As cliché as it may sound, a picture really does speak a thousand words. What those thousand words say about your property however, depends on the photographs you use. Using the best photographs possible will let you put your best foot forward and could drastically reduce the amount of time your home spends on market.
“Making use of quality photos when selling a home often has a bigger impact on potential buyers than what some agents may think,” so says CEO of Greeff Christie’s International Real Estate Mike Greeff.
“With the rapid growth of online listings and the staying power of print adverts, a good photo has the ability to attract or dissuade any buyer or investor, depending on the finished product. At Greeff we have employed a top-quality photographer who ensures that all of photographs are of the highest standard.”
Good real estate photography follows the same guidelines and rules as regular photography. Quality equipment partnered with colour, composition and lighting should give you a good photo but what will make that photo great will be the “story” that you want to tell with each picture and the emotion that you want to evoke.
Good quality equipment should be your first port of call and you should generally avoid taking pictures with your smartphone. An agent taking pictures using their phone to send to another agent or for internal reference is completely acceptable but images that are intended for publication should be taken using a high resolution digital camera. If necessary they should be ‘cleaned’ using photo editing software to remove any information that may constitute a breach of the seller’s privacy and they should be shown to the client prior to being published.
The composition of your photographs should follow some simple guidelines in order to maximise their efficacy. Keep your pictures simple and try to pick angles that show off features that you want to promote. It is easy to fall into the trap of trying to get everything into one shot. Use lower angles to emphasise height, eg. ceilings, roof features or upper level windows. Use higher angles to give an overview of space and shape of the area in question.
Avoid clutter in rooms and spaces. People want to buy your house not your laundry and exercise equipment. So it may be a good idea to do some cleaning up before your photo shoot. The use of colour and lighting can mean the difference between an average picture and the picture that gets an offer. If you have a feature wall that is a different colour then show it off and a bit of extra lighting may be the difference between a potential buyer seeing a dark, dingy basement and a potential man cave.
Your home means a lot to you emotionally as well as monetarily. Putting the best facets of your home on show has much to do with the pictures you take.