6 Tips to Ensure Success with your Listing Photos
What can sellers do to to ensure success with their real estate listing photos?
It’s been said many times that “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words.” The phrase is especially true with real estate listings as most potential real estate buyers look at photos and videos online before contacting a realtor. Listing agents need these photos to be of the highest quality to capture the true essence of the listing so that prospective buyers see it not just a house - but as a home.
Whether agents take listing photos themselves or use a professional photographer, here are 6 tips that will help guarantee you are putting your listing in the best light so that your listings look as move-in ready as possible:
Decluttering: The more clutter in the house, the smaller the house looks. Similarly, don’t make it personal - remove as many personal items as possible. Otherwise it can be harder for a potential buyer to see this as their home and not someone else’s house.
Staging: Properly stage the home. There are a range of options for staging, whether you’re moving your own furniture around, hiring a staging professional or using virtual staging. In addition to staging, make sure to remove furniture that may block the entrance into the family room, minimize the big pieces that makes spaces feel smaller , don’t block a beautiful view out of a window with a big piece of furniture.
Lighting (Interior): Keep lights on and the windows and curtains open - natural light is the best light, and even thought will have their own light sources (e.g. flash) natural light is always best!
Lighting (Exterior): There is nothing you can do to change which direction the listing is facing, you should take photos according to which the house faces: if the house faces east, make sure sure to take photos in early- to-late morning. Conversely, if the house faces west make sure to take photos in the late afternoon/late morning to capture the best lighting possible.
Painting: The last thing many sellers want to do is invest more money into a house they’re leaving - but a fresh coat of paint in as many interior rooms as possible makes the rooms seem brighter, cleaner and much more appealing to the potential buyer.
Cleaning: While cleaning a house before photos are taken seems like a no-brainer, sellers should also shampoo the carpets to not only get them clean but to also make the carpet(s) appear newer and rejuvenated.
Follow these 6 tips and you can rest assured your listing will both close faster and closer to the listing price. What other tips do you have?
-Leslie
Leslie Lemons Photography provides high-quality residential real estate photography for realtor offices large and small throughout Chicagoland and the west suburbs of Chicago.
