Recently I was working with a client that we were listing her house. She had bought a house in the Cypress and kept saying that she wanted to go ahead and move to the Cypress, but she she needed to leave her furniture in the house because she knew a furnished house sells better than an unfurnished house.

You have to keep in mind that this was not decorator furniture. It was furniture that was over 20 years old. I tried to explain to the owner of the house that the house would sell better unfurnished than furnished. She said, “that can’t be right because I have always heard the opposite.” For years, people told her that, but the statistics don’t back that up.

The National Association of Realtors did a study that concluded that unfurnished properties sold better than furnished properties. That is what I always tell people.

There is one exception to that. That is what we call a professionally staged home. I recently had a house listed that I had had over 50 showings and didn’t get a single offer because there was too much white tile throughout the house. I had the house professionally staged and got an offer the first day the house was staged. People didn’t notice the white tile as much and the space was better defined, due to the furniture.

The mistake most people make is assuming that their furniture looks good. That is why a furnished house doesn’t sell as well. If it is professionally staged, it absolutely shines like a shiny penny.

If your house is unfurnished and hasn’t sold, you may want to consider having a staging company come in and stage the properties. There are a couple of companies that do a phenomenal job.

Now I would rank the homes easiest to sell as follows: 1)Professionally staged house 2)Empty house 3)Furnished house.