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House staging is an important part of the real estate industry, and while Realtors traditionally physically stage homes before posting a listing, it is an expensive and time-consuming process. a startup called Virtual Staging AI Generic is making it possible for realtors to stage a home virtually with the help of AI.
Virtual Staging AI, which is part of Harvard Innovation Labs, currently has 4,500 monthly paying customers and aims to transform the real estate and staging industry. The startup has bootstrapped $1 million in ARR in the last 10 months and is generating over half a million renders per month.
The startup’s co-founder and CEO Michael Bonacina told TechCrunch that while searching for an apartment in Boston to attend Harvard, he came across a listing that allowed viewers to imagine how the space would look furnished. Bonacina, who had an interest in computer vision, decided he wanted to enhance that experience and make it easier for realtors to feature it in their listings.
After taking a class about startup research and development, Bonacina and fellow Harvard student Mikhail Andreev decided to create a virtual staging startup to help real estate professionals and home sellers save time and money.
Image Credit: Virtual Staging AI
The startup’s tool allows realtors to add furniture to images of empty rooms within seconds. Instead of sharing images of empty rooms in a listing, the tool gives realtors realistic images of furnished rooms. Realtors may choose to convert an empty room into a bedroom, living room, office, playroom, etc.
Realtors can also use the tool to remove furniture from images and replace it with different furniture. For example, if an image includes mismatched furniture, the startup’s tool can remove it and replace it with modern furniture.
If you don’t like how an image turns out, you can modify it as many times as you want.
Bonacina acknowledges that although there are many AI tools on the market for creating images, they cannot be applied to real estate or virtual staging because you can only change a limited number of things in an image while remaining true to the real property. Are.
“If you put an empty room in DALL-E, it could turn a window into a wall painting, or add an extra door to it or something,” Bonacina said. “This is clearly a misrepresentation of the property. “Real estate needs require something very specific.”
Virtual Staging AI’s model is capable of analyzing the 3D structure of a room and understanding where floors, ceilings, mirrors and doors are located. The AI model then selects the most suitable furniture based on the realtor’s preferences.
Image Credit: Virtual Staging AI
While realtors may hire someone to digitally stage a room using tools like Photoshop, virtual staging AI offers a cheaper and faster way to do so. The startup’s cheapest plan costs $12 per month and includes six photos, while the most expensive plan costs $69 per month and comes with 250 photos.
Bonakina also says it was important for the startup to create something that was easier to use than other generative AI tools. According to National Association of RealtorsThe average age of all real estate agents in the association in the United States is 60 years old, which is why the company wanted to create an easy and accessible tool for all real estate agents.
Virtual Staging AI hasn’t raised any outside funding yet, but Bonacina and Andreev raised $250,000 in personal funds and money from friends and family to get the startup off the ground.
Real estate has continued to evolve over the years, from offering only in-person showings to facilitating virtual tours. It’s no surprise that artificial intelligence, which has transformed industries like healthcare and robotics, is bringing advancements to the world of real estate as well.
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