I think looking at houses with no furniture in them is good for me but often buyers like to see some furniture to give them an idea of how their stuff will fit. Talk to a stager they will have great ideas .

we took the listing photos of our house with our curated furnishings, then moved out and had the inside painted and hardwood floors refinished. (this was the days before 'real estate photo stretching' when you could actually tell the size of a room from a photo. ) it allowed buyers to see a queen bed in the room in the master photo, and then see a pristine space when they visited the house.

i like furnishings in spaces that are ambiguous as to how the layout will work. i like furnishings in open plan houses that would look like an airplane hanger if empty. i like furnishings if the floors arent going to be refinished and you need to distract buyers from what they are actually going to be buying.

Staging if done right, is the way to go. People sometimes have a hard time defining the open concept spaces of today's homes. If staged, they can " see" the options. Staging must be neutral and not personal. Keep it simple and sell that house! Good luck!

It can depend on the market that you're putting it in too- if it's a really high end market it can be better to stage it because you can earn more money in the selling price. However sometimes the mid to lower markets won't make that much of an impact. See what other listings look like, and try to look better than them :)

When we did a full house reno on my sister's former home, we ha the main floor lightly staged and the upstairs bedrooms and gameroom were left empty -- just a few towels and a jar of cotton balls in the bath. The house sold in a day. Honestly, the breakfast room and dining room are pretty obvious, but they looked more inviting with tables and chairs. The beverage bar drew more attention staged. The study and family room avoided the how do you arrange furniture question which I think was helpful because the study was quite large and the family room a little narrow. I believe the house would have sold well either way, but post Harvey construction issues delayed us (no flooding -- just supplies and workers), so if it didn't sell very fast, we were looking at after the holidays. It definitely worked and was worth it to us. More of an insurance policy than a remedy.

ETA -- she also sold at a great price. That was one of the reasons the realtor asked her to stage it -- faster sale and higher price to get the most out of those renovations.