They know the price point they want to sell at and prefer to get there by dealing with one person who they trust to get it done quickly and painlessly rather than going through the whole listing process and dealing with flaky buyers, having to fix up, clean, stage, declutter, get the property ready and stay in a hotel for a weekend so 100s of people can walk through their property seeing and sometimes touching or potentially even stealing their stuff, reviewing multiple offers and comparing and differentiating between them then picking one that they hope sticks and turning down all the others, maybe they don’t like realtors or want to save on transaction fees, etc.

Declutter, depersonalize and paint.  

Then I went through a stage of extreme decluttering.

If you can be patient and want the high dollar, do all the staging and professional photography and decluttering and all that retail crap.If you are not sure of the price where it will sell in a day, do more market research.

They are good and slightly cheaper for declutter and staging.

@Aaron Nelson  The inside of this property has some good character (de-cluttering and re-painting will likely do wonders), and I think the broker is figuring the large sq footage will command a premium vs other similar 3/1 & 1/1. 

If the house was in rough shape when you bought it, decluttering, paint, fresh carpet, fresh floors, new appliances, refaced or replaced cabinets and counter tops, updates to the bathroom go a long way.Best way to figure out how much to put into a house is based on what other updated homes look like in the area.

BUT, honestly, the hassle of leaving work to do showings, dealing with CO and inspection crap, following up with people, preparing pretty marketing packages, weeding out serious buyers, reviewing offers, dealing with the other brokers, staging or advice on de-cluttering that you wouldn't see on your own, professional pictures, etc. etc. ...I would work with a broker 100x over just to have those burdens taken off me.

We helped homeowner declutter and open the space up.

If I were the listing agent I would have insisted on decluttering before putting it on the market or told the seller I couldn't take the listing.