as powerful as physical staging when a buyer walks into a home in person? No — and I will be honest about that. Traditional physical staging earns higher marks from buyer’s agents in terms of client impact. But for a vacant investment property, a condo in a price-sensitive range, or a seller who simply cannot afford full staging, virtual staging real estate is dramatically better than listing bare rooms. Think of it as the difference between a great highlight reel and no highlight reel at all.

One of the first questions I get from sellers across Bend, Sisters, and Redmond is simple: what does this actually cost? Here is a transparent breakdown so you can plan accordingly before you call staging companies near you. Staging prices all vary based on the number of rooms you are staging and the size of the home.. The numbers below will represent a family room, primary bedroom, and dining room & kitchen.

Sources: NAR 2025 Profile of Home Staging; The Zebra; HomeAdvisor national averages. Actual house staging costs in Central Oregon may vary. I always recommend getting at least two quotes from home stagers near you.

One rule of thumb worth keeping in mind: industry data suggests that investing roughly 1.3% of your home’s value in staging can yield an average over-list return of 7.1%. Sellers who skip staging, on the other hand, sometimes face price reductions that run five to twenty times greater than what staging would have cost in the first place.

When I connect sellers with home stagers near them here in Central Oregon, I always prep clients on which rooms matter most. Professional stagers are not decorating every corner of your house. They are strategically targeting the spaces that make the biggest emotional impression on buyers.

Rooms buyers consider most important to stage, per the NAR 2025 Profile of Home Staging. Sellers’ agents most commonly staged living rooms (91%), primary bedrooms (83%), dining rooms (69%), and kitchens (68%).

The living room anchors a buyer’s emotional first impression of how they will actually live in the space — entertaining, relaxing, gathering. The primary bedroom signals retreat and calm. Kitchens sell houses in Central Oregon the same way they sell houses everywhere. Notice what is not on this list: guest bedrooms and home offices rank at the very bottom. A good staging company near you will know exactly where to concentrate your budget.

After years of helping buyers and sellers across Central Oregon, I’ve come to believe that the true power of staging is psychological, not cosmetic. Buyers make purchase decisions with emotion first and logic second. Staging builds that emotional bridge.

The data from The Zebra’s home staging statistics tells a clear story: 96% of real estate professionals believe home staging positively influences a buyer’s decision. Nearly half of all buyers are more willing to visit a home in person after viewing professionally staged photos online. In a market like Bend — where many buyers are relocating from California, the Bay Area, Seattle, or Portland — that online first impression may be the only shot you get to capture serious interest before they move on to the next listing.

When a buyer walks into an empty home, they see walls, floors, and problems. When they walk into a staged home, they see a life. That shift in perception is the entire game.

Whether you are listing a craftsman bungalow near Drake Park, a mountain-view home in Tumalo, or a high-desert retreat outside Sisters, the process for finding the right staging partner starts with your realtor, Tiffany Clark.  Tiffany has good established relationships with the best local staging companies near you — professionals who understand the aesthetic preferences of our specific buyer pool and know how to position a home for the lifestyle buyers are moving to Central Oregon to find.

Here is my practical checklist for sellers considering staging:

• Request a staging consultation before listing — ideally 3–4 weeks ahead.
• For vacant homes, prioritize full physical staging — this is where ROI is highest.
• For budget-sensitive listings, combine virtual staging real estate photos with targeted decluttering.
• Focus staging investment on the living room, primary bedroom, and kitchen first.
• Always get at least two quotes from home stagers near you before committing.

The Central Oregon market continues to attract sophisticated buyers — many of them accustomed to the design-forward environments of Portland, Seattle, and the Bay Area. Meeting that expectation is no longer optional. Staging is how we do it.

If you are preparing to sell and want a candid conversation about whether full physical staging, a virtual staging real estate strategy, or a hybrid approach makes the most sense for your specific property and price point, reach out. That conversation — and the staging consultation it often leads to — is consistently the most valuable hour a seller can invest before they go live on the market.

Curious what your Bend home is worth in today’s market? I’ll pull the comps and give you a straight answer.