Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and we have found in our market selling real estate nothing could be truer! When prepping your real estate listings for your clients, one of the best ways to grab the attention of potential buyers is to include quality photos with the listing. While photos can easily be taken and uploaded with virtually any digital camera or smartphone, there are a few tips that you should keep in mind in order to achieve the best photos possible.
Tip #1: Prep the Rooms
Before you even take out the camera, you need to make sure the rooms are properly prepped for photographs. In addition to cleaning up the space and ensuring each room is free from clutter, you should also remove personal items and stage each room to create an inviting feel. For the kitchen, this means placing a nice set of dishes on the dining table and placing a bowl of fruit or flowers on the countertops. A plant or flower might also be a nice touch in the bathroom, but you should also be sure to put down the toilet lid, to hide toiletries and to hang a clean set of towels that coordinates with your paint or tiles.
As you prep each room, you should also try to determine the selling point of each room. Once you have identified its best features, consider how you can capture that feature in the photographs that you take.
Tip #2: Select the Right Time
If time allows, you should also wait for the right time to take the photographs. Taking pictures when it is raining or snowing can have a negative impact on the quality of your photos. If possible, wait for the right weather conditions before taking pictures for your marketing materials. In addition, taking exterior photos at dusk can create an appealing image, but it is best to take indoor shots in the middle of the day when you can let in the natural light to assist with improving photo quality.
Tip #3: Use a Tripod
No matter how steady you might think you are with your hand, you can never hold the camera as steadily as you can with a tripod. A tripod will also ensure your photos are taken straight while allowing you to more easily capture images from different angles. A tripod will also allow you to shoot at slower shutter speeds so you can take full advantage of the natural light.
Tip #4: Invest in a Wide Angle
Using a wide-angle lens allows you to take wider shots of the room, thereby providing the viewer with a better sense of the room’s depth and detail. While some real estate agents are using a fisheye lens, this creates a distorted look that does not provide the potential buyer with a genuine image of how the room looks. Wide-angle lenses provide an honest representation of the space while creating a well-polished look.
Tip #5: Make it Virtual
If you really want to step up the game, consider creating a virtual tour for potential buyers to explore. With the many tools that are currently available, a virtual tour is relatively simple to create. Not only does it allow potential buyers to see the property from a three-dimensional perspective, but a virtual tour is also easy to add to a variety of social platforms to help quickly spread the word about your listing.
