Same House, Two Agencies: How Virtual Staging Won Despite Listing a Month Late

Same House, Two Agencies, One Month Behind

A semi-detached house in Santa Oliva, Spain was being marketed by two agencies at the same time. No exclusivity. Same walls, same square metres, same street, essentially the same price.

The competing agency had been live for a full month.

Marga Cano, an agent at iad, published her listing on June 29th.

She started a month behind on the portal where Spanish buyers form their first impression: Idealista.

In her first two weeks, her listing had:

• Over 600 listing views
• 44 saves

More than the competing listing that had already been live for over a month.

"The only difference between the two listings was how the home looked."

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The Real Problem: Price Wasn't the Lever

When two agencies market the same property, almost nothing is under your control:

• Price is set by the owner, not by you
• Location is identical
• Condition and finishes are identical
• Listing age works against you if you publish second

That leaves exactly one variable you can win on: how your listing looks in the feed.

And that's where most agents quietly lose.

On a portal, buyers don't read — they scroll. The cover photo and the first few images decide whether there's a click. An empty living room, a cluttered corner, or an unused patio doesn't communicate "home." It communicates "unresolved space."

Marga couldn't compete on price or on listing age. So she competed on presentation.

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The Solution: Furnish and Declutter With AI Before Publishing

Instead of publishing empty rooms straight out of the camera, Marga prepared every photo with AI virtual staging in Pedra:

✔ Furnish empty spaces

Every vacant room went live furnished, so buyers could see how the space works instead of staring at a white rectangle.

✔ Remove what doesn't belong

Clutter, owner belongings, and stray objects were removed from the photos before they ever reached the portal.

✔ Show uses buyers wouldn't imagine

The clearest example was the front entrance — a paved area the owner used for parking. Staged as an outdoor lounge, it stops being a parking spot and becomes another room of the house.

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The Transformations

Transformation 1: The Entrance Nobody Knew How to Read

Before: a paved area with no obvious use

After: outdoor sofa, bistro table, planters and a rug — another room

The challenge: the entrance was the largest under-sold space in the listing. Empty, buyers only saw tiles and a gate.

What Marga did: she selected the empty space and furnished it with AI to show its potential in case a buyer didn't want to use it for parking.

The result: the same square metres went from a line in the property spec to a selling point visible on the listing cover.

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Transformation 2: The Empty Living Room

Before: an empty living room — hard for buyers to scale

After: sofa, coffee table, armchairs and a console under the window

The challenge: a large empty living room reads smaller and colder than it is. With no scale references, buyers can't tell whether their furniture fits.

What Marga did: staged the room with AI while preserving the natural light and the picture window — the room's real asset.

The result: the photo started communicating how the house is lived in, not just how big it is.

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The Bedrooms: The Same Standard Throughout

Main bedroom, virtually decorated with AI

Second bedroom, presented with a work area

Marga applied the same standard to every remaining room: each space in its best version, with a consistent style across the whole listing. A listing that looks coherent from the first photo to the last signals that a professional is behind it.

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Watch the Full Case Study

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The Results

On a listing portal, more views and more saves mean more enquiries. And saves are the most honest signal there is — nobody bookmarks a home they aren't seriously considering.

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How She Did It, Step by Step

Marga's workflow takes minutes:

1. Upload the photos to Pedra — create a new project with the property images
2. Select a photo and click Edit with AI
3. Furnish the empty spaces (entrance, living room, bedrooms)
4. Remove object to mark and delete anything that didn't belong
5. Download and publish on the portal

No extra photographer. No rental furniture. No waiting weeks.

A note on transparency: AI-furnished images are published with a virtual decoration disclaimer, as portal best practice requires. Buyers always know they're looking at a decoration proposal, not the property's current state.

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Key Takeaways for Real Estate Agents

1. Listing late isn't losing

A month's head start is worth nothing if your listing looks worse. Publication order matters far less than first impression.

2. Without exclusivity, presentation is your only competitive edge

If you share a property with another agency, you can't change the price or the location. You can change the photos.

3. Empty rooms are square metres you aren't selling

An empty entrance, living room, or bedroom reads as "unresolved space." Furnished, they read as reasons to book a viewing.

4. Better presentation → more clicks → more enquiries

The chain is direct: a better cover image means more clicks in the feed, more listing views, more saves, and more enquiries.

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Want Your Listings to Win the Click?

If you share properties with other agencies — or simply want your listings to stand out — Pedra lets you furnish and declutter your photos with AI in seconds, exactly like Marga Cano did.

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About iad

iad is one of Europe's largest networks of independent real estate agents, operating in Spain through hundreds of advisors who work without physical branches and with a strongly digital approach.

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About Pedra

Pedra helps real estate professionals generate virtual staging, photo enhancements, object removal, renovation renders, floor plans, and listing videos in seconds.

Over 2,000 real estate professionals worldwide use Pedra to make their listings look better — and sell faster than the competition.