Most agents still treat staging as a finishing touch. At the top of the market, it hasn’t been one for years.
How a home is shown has a real effect on what buyers will pay for it. That’s true at every price point, but it’s amplified at the high end, where the gap between a well-presented home and an unstaged one can run into six figures. Buyers in this range are picturing their lives in the home from the moment they walk in. If the space doesn’t help them do that, the showing usually doesn’t lead anywhere.
A few weeks ago, REALM Global — the network of luxury real estate advisors I’m a member of — announced a strategic partnership with Vesta Home, the largest luxury staging and interior design firm in the United States. For my sellers, this matters in real terms. It changes what I can put on the table for a listing.
What REALM Is, and Why I’m In It
REALM is a brand-agnostic, invitation-only network of roughly 600 advisors across 40+ U.S. states and 21 countries, representing the top 1% of luxury real estate globally. Members average $70 million in annual sales, with cumulative career sales across the network exceeding $500 billion.
In practical terms, that means when I take on a listing, it doesn’t just get exposed to the Atlanta market and my own database. REALM’s intelligence platform matches it against vetted advisors representing high-net-worth buyers around the world, often before it’s ever publicly listed.
That’s the network side. The new partnership is the design side.
What Vesta Brings to the Table
If you’ve watched Million Dollar Listing or Selling Sunset, you’ve already seen Vesta’s work. They’ve staged homes for clients like LeBron James, Jessica Alba, and Rihanna, and they’ve built the largest luxury staging operation in the country, with 50+ in-house designers, more than 60,000 furnishings in inventory, and the ability to install most projects within 10 to 14 days of design approval.
The celebrity client list is the headline, but the reason it matters is the data on professionally staged luxury homes:
- Staged homes spend roughly 73% less time on the market than unstaged comparables.
- They sell for 1–10% over asking price on average.
Those numbers translate directly to our market. On a $3M Lake Lanier waterfront listing, a 5% premium is $150,000 — well above what staging costs. On a higher-end home in Harbour Point or The Manor, the dollar difference grows from there.
What This Means Specifically for My Sellers
The partnership gives me, as a REALM member, direct access to Vesta’s full design and staging capabilities, along with several benefits I can pass through to my clients:
- A 7% rebate to sellers on any Vesta furniture purchased from the listed property. More buyers at this level want the home and the interiors delivered together rather than spending six months sourcing furniture after closing. When that happens, you benefit from it financially.
- A $3,000 annual design credit I can apply toward staging or design work on your home.
- Complimentary concierge design consultations for listing prep, covering things like palette decisions, layout, and how to stage for a specific buyer profile, before we ever bring in photographers.
I don’t add tools to my process just to have more to talk about. The Vesta partnership earns its place because it helps homes sell at stronger numbers and gives sellers a real option for selling the furniture along with the property.
The Bigger Picture
There’s a broader trend behind all of this. Buyers at this level increasingly want the home and the lifestyle delivered together rather than buying a house and then spending six months trying to furnish it. That shift changes how a thoughtful seller prepares to go to market.
If you’re thinking about selling in the next year — a waterfront estate on Lake Lanier, a Buckhead home, or something off-market and discreet — presentation is part of the conversation I’d want to have early. Well before we’re talking about pricing and listing dates.
Most agents rush through that part. I spend a lot of time there, because in my experience it’s what separates a good outcome from a great one.
If you’d like to talk through what this could look like for your home, I’d be glad to. The best conversations happen well before you’re ready to list.
Ashley Smith · (678) 485-8858 · Schedule a private consultation →
