The question came from a Westport seller on the City-Data real estate forum, in a thread titled “Selling home furnished or not? (Westport, CT)”. It is one of the most common decisions an owner makes before listing, and one of the least discussed with evidence. What follows is what the evidence says, and where it runs out.
Does staging help a house sell?
The National Association of Realtors publishes a Profile of Home Staging, a survey of agents. The most recent edition, released in May 2025, drew 1,266 usable responses.
Buyers’ agents ranked the living room as the most important room to stage, at 37 percent, followed by the primary bedroom at 34 percent and the kitchen at 23 percent.
What can’t the data tell me?
The survey compares staged homes with unstaged ones. It does not compare a house shown with the owner’s own furniture against the same house shown empty, which is the question the Westport seller asked. Staged usually means edited, with furniture chosen and placed to make rooms read clearly in photographs and in person. A furnished house may or may not meet that standard.
So the useful version of the question is not furnished versus empty. It is whether the rooms, as shown, help a buyer understand the house.
How do I decide?
- If your furniture suits the house and the photographs, keep it and edit hard. Remove a third of what is in each room, clear surfaces, take down personal photographs and fix what a buyer will notice.
- If you are moving out before the sale, an empty house can be hard to read in photographs. Consider staging the living room, the primary bedroom and the kitchen, the three rooms buyers’ agents rank highest.
- If you are leaving furniture behind on purpose, tell your attorney. Personal property is negotiated separately from the house and should be written into the contract.
- If the house will sit empty, call your insurer first. Many homeowners policies limit coverage for a house left vacant for an extended period.
What about Westport?
In a market this tight, staging is less about speed than about price. In the three months through August, Westport homes sold for 104.6 percent of list price on average, and the median home spent 33 days on the market, according to Redfin. A house that photographs well tends to draw more showings in its first weekend, and more showings is how competing offers start.
The cost is modest relative to the price of a Westport house. A $1,500 staging bill is less than one tenth of one percent of the $2,425,000 Westport single-family median through August. To discuss how your own house will show, contact the Seller’s Desk.
Sources
- City-Data Forum, Selling home furnished or not? (Westport, CT), accessed Oct. 2026
- National Association of Realtors, Profile of Home Staging, May 6, 2025
- GlobeNewswire, NAR report reveals home staging boosts sale prices and reduces time on market, May 6, 2025
- Redfin, Westport housing market, accessed Oct. 2026
- Riverside Realty Group, August market update, September 2026
