The market has shifted. After years of strong demand and rising prices, buyers are now more selective — especially international buyers who compare properties across multiple regions and countries before making a decision. Properties that would have sold quickly two years ago are now sitting for months. The difference between what moves and what doesn't is almost always presentation: how a property is photographed, how it feels online, and whether it creates an emotional response in the first few seconds of scrolling. The properties that sell are the ones that grap your attention.

Almost never — at least not as a first response. A price reduction signals to buyers that something is wrong, which often makes them wait even longer to see how far the price will fall. We regularly see properties drop from €699,000 to €599,000 without a single new viewing. That is €100,000 lost — not because the property wasn't worth it, but because buyers couldn't see why it was. In most cases, a targeted investment in presentation costs less than 1% of the asking price and generates more interest than a 10-15% price cut ever would.

International buyers — French, German, Dutch, British, Scandinavian — are not just buying a property. They are buying a lifestyle decision. They want to feel something when they see a home: mornings on a terrace, light through a window, a sense of space and warmth. They make most of their decision online, before ever visiting. This means the photography, the visual presentation, and the atmosphere of the listing are doing almost all the selling. A beautifully staged and photographed property communicates value, quality, and desirability — in a language every buyer understands.

The data from markets where home staging is established — the UK, the US, the Netherlands — consistently shows that professionally staged and photographed properties sell faster and closer to asking price than those that are not. On the Costa Brava, where most properties are still presented with basic photography and no staging, the gap is even larger. A property that stands out visually attracts more viewings, creates more competition between buyers, and gives the seller a stronger negotiating position. The investment is typically less than 1% of the asking price — and the return is measured in months off the market and thousands on the final price.

There is no universal answer — every property and market is different. What we do know is that the first two to four weeks on the market are critical. Properties that launch with strong photography, a clear visual identity, and a compelling online presence generate the most interest and the best offers in that window. Properties that launch poorly rarely recover — buyers assume something is wrong and the listing goes stale. Getting the presentation right before you go to market is always more effective than trying to fix it after weeks of no interest.

Always before. Once a property has had a price reduction, the market has already formed an opinion — and that opinion is hard to change. The right moment is before the property goes live: when you still control the narrative, when buyers haven't seen it yet, and when you can create a strong first impression. If a property has already been on the market for a while, a restaging combined with new photography — and ideally a fresh listing — can reset that narrative. But the longer you wait, the harder it becomes. Presentation is not a last resort. It is a launch strategy.