TOP-PERFORMING AGENT REVEALS ODD TRICK TO SELLING LISTINGS FASTER
Here at BoxBrownie.com, we love working closely with agents to ensure our services continue to meet their needs. Thus for this article, we’ve teamed up with Jodie Hedley-Ward (from McGrath Caloundra), who is a top-performing real estate agent in Australia!
Jodie embraces virtual staging as it helps her sell property faster. In fact, she never lists an empty listing online as empty rooms don’t sell property. However, one of the main obstacles she faces with virtual staging is when a buyer shows up and says “it looks different without furniture.”
To help overcome this objection, Jodie uses an odd trick… an art easel.
Jodie places an art easel in the vacant room of her open home. She then places a foam board that showcases the virtually staged image on top of it.
Jodie has found this simple hack helps her:
1. Connect with buyers. When buyers show up, they can connect with the listing with what they saw online. It also helps buyers visualize what the property would look like with furniture.
2. Sell partially furnished listings. For homes that are only partially staged (perhaps due to budget concerns), Jodie virtually stages the vacant rooms. She then combines this with the art easel hack which helps her sell partially furnished listings.
3. Saves a lot money. Currently, it costs approximately $1,000 a week in Australia to physically stage a property. A cost that can not only add up quickly but is also not an option for some people. Alternatively, the cost of a foam board to present your virtually staged images is as little as $38 per board, making this a fantastic option in many cases.
Jodie’s other key recommendation is to develop a brochure with beautiful virtually staged images for potential buyers to take home after viewing the property.
RELATED ARTICLES
It’s time for the second installment in our Real Estate Marketing Health Check series. In this blog, we take a look at the photography for an apartment in Virginia to see what works well and what could have been done better and hopefully give you some tips and tricks for your own real estate photographer along the way.
READ MOREGet your team 2026-ready with our free property marketing training! We tailor each session to your team’s needs — from cost-effective photography that streamlines your marketing to creating listings that stop the scroll. Save time, boost results, and start January strong.
READ MOREWhether you're brand new to BoxBrownie.com or you’re a regular whizz at using our website, this one’s for you. This blog will tell you how to add sample images to your account so that you can take advantage of one of the most useful features of our job submission process.
READ MOREHave you used virtual staging before? This powerful marketing tool can increase a property’s sellability and make your listing stand out to house-hunters. Find out why you should be using virtual staging to market your listings.
READ MOREOne reason that the wealthiest and most successful people in the Chicago area trust Michael LaFido to sell their homes is because Michael can market these properties with the panache they deserve. Here he talks about using our image-enhancing weapons to pull off some of the biggest deals in the history of Illinois.
READ MOREDiscover how technology is revolutionizing the real estate industry in our new webinar, 'Tech-Forward Real Estate: Fostering Efficiency and Client Relationships.' Join us to explore how adopting cutting-edge tools can supercharge your productivity and help you build deeper, more meaningful connections with clients.
READ MORE