Who’d have thought that taking photos would help you sell your home for more money? At first glance, it seems like an outlandish statement – how can a few pictures have such a big impact on the sale of your house?! Then, the more you think about it, the more sense it makes…
After all, photos and product images are essential when buying or selling anything. If you buy something online, the images you see are going to influence your decision. Often, you will choose to buy from websites that produce the best and most detailed images of what you’re looking at. The same logic can be applied when selling your home; people will be influenced by the images they see.
This brings us nicely to the question you’re all asking; how can you take better photos of your home? There are plenty of tips and tricks to know, some of which involve technical skills, others relate more to certain equipment you should use, etc. Anyway, if you carry on reading, you will learn everything you need to know:
Don’t trust a real estate agent
Okay, that sounds a bit extreme, but there’s a reason for this. Real estate agents are usually the ones that take photos of your home. Most people let them do this, seeing as they know their way around the property market. Therefore, you’d like to imagine that they understand the type of photos buyers want to see, right? The problem is that they don’t understand how to take the photos, so they never come out as good as if you took them yourself.
You are better off learning how to take the photos yourself, so you can play around with the images, take as many as you like, and so on. Usually, real estate agents will get a camera from the office, take a photo of every room, and that’s it. Ironically, for people who literally want houses to sell as quickly as possible for as much money as possible, they don’t realize that spending more time on photos could help them out.
Take multiple photos of each room
Honestly, there’s no such thing as less is more when it comes to real estate photography. People want to see as much of your home as possible, which is why numerous shots of each room are required. Clearly, you need to get every inch of your home on camera, so the buyers can see what it looks like and how many rooms you have.
The multiple photos part comes from giving people different angles of a room. Seeing the living room from one angle might not give someone a complete perspective of how it looks. But, if you have two different angles, they can figure out how the room is laid out a lot better. You don’t need loads of photos of each room, just one or two from different angles to create a better sense of perspective. And if you want to enhance the visual appeal of your property’s images, learning more details about real estate photo editing can be valuable. It helps in highlighting key features and optimizing the overall presentation, making your listing even more enticing to potential buyers.
Use a DSLR camera
Smartphone cameras have come on leaps and bounds in recent years, but they’re still not as good or reliable as a DSLR. With a DSLR, you can produce professional images that make your home look great. It’s all about producing the highest-quality photos possible, and a DSLR camera is the best way to do just that.
There’s an elephant in the room – why would you spend money on a camera just to take photos of the house you’re selling? A very valid point, but think of it as an investment. You spend a few hundred dollars on a camera, but it could add a few thousand dollars to your home’s asking price. The quality of your photos can lure in more buyers, creating a bidding war. Plus, you can still use the camera for any other photo opportunities; birthdays, holidays, etc.
Shoot with a wide-angle lens
This is a pro tip that professional photographers use all the time. If you capture an image of a room with a standard lens, you’re unlikely to fit a lot of it in. As such, you’ll end up with photos that seem quite cramped and choppy. It will also mean you need more photos to cover one angle of a room, making it hard for people to piece the images together to figure out what the room looks like.
Instead, you need a wide-angle lens to view more of the room in one shot. Often, you can capture the entire room from one angle with your wide lens. It’s all about capturing as much detail as possible in one shot, and the wide-angle lens is essential for this. Again, this is another reason you need a DSLR to take photos. You can purchase very good wide-angle lenses for these cameras, while smartphones haven’t got the same capabilities. They might have a wide-angle feature, but it won’t be as good.
Use a drone for aerial shots
Speaking of pro tips, the key to selling your home is showing it off from all angles. We’ve spoken about taking photos inside your home, but what about outside? Obviously, you need images of the front of your house, the garden, etc. But, one thing that will really set your home apart from others is an aerial view of your property. Show people what your house looks like from above, and they can get a better view of the overall property and land around it. People love seeing things from this POV, but it’s usually something they’d only see via a blueprint.
It used to be difficult to get aerial images of your house, but now you can do it with ease. As you’ll see here https://www.drdrone.ca/pages/dji-air-2s, you can buy a drone that will enable you to take HD photos and videos from the sky. All you have to do is fly it above your home, then take the shots. It’s another perspective of your home for people to see, making it easier for them to decide if they’re interested or not.
Take photos when the weather’s nice
Yes, even the indoor photos! Taking pictures when it’s gray and wet is never a good idea. Hopefully, you wouldn’t even think of doing this for any outside photos! Needless to say, nobody will buy a house if the photos all look gray and dark, with rain splotches on them. It’s not very appealing, it gives off gloomy vibes, and you should wait until the weather clears up.
As for the indoor photos, you still need good weather for a couple of reasons. Firstly, a good tip is to use natural light to light your images. This means opening the curtains and blinds, letting light in from outside. If it’s nice out, you will have much better lighting than if it’s dark and cloudy. Secondly, you can see the view outside the windows in your photos, so make sure it’s nice! Photos with bright lighting and sunny skies outside look so much more appealing and will attract more buyers.
Make sure everything is tidy
Perhaps the most important tip of all. It doesn’t matter how well you have prepared for the photos – or how good your equipment is- if your home is a mess, it’ll be hard to sell. Messy homes are unattractive to buyers for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, seeing a messy room just doesn’t make you want to see more of the home. It’s hard to look at, you’re a bit disgusted, and you immediately start looking at other listings. Furthermore, a messy house makes it hard for people to understand what the home truly looks like. With so much clutter everywhere, how can they possibly distinguish what your rooms look like?
Consequently, you need to spend time giving your home a massive going over. We’re talking a spring clean of Biblical proportions. You need to declutter, tidy everything away, clean surfaces, and make your house look brand new. A clean and tidy home is so much easier to sell, and the photos will look incredible.
Frame your house for photos
The final tip is to frame each room/area of your home when it’s time to take photos. Effectively, you want to alter the rooms so they look perfect. This could mean moving furniture around, temporarily removing things from the room, and so on. There are even companies out there who will come to your home and arrange things for real estate photos if you need assistance.
In essence, you want to make each area of your home look as attractive as possible. A good rule of thumb is to be as minimalistic as possible – remove as much stuff from the room as possible, while still retaining main elements like furniture. Also, get rid of family photos or leave one/two in a room at the very post. Too many photos are overbearing for buyers, putting them off.
At the end of the day, you can sell your home faster and for more money by learning how to take better photos. Ironically, by preparing your home for photos, you do a lot of much-needed work anyway – like decluttering, cleaning your house, preparing the garden, etc. So, this will leave you with less work to do before viewers arrive, and your newly cleaned home will be even more attractive.
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