The house cannot be listed until its corporate owner decides on an exact price, which Mr. Kenduck, the managing partner of Cruse Real Estate, estimates will be in the $500,000 range. But that did not keep him from sending an e-mail blast to the 3,500 names in his database with a link to the online tour.

 It included a “style designer” tool that let recipients choose among traditional, transitional, contemporary, modern and something called “Classic Pierce” style to furnish the huge master bedroom suite, paint the walls and trim, and add carpeting. “They are salivating,” said Mr. Kenduck, whose firm, with offices in Seaford, Syosset and Queens, specializes in distressed and bank-owned properties.

Apart from anything else, the staging, which Mr. Kenduck started using six months ago, is “attracting truckloads of buyers who are intrigued by the technology,” as he put it. When a house is vacant, it can be hard to imagine living there. Staging with real furniture can cost thousands of dollars. And an empty listing touched up with realistic-looking virtual “décor” before it is posted runs the risk of deceiving a potential buyer.

The do-it-yourself tool obviates all three problems. “The technology is a catalyst for the imagination,” said Mr. Kenduck, who counts 15 listings set up with the virtual staging widget. “It helps people get past the vacant look and feel. It gets them emotionally engaged. They are practically moving themselves in over the Internet.”

Virtual staging — added beforehand without the do-it-yourself feature — has been in use for about two years on Long Island, in sales of houses built on speculation. But Steve Bababekov, regional sales manager for Obeo, the video tour and virtual staging company that Mr. Kenduck used, said that there had been a surge recently in the number of bank-owned and distressed properties being virtually staged — many with the style designer tool. “Even they needed help moving their properties,” Mr. Bababekov said. “In the past, they said the price spoke for itself.”

 He also said virtual staging was becoming more popular for new construction, as well as co-ops, condominiums and short-term apartment rentals.

To meet the increasing demand, Obeo, one of several companies offering virtual applications, has increased its variety. Using photographs of empty rooms as a template, it now has a library of 45 eclectic collections of virtual furniture, with more options on the way. Richard Hovanec Sr., a sales associate with Coldwell Banker Easton in Babylon, said his company began using the technology this year, offering buyers the ability to try out four different collections of virtual furniture on listings for model homes in Dix Hills and North Babylon. “Now they can pick and visually see what it will look like,” Mr. Hovanec said.

In September, Jeanine Palatella, an associate broker with Signature Properties, listed a 1910 colonial in Huntington at $749,000. She had the listing virtually staged beforehand: The dining room table is set with china, crystal and candlesticks; in the library, the shelves are lined with books, the seating is tufted leather, and a fire blazes in the fireplace. But Ms. Palatella has also uploaded multiple clickable shots of each room, as well as a “virtual room planner,” a tool to rearrange furniture.

Herta Kapp, an agent at Coach Realtors/Fennessy Associates, has taken a slightly different approach, to give definition to the large, empty rooms and monochrome palette in a large new six-bedroom Garden City colonial after six months on the market with no offers. The listing now has virtual staging in the kitchen, the living room, the family room, the master bedroom, the library and the dining room. And in the house itself, she has mounted an easel in each room showing it as it is depicted online.  Buyers “all of a sudden could visualize it,” their eyes drawn to the coffered ceiling in the dining room by the image of a chandelier.

“You do want people to fall in love with the house,” Ms. Kapp said.  To suit the taste of one group of prospective buyers of the $4.995 million listing, she is switching the virtual décor to modern from traditional. But she was reluctant to add a widget to let them do it themselves. “My objective is to sell this house,” she said, “not to have someone play furniture.” 

 One couple unenthused by virtual staging, Christina and Tom Villecco, closed on May 7 on a four-bedroom house in Glenwood Landing listed for $649,000 by Damian Ross of Daniel Gale. They noticed its virtually staged rooms online but preferred viewing the newly renovated house without furniture when they attended its first open house.

 “I am able to picture my own belongings and ideas more easily on a blank canvas,” said Ms. Villecco, a lawyer who is interested in interior design. The couple loved the house “from the moment we walked in, even without a single piece of furniture.”