Is Staging Worth It When You Sell a Long Beach Home?

Staging can help a home show better, but the evidence on how much is weaker than the industry usually suggests. The National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) 2025 survey of agents found that 29% of sellers’ agents reported a 1% to 10% increase in the dollar value offered on staged homes, and 30% reported no impact on the dollar value. Here is how I decide when staging is worth the money for a Long Beach home.

Source: NAR 2025 Profile of Home Staging, a February 2025 survey of agents with 1,266 usable responses. The results reflect agents’ perceptions, not measured sale outcomes. Long Beach figures are from the Pacific West Association of REALTORS® (PWR) Local Market Update for October 2026, based on CRMLS data and current as of November 2, 2026.

What Agents Told NAR

Among sellers’ agents, 29% reported that staging led to a 1% to 10% increase in the dollar value offered, and 30% reported no impact on dollar value. About half, 49%, said staging reduced the time a home spent on the market, with 30% seeing a slight decrease and 19% a significant one. Buyers’ agents were more cautious on price: 41% said staging had no impact on the dollar value offered, although 83% said it made it easier for buyers to picture the home as their own.

Many agents do not stage at all. Of sellers’ agents, 51% did not stage homes before listing but recommended that sellers declutter or correct faults. The most common recommendations were decluttering (91%), cleaning the entire home (88%), and improving curb appeal (77%).

What It Costs and What It Would Need to Earn

NAR reported a median cost of $1,500 for a staging service and $500 when the seller’s agent handled the staging. My own planning figure in the October 14 cost post was $3,500, so costs vary with the home and the scope. At the October Long Beach single-family median of $962,500, 1% is about $9,625 and 5% is about $48,125. A modest effect could exceed the cost, but 30% of sellers’ agents saw no impact on dollar value, so treat any gain as a possibility, not a promise.

Where Staging Matters Most

Buyers’ agents ranked the living room as the most important room to stage (37%), followed by the primary bedroom (34%) and the kitchen (23%). If you stage selectively, those rooms are the place to start. Virtual staging can cost less than physical staging, and photos that are virtually staged should be clearly labeled, so check your MLS’s rules.

Long Beach homes are still selling in about a month. In October, single-family homes took 34 days on average and sold for 98.1% of the original list price, and pending sales fell 62.5% from a year earlier, so first impressions in the photos and at the first showing carry real weight. Why Some Long Beach Homes Sell Quickly While Others Sit for Months covers what separates the fast sales from the slow ones, and the October 2026 Long Beach market report has the full data.

Bao’s Take: Beyond the Numbers

Start with declutter, clean, and curb appeal

Those three come first, cost the least, and are what most agents recommend. Staging is the next layer, not a substitute. My post on which improvements pay off covers the small, visible projects worth doing.

Match the staging to the home

A vacant home can be hard for buyers to read, so staging may do more there. An occupied home with good furniture may only need editing and rearranging. If a home is likely to be difficult to sell, I would weigh staging more heavily, and the NAR survey found that some agents stage only those homes.

Do not stage before you fix

Staging does not cover a known problem, and an inspection will find it anyway. Fix what an inspector is likely to flag first, then treat staging as a marketing cost in your net estimate, as in What Will You Actually Net From Selling Your Long Beach Home?