For about five years, virtual staging was the obvious answer to an empty house. Three hundred dollars, a day of turnaround, and the portal photos looked furnished.
Since January 1, 2026, that calculation is different, and a lot of agents have not updated it.
What changed
AB 723 requires a conspicuous disclosure on any digitally altered listing image plus access to the unaltered original. In practice, on the MLS that means the altered image is labeled and the original runs immediately before or after it in the photo sequence.
So the empty room is in the carousel. Right next to the furnished one. Labeled.
That is not a reason to stop virtual staging. It is a reason to stop using virtual staging to hide something, because the thing you were hiding is now two swipes away.
When each one is right
Physical staging. Worth it when the house has a layout problem that needs solving in person, when the price point supports it, and when buyers are going to walk through. An empty room reads smaller than a furnished one in person, and nothing about a photograph fixes the feeling of standing in an echoing living room. If the property is above roughly a million and a half in most of LA, and especially if it is vacant, physical staging usually pays for itself in days on market.
Virtual staging. Worth it when the goal is illustrating a possibility rather than disguising a condition. A bonus room where buyers cannot tell whether a desk fits. An awkward alcove. A space whose best use is not obvious. Used that way, the paired original and staged image is actually a stronger piece of communication than the staged image alone, because the buyer sees both the reality and the idea.
Neither. Worth considering more often than agents think. A clean, well-lit, genuinely empty room photographed properly is honest and sometimes beautiful, particularly in an architectural property where the point is the space itself. Nobody needs a fake sectional in a Neutra.
The rules of doing it well
Do not add or remove anything structural. Not a wall, not a window, not a view out the window. Furniture is an illustration. Architecture is a representation of the property, and changing it is a different category of problem.
Do not virtually declutter. Removing the seller's furniture digitally is an alteration under the statute and it requires the same disclosure. If the house needs decluttering, declutter it. That is a weekend and a storage unit.
Keep the scale honest. The single biggest tell in bad virtual staging is furniture sized to make the room look larger. Buyers who show up and find a room that fits a loveseat where the photo showed a sectional are not charmed.
Make your vendor deliver both files. Altered and original, for every room, with the disclosure applied wherever they control the output. If your staging vendor is still shipping one file, they are shipping you a compliance gap.
Carry it through to print. Flyers, mailers and ads with an altered image need the disclosure text and a link or QR code to the originals. This is the most commonly missed piece.
My actual recommendation
If the listing is vacant and the price supports it, stage it physically and photograph the truth. It is more money and it is the better outcome.
If the budget does not support it, do not fake it harder. Shoot the empty rooms well, virtually stage one or two spaces where the use is genuinely unclear, label them properly, and spend the saved money on a better photographer.
Buyers have gotten very good at spotting the gap between the photos and the house. The agents who close that gap are going to have an easier decade than the agents who widen it.
This is a plain-English summary, not legal advice. Check your MLS rules and talk to your broker or counsel about your specific listings.
